Independent Foreign Policy and Indo-US Strategic Partnership

An article published in Economic and Political Weekly

The debate on the nuclear deal with the United States (US) has brought foreign policy into the maelstrom of public contestation in India. While it is debatable as to how many are really interested in the nitty gritty details of the 123 Agreement, which is the next to penultimate step in the culmination of the deal, the fact that the agreement has upped the political ante, with the ruling coalition sticking to this deal while others in opposition and in outside support opposing the same, has made this issue a point of discussion among many in the public space. The left parties oppose the deal on the basis that the features of the agreement as well as the overall context, suggest a paradigm shift in India’s independent foreign policy toward bandwagoning with American hegemonic interests. It is this argument that shall be studied in detail in this essay.

While non-alignment is termed by many as having a moral basis that derived from a normative perspective of the world, the truth is that it was very much moored in realism. India, as a fledgling developing state, made it a point to inform the world that it was not ready to be caught in the battle of systems that the world was involved in. The idea was to keep development

as the primary ideology with redistribution a constitutional imperative. As for foreign policy, the fledgling post-colonial state adopted a mixture of utilitarian and normative approaches. What was affirmed in the latter approach was to uphold the right to sovereignty of third world nationalities which were trying to escape the last few clutches of territorial colonialism. This foreign policy yielded significant dividends and at the same time got dialectically interspersed with the dynamics of the cold war. Thus while the US helped India rejuvenate its food production with support for the country’s green revolution, there also developed a wedge between these countries when the US extended its influence to the south Asian region by expanding its alliance with India’s neighbours through the South and East Asian Treaty Organisation (SEATO), which was ostensibly aimed at balancing growing Soviet interests in the region. India’s strategic closeness to the Soviet Union was cemented with the 1971 friendship treaty signed with the Soviets. Yet, the story of power relations in the world took a significant turn with the relentless degradation and withering away of the Sino-Soviet partnership and China drawing itself closer to the US. The policy of containment of the Soviet Union and the later tacit tie-up with China by the US eventually saw the destruction of the “second world”, which culminated with the dismantling of the Soviet Union.

Since 1991, however, the ground realities in the world have changed. The end of the cold war has not seen the dismantling of cold war alliance groups such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). The project for American hegemony has been reinstated with a vigour that has been taken to new heights by the current neoconservative George Bush presidency. While NATO has been used to extend American geopolitical interests in eastern Europe, a drive for controlling energy-rich regions of west Asia and central Asia, Latin America and eastern Africa was launched through several incursions, the latest being the invasion of Iraq. Apart from this aggressive foreign policy zeal, there has also been a long-standing attempt to dictate developmental paradigms to the developing country societies. Through the aegis of the Bretton Woods institutions the emphasis has been to reduce the state orientation of economic policy in these nations, while increasing the scope for the market and prospective investment from the developed world in these regions.

Intriguingly though, globalisation has also entailed a intertwining relationship between powers such as China and the US into a mutual complex framework. China holds large amount of American currency in the form of bonds which are used to fund the huge US deficit. This intricate relationship has resulted in a nuantic policy of the US toward China, which involves at one level engagement over several issues, such as the denuclearisation of North Korea and seeing it as a long-term strategic threat on the other.

India’s Adaptation

It is in this context that India’s changes both in broad economic policy as well as foreign policy since the beginning of the aforementioned period need detailed explanation. Since 1991, India’s economic policy has been a story of adoption of neoliberalism through the means of liberalisation, privatisation and engagement with globalisation, while gradually reducing government intervention in redistribution and welfare schemes. On the foreign policy front, India’s primary choices had been to create thaws in the hostile neighbourhood by gradual reduction of tension and hostility with Pakistan and China. The nuclear tests of 1998 and Pakistan’s incursions into the Kargil sector in Kashmir were flashpoints that highlighted the discomfort between these countries. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government specifically mentioned the presence of a nuclear power (China) as a threat which compelled India to go for overt nuclear weaponisation. Following this test onwards, the NDA government tried its best to hitch onto the American bandwagon in world politics (remember, India was the only nation to support the National Missile Defence programme of the US). In essence, the NDA regime clearly tried to project India unilaterally as an avowed ally of the US.

The terrorist attacks in New York on September 11, 2001, signalled another opportunity for the NDA regime to get closer to the Americans, when the regime offered facilities for the Americans to act against obscurantist terrorist elements in Afghanistan. The NDA regime then provided hints to help the American endeavour in Iraq (clearly a denouement of the neoconservative policy framework in the George Bush regime) but was prevented from doing so by overwhelming opposition in the country.

However after several crisis points during these years, the relations with the neighbours, Pakistan and China began to be mended. Border talks and affirmations of stronger economic ties with China, along with a comprehensive dialogue with Pakistan on various issues (including Kashmir) signalled a thaw in the long-term hostile relationships with these nations. On the world arena, buoyed by the new emphasis on market-led growth, India ventured into reaffirming new partnerships and liaisons with several countries in central Asia, Africa and Latin America to boost ties based on compulsions of energy security and finding new markets. This brought India into competition with China, which had also embarked on a similar trajectory. Interestingly, the thaw in bilateral relations created an environment where increasing cooperation could be noticed in projects such as exploration for oil. The proposed pipeline between Iran and India, through Pakistan also promised to establish a new strategic endeavour between these countries to forge economic ties to help energy requirements as well as creating a chance to overcome political troubles through the sheer force of economic rationality.

Indo-US Strategic Partnership

In essence, since the end of the cold war, the broad contours of Indian foreign policy have been propelled by the same realist interests that existed before albeit with updated priorities. Development as an ideology has been retained. However, this has been redefined in the terms of market-led growth and subsequently has delineated relations with other developing countries. Yet, even as this paradigm was playing itself out, a new turn occurred with the offering of a strategic partnership relationship from the US. From the signing of a defence framework agreement to American affirmations to help India become a “global superpower”, the working of a deal for civilian nuclear energy transfer; these events trigger a new shift from India’s studied disengagement from aligning strategically with the superpower. Two kinds of arguments are heard from those who defend this shift; one which emphasises that such a bandwagoning is mandated by the changed nature of the world and to balance rising China that is still seen as a competitive power, and the second that argues that this strategic tie-up with the US does not reduce foreign policy manoeuvrability, as autonomy of decision-making is still retained even as benefits are accrued from the ties. The first argument is futile as the balance of power, i e, taking a confronting position against China would undercut the growing bilateral relationship and would further fuel instability in India’s environs. Also, if at all a balancing is mandated in this predominantly unipolar world, it must be done at the global level. The global balance of power (through soft power and bargaining, not confrontation) by emphasising a multipolar world could help prevent disasters such as the US invasion of Iraq or at least mitigate the ill-effects of unilateral action by the hegemon. The role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (a strategic tie-up between Russia, China and a host of central Asian nations) in articulating energy tie-ups between these powers and in collaborating against menaces such as terrorism, is to be seen in this regard. India has been invited as an observer to this forum of nations, who affirm that the formation is not a military front against the US but a strategic tie-up concerned with issues particular to the Asian region. Such a position is understandable in light of the individual nations’ trading and economic relations with the US. The bandwagoning argument runs into problems for such a position is considerate only of the fact that China’s policies are driven by realpolitik alone. It is true that China privileges nationalist interest, but the energies of the current Chinese regime is devoted primarily to sustain their growing economy. Conversely,

the balancing game is bound to run into problems, considering India’s own internal difficulties in the north-east region. The second argument is also on flimsy ground. While it is argued that the growing economic clout of India (despite dark internal problems such as inequality and sustained poverty) ensures that a modicum of autonomy can be retained in a strategic partnership with the US, the actions of the Indian government in recent international fora suggest the opposite. Despite claims by Indian officials to the contrary, it has made clear by an ex-US official that India’s votes against Iran in the International Atomic Energy Agency issue were “coerced”. Even the economic ties with the US, attached as they are with strings that constrain the role of the state in orchestrating pro-poor development policies in the country, are to be strictly regulated.

The defence agreement, formation of a regional grouping in conducting naval exercises, the affirmed joint plan to “spread democracy”, and the nuclear deal fall into a pattern that militates against the upgraded foreign policy paradigm of independent India. The twin realist and idealist notions of non-alignment and third world solidarity, which heralded newly independent India’s foreign policy, have gravitated to regional harmony, multipolarity and robust economic relationships with other developing countries in a changed world. Strategic alignment with the US will lessen the benefits of this studied gravitation. Essentially, it does not make sense to put all the eggs in the American basket alone.

The nuclear deal between India and the US, as cited by many, is not a stand-alone bilateral deal, but is a move that has to be seen in the context of the changed world that we inhabit in as well as the priorities that have been advanced by both nations. Even from a realist perspective that sees national interest as one whole without considering internal class divides, one could argue that an independent foreign policy governed by affirmations toward multipolarity is best suited for the Indian nation. Any switch from this in favour of a strategic alliance with an unipolar hegemon will be at the expense of stability in India’s environs and will hurt India’s bouquet of choices.

Pipeline of Peace..

http://thepost.com.pk/PrevColumns.aspx?src=Srinivasan%20Ramani

http://www.thepost.com.pk/OpinionNews.aspx?dtlid=121973&catid=11

What better way of commemorating Bhagat Singh’s birth centenary than to make further strides in peace and diplomacy among nations in South Asia? That is the question that strikes someone who is inspired by Bhagat Singh’s enduring legacy in the Subcontinent. Bhagat Singh was a revolutionary who envisaged a different world, and it is a different world indeed where conflict, violence and the ruling classes’ writ alone does not determine the contours of the toiling and common people’s economic choices.

For years, the South Asian region has gone through ferment, even as its inhabitants have yearned for better people-to-people contact, transcending of boundaries and for the ability to make their own choices over their destiny. But political differences have sustained and endured, creating complication after complication, making peace a cul de sac.

International relations theory, however, has an answer, groomed and tested in empiricism and history. The use of liberal institutionalism and the predominance of economics over politics has had sanguinary effects more often than less, and has brought order in times of pell-mell. Thus if one uses the value of economic relations, it makes it much easier to overcome political differences and the flickering light at the end of the tunnel seems much brighter.
It is in this regard that the proposed gas pipeline between Iran and India, transited through Pakistan, has a potential that transcends mere commercial value and emphasises a change in geo-strategic relations. Unsurprisingly, the force that resists this deal and its legitimising value for the nations involved is the US, which sees any leeway to and inter-state engagement with Iran, even for simple commercial value, as anathema to its grand plan for west Asia.

The gas pipeline from Iran to India was a proposal mooted by the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) director, Dr R K Pachauri and former Iran deputy foreign minister Ali Shams Ardekani. The snowball of a proposal rolled on, took shape and soon the concept was welcomed by many for the benefits were huge. Iran was conscious that a new supply route from its gas fields could open up not only economic vistas, but also greater geostrategic potential. India and Pakistan, having high domestic demand for energy, have a relatively cheap and enduring source. The South Asian watchers are thrilled, because at last there is the strength of economic rationality weighing heavy over political units.

What is the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline all about? It is a 2,700 km long gas transport pipeline from the gas-surplus Iran fields, through Pakistan, and eventually to India through the western corridor. Natural gas is a cheap and a relatively clean source of energy as compared to other fossil fuel-based sources. Several project estimates and feasibility studies have pointed out that the project has tremendous commercial value, once implemented. These studies envisage that the costs of implementation are reasonable, and that the project itself is extremely viable.

As such, a few bottlenecks have cropped up vis-à-vis the project. Some have got to do with the feasibility levels, some to do with minor pricing irritants, but the major one has got to do with the geo-political nature of the deal. At the feasibility level, analysts are worried about disruption of the pipeline by extremist activity and the usage of the pipeline as a tool for making terrorist political statements. The financial worry of sabotage is alleviated by the fact that several modes of risk underwriting by international financial consortiums exist, any of which can provide money-back guarantees in case of sabotage. The political worry is addressed through a counterpoint: here is a chance to act on extremism more decisively, as rational choice determines that financial losses cannot be tolerated. Therefore, there is a strong financial incentive to act on extremism, even as the extremists themselves would realise that demand-fulfilling projects such as these cannot be a target for sabotage, as the stakeholders are common people.

The current phase of negotiations between Iran, India and Pakistan have been meandering into price irritants territory off and on. India and Pakistan are yet to resolve the transit fee issue, Iran is yet to accept the price review timeline that Pakistan and India favourably agree on and so on. Recently, India refused to take part in a tripartite meeting in Tehran, citing the non-resolution of the transit fee issue. However, these irritants are not deal-breakers and the advanced nature of financial economics can deal with these suitably. Important steps such as the determination of where would each country’s responsibility lie for the pipeline constructions, etc., have been made.

The overweening concern is geo-political. The US has stated its displeasure with the project and has advised India to prefer the Turkmenistan sourced pipeline. The US realises that the gas pipeline has a potential that could enhance the geo-strategic strength of Iran commensurately in the region. The Russian example of ‘gas diplomacy’ is there for all to see and the US realises as much as the others how gas supply can strengthen the influence and power of a country in the comity of nations. Russia’s influence in the European region has been greatly increased due to its gas supply and the dependence of downstream European countries on Russian gas.

The US insists on isolating Iran, as it brackets Iran into the “axis of evil” and it clearly does not want Iran to get out of the rut that it wants the country to be squeezed into. Simply put, the pipeline cuts into the hegemonic interests of the US in the region. Some would affirm that the Indo-US nuclear deal was a carrot dangled to India to drop the pipeline project, as the US re-enacts new scenarios in its great South-Central Asian game to retain hegemony. India’s relatively lukewarm reaction to the pipeline deal has instigated experts to argue that there is a heavy pressure from the US to scuttle the deal. In 2005, during a visit to the US, the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rather curiously attributed a problem with risk underwriting of the project to international bankers, even while the project was in its concept stage. There have been statements from the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, suggesting nuclear energy to be more viable as compared to natural gas sourcing. Long time politics-watchers of the Subcontinent have suggested that the US does not quite look at the deal positively, as it sees a reduced “offshore balancing” role for itself if the deal is consummated.

It is here that Bhagat Singh’s legacy needs to be readdressed. Seen in the people’s interests, the deal is a clincher, as it affirms a cheap source of fuel and has the potential to revitalise people-to-people contacts in the region by wrecking the boulders of political differences that stand between the nations, particularly India and Pakistan. Hegemonic interests of a distant imperia cannot and must not impose their will over such a project and these impositions must be resisted. India, Pakistan and Iran must continue to work hard to overcome the minor irritants that have popped up on the pricing issues. The people of the Subcontinent owe it to themselves to ensure that the pipeline project is through and is implemented. They owe it to Bhagat Singh on his birth centenary and to his personal sacrifice that he made as a statement against imperialism.

The writer, trained in engineering and in political science, works with the editorial team at Economic and Political Weekly, and is an avid follower of sports, political economy and the performing arts

Cricket and Baseball: Following the trends..

http://www.thepost.com.pk/OpinionNews.aspx?dtlid=119496&catid=11

Cricket and baseball: following the trends

The sociologist, historian and Indian cricket enthusiast Ramachandra Guha once pointed out in an essay that there remains a correlation between the nature of society and the sport that it relates to the most. Thus, soccer, a “socialist” sport, has never taken much root in the US while the rugged individual-dominated American football is not quite revered across the world except for prima donna capitalist America. Yours truly tries to relate to this argument while tracing the spread of two similar and popular sports.

One sport owes its origins to the exploits of the propertied aristocratic classes in an imperial nation. The other originated from the drive for profit by the enterprising immigrants who were in the process of building a nation. The former was picked up by the hoi polloi of the colonies invaded by the aristocrat imperialist nation. The latter thrived and became a national pastime. Two games played with similar terminologies and the same basic rule: hit the ball with a bat and try to avoid the fielder. Yet, both evolved into vastly different milieus, dragging along and influencing vastly different cultures. Such is the story of cricket and baseball.

Baseball today is a national sport in two powerful nations: the US (where it originated) and Japan (as a legacy of the Meiji period, where everything Western was seen to be progressive). Simultaneously, the Monroe Doctrine has helped baseball travel into the hinterlands of the Caribbean and Latin America, even as American influence in political economies of Korea and Taiwan since World War II saw the spread of baseball to these environs too. Still, the centre of the baseball universe is rooted in America, as the sole superpower draws in the best talent from all across the world to participate in the yearly festival of baseball under the aegis of Major League Baseball (MLB), one of the three big professional sporting leagues in the country. The age of globalisation has ensured that the heart of the US is where players from the peripheries want to showcase their skills. And that’s why premier players from Japan, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Taiwan, South Korea, Cuba (defectors, of course), Venezuela and Panama ply their trade in the MLB.

Cricket on the other hand, has been internationalized; the fall of the British Empire has correspondingly transferred the centre of gravity to the colonies, bringing into the forefront the professionalism of Australia, the elegance of India, the rustic wizardry of Pakistan and the tenaciousness of embattled Sri Lanka. Even as these erstwhile colonies emphasised nationalist development despite vast internal differences, cricket was used as the binder for building a pan-nationalist sentiment. Thus cricket is almost a religion, cutting across vast scythes of primordial and class differences within the erstwhile colonies: India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The rise of liberal and social democracy in England changed the very class character of people playing the sport in England itself. Today in England, there is a sudden cornucopia of immigrant talent that is playing the game, a far cry from the days when cricket was the exclusive preserve of earls, dukes and vassals. In the erstwhile colonies, meanwhile, cricket has become so close to the masses, that no longer is it a hobby and a privilege for the upper or the middle classes but also a passion-filled career option for those from the lower classes. A Mohammad Yousuf in Pakistan (one of the top two batsmen in the world today), a Harbhajan Singh from interior Jalandhar in India, a fisherman’s son Sanath Jayasuriya from Matara in Sri Lanka and a farmer’s son, Glenn McGrath today underline the heroes of the sport. Stark in contrast was the past, when the Maharaja of Vizianagaram played for India just because he had the money to boot his way into the team and Ranjitsinghji and Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi were as famous for their cricketing exploits as for their ostentatious inherited wealth.

Baseball in America has changed too. From being an exclusively “white” sport, which gave leeway and respect to a racist albeit stalwart performer like Ty Cobb and which had for an emblem one of its greatest ever players, Babe Ruth, the sport became multicoloured in the late 1940s. The integration of African American players into Major League Baseball hitherto subjected to playing in Negro leagues was heralded by one Jackie Robinson, whose pioneering achievement in breaking the colour barrier in the sport was recently commemorated by MLB on the event’s 60th anniversary. Once the floodgates were opened to multiple races, in flowed talent from Latin America, so much so that the lingua franca of America’s favourite pastime (baseball) is Hispanic today. The Dominican Republic, the nondescript Central American nation’s primary exports to the US are quality baseball players (pitcher Pedro Martinez, sluggers David Ortiz, Vladimir Guerrero, Albert Pujols and Manny Ramirez, athletic speed machine Jose Reyes are some such names active today). Venezuela’s political temper against the United States might be blowing hot today, yet Magglio Ordonez, Johan Santana and Omar Vizquel are as important exports to the US as Venezuelan petroleum is.

Globalisation and the transfer of momentum into the emerging liberalised economies of the colonies is changing the nature of cricket now. From being a sport that was used to buttress nationalism, it is now taking the American professional route, a market-oriented one. The introduction of the Indian Cricket League and the Premier Cricket League in India has to be seen in this contest. No longer is cricket just a national pastime, it is a thriving business, a reflection of the ideology of the times, neo-liberalism. So, when the “stars” of the Twenty-20 leagues in India battle it out, they won’t be using their national labels but will be using their individual worth, commodities in the market to be sold for public consumption.

Conversely, the re-emergence of nationalism in countries such as Japan has brought new trends in baseball. Japanese professional baseball players, many of whom are stars earning their bread in the MLB in America, were successful in winning the inaugural World Baseball Classic in 2006, the first international World Cup featuring professionals. Even the socialist state Cuba, emphasises the importance of Cuban nationalism by refusing to send its players to play the professional leagues in America, and making it a point to excel in every international tournament which features the Americans. The Cubans, not surprisingly, were finalists in the World Baseball Classic, while the Americans could not even manage to reach the semi-finals

Thus both bat-ball games, cricket and baseball, have inherited paths of development that has been entrenched in the political economies, where they have thrived. Ramachandra Guha was right, after all. Piece published in the "The Post", Pakistan.

Morons of herculean proportions..

...

The Left phobia in the media continues. That the media today is inhabited by loads and loads of morons is confirmed day in and day out.

Today the Times of India declared that Indians in the "red" bastions of Kolkata and Kochi had voted for the nuclear deal. A graphical illustration of some questions and answers with votes in percentages is laid out for the viewer to see the conclusion that there is a huge upsurge of votes for the nuclear deal. Hidden conspicuously however is the most important thing to note: The Sample Size of the voters. What kind of stupid vote is this? Tomorrow, I might publish a vote sample of 15 people (all of whom I know) in a particular locality in some particular town and say that 91% Indians have voted for the nuclear deal because 14 of the 15 people agreed with it! What kind of nonsense is being peddled by these media-men? I am shocked and appalled at the lack of quality.

Hindustan Times was more honest. It boldly declared that Indians have rejected the nuclear deal by testing this question among the mammoth number of 586 respondents!

Yesterday, Sagarika Ghose betrayed an absolute ZERO knowledge of the workings of a Communist party in a discussion titled, "Karat and Stick", asking if Karat was the most powerful man in India today. That the fact that the CPI(M) depends upon collective decision making is solely forgotten or rather not unknown by these moronic journalists. Questions such as how the Bengal Left hadn't attended the Central Committee meeting (because the Bengal CM, one among a dozen CC members from Bengal, had skipped the meeting to attend a investment meet), is Karat the high priest of the Leftist "Church" etc were asked in this nincompoop special program. Ms Ghose should talk to her dad sometime, who surely knows a thing or two about the functioning of Indian parties and their organisations. That Bhaskar Ghose has a nincompoop for a daughter is really sad to know.

An yet another idiot in CNN IBN writes a blog entry questioning the Left's dependence on nationalism when they should be working toward working class consciousness as he pontificates. This idiot simply doesn't even know that the Left in India today have been subscribing to the theory that third world nationalism is a bulwark against imperialism, since the early 1930s. The fool then asks why the Left is supporting the nuclear bomb lobby when it opposed the deal. Easily ignored by this idiot is that nowhere in the Left's multiple releases (available at hte public domain at www.cpim.org ) is the mention of a nuclear bomb being made.

Today in the Outlook, a fool named Jaideep Mazumdar (a correspondent based in Kolkata) writes not a word about the Left's position on the nuclear deal but affirms that he supports the deal because Manmohan Singh says so! Why? Because Manmohan Singh is a honest man and thats why the nuclear deal is good. And what follows is a huge rant about the Left's policies in Bengal on urban neglect, trade unionism, blah blah and therefore the nuclear deal should be supported! This idiot must be first trained in logic, I believe sincerely. And this idiot should also answer the question as to how the Left has ruled for 30 years in a state in India, winning election after election, if all they have done is misrule! And this nincompoop proudly says that he hasn't read the details of the nuclear deal, either.

The filth in the Indian media just keeps piling on and on. There are legitimate points that can be made as critiques of the Left's position on various issues. That the media lacks a semblance of knowledge of the workings of the Left and even the objectivity to study the deal as well as the strategic question is a severe indiction of the lack of quality in these circles. Too much Page 3 has got their brains fried in cocktails, I believe.

But the answer to the piling nonsense and savagery of criticism is very simple. These corporate owned mouthpieces of the bourgeosie have no concern for the common Indian citizen to whom this facade of a nuclear deal brings nothing significant. No question is asked about the costs that would be entailed or whether at all if this energy is going to be feasibly increasing India's thoroughput.

Vague answers on "India becoming a world player" (when there are honour killings, starvation deaths, farmer suicides, separationist struggles, tribal doldrums, rising inequality, pathetic HDI {India is 127th in the world in this index}) because of a deal with the superpower, without even giving the fineprint of the strategic costs and benefits of such a deal are peddled.

The only thing that the mass media is capable of, is to cater to the lowest tastes of hype and hyperbole. Witness the ultra-heavy coverage of the Sanjay Dutt saga.

A friend of mine, in la Sukumar Ray style wrote this on the Indian media:

Every hour by the studio clock
Comes news from here and there
limited by the atmo-sphere
Read by some Singh or Sharma
or Some Sood, Gupta or Varma.
all chips of the Hindi block.

A sample of the past few days
shows the pathos that Hindi plays

QUOTE.....

Good Morning its six o clock
Sanju has brushed his teeth
there is a flood in Bihar
While Sanju sips his tea
mumbai has two feet of water
Sanju has just done his potty.
He missed his toilet paper
and did his do with a "lota"
And then the camera zooms
to the channels "local" in view
asking Sanju coming from loo
"Abhi kaisa lag raha hai"
A normally constipated face
beams in a new found gaze.
"I know now why I did the do"
Its the blessed prison's chai

UNQUOTE

While all of us thus get sanjood
the sensex drops 600
and farmers die of debt
But thats not news you dude!

Left in the limelight..

Three columns in the Hindustan Times; each by Vir Sanghvi, Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai were written on the Left recently in the aftermath of the Left's positioning on the Nuclear Deal. All three start of, as pious recognition of the presence of probity in the Left leadership and end up questioning the position of the Left on the Nuclear Deal as well as questioning the very basis of existence of the Left. In the course of doing so, blatant falsehoods are peddled. Sample this from Vir Sanghvi: "The CPI didn't play a role in the freedom movement" (Hasn't Sanghvi ever heard of Meerut Conspiracy Case and the about the revolutionaries incarcarated in Kalapani?)and so on.

All the articles are blatantly flawed; not just for their argumentation; but also for their serial lack of objectivity as well as analytical rigour. It is a travesty and a recognition of the mediocrity that peddles television media today. And to say that these three ordinary analysts who have dominated mass media soundbyte in the country today are considered stellar journalists is a further indiction of the quality of the media that prevails in the country today. Why do I say so? Read on.

The Nuclear Deal with the United States cannot and must not be seen by divorcing it from the larger strategic relationship that has been drawn between the two states for the past 9 years. From the NSSP (Next steps in strategic protocol) moves in the NDA regime to the defence agreement signed by Pranab Mukherjee in 2005 with Washington, there has been a clear indication of how India wills on to bandwagon with the unipolar nation that is driving world political economy today. The reasoning offered is that it is in India's interest to do so. Divorced from this understanding is what exactly does India's interest entail? The interests of the middle classes who would stand to gain by this relationship to get immediate visas or the upper business classes who shall get their cut of the bargain when they sign up on lucrative partnership/ investment deals with their American counterparts; should only these interests be considered Indian national interest? How does one define national interest? This question is never asked in the media; the mass media in particular with it's dependence on short term memory and emphasis on formal and personality driven politics is incapable of asking that question.

It is in this regard that one should read the Nuclear Deal. While entering into a strategic partnership with the United States, care must be taken whether this would hamper India's geopolitical interests in the periphery of its environs. During the Cold War era, the balance of power game played between the United States and the USSR drew India toward the latter, even as the country tried to play even-handed and get benefits out of the relationship from both the superpowers.

After the end of the Cold War, there has been a significant turn toward hegemonization of world polity by the US establishment, particularly since the coming to power (in a dubious manner) by the George Bush regime. This neoconservative regime has tried to dominate world polity by focusing its efforts on the energy sector, seriously involving itself in the West Asian region, by launching a phoney war against Iraq and now tries to take that forward in Iran. Even the Horn of Africa wasn't spared.

The redefinition of the relationship with India has to be seen in this context. Ostensibly formal politics defines this relationship as between two democracies (although the content of the rather "formal democracies" is never argued upon). Never is it understood that in the system of international politics, relations are defined between nations as units of power, no matter whatever be the content of power internally in the different units be.

Clearly the United States wants India to be a bulwark against the rise of other powers in the Asian region (read China) and to prevent the multipolar formation of forces such as the Shanghai Co-operation Council (a tie up between Russia, China, Kazakhstan and other central asian powers). The dangling of the nuclear carrot is to be seen in this very particular context.

One only needs to trace the sequence of events since the then Petroleum Minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar notified an energy partnership with Iran and Syria, which has the potential to transform relations between these various units in the Asian region and also had the oeuvre to bring in new markets to these nations. The entry of cheap gas into India was seen to be fruitful not just for reasons of diplomacy and statecraft but also to the aam aadmi, as steady supply of natural gas was bound to help depreciate the pressing necessity for energy consumption in the country. What immediately succeeded this incident was the announcement of a nuclear partnership by Condoleeza Rice, the secretary of state for external affairs of the US. What followed later was the removal of Mani Shankar Aiyar from power and the bringing in of Murli Deora, a person who has a track record of pro-Americanism and corporate cronyism. The pipeline deal since then has been left in the lurch, as many spanners to the works has been brought about by the government itself (witness the PM saying that it would be difficult to get an banking underwriting for the deal even before the deal was conceptualized!). The offering of an alternate pipeline through American cronies in Central Asia (Turkmenistan) also added fuel to the theory that the deal was being sabotaged by American influence.

When George Bush visited (during which time, these very reporters went gaga over his retinue of K-9 dogs, his attire and his body language), the nuclear deal was conceptualized and agreed upon, as a step forward in the Next Steps in Strategic protocol movement launched by the NDA regime. Lets consider the merits of the Nuclear Deal itself, something that has been threshed out a zillion times in the media, but quickly.

The deal promises India a steady supply of fuel (subject to certain conditions, which were debated endlessly from the point of view of nuclear scientists who saw this as a threat to India's unique indigenous three stage nuclear fuel generation process), setting a stimulus for the set up of ancillary businesses in India, while giving nuclear suppliers in the US (who have been stymied domestically because of the stall in nuclear generation) a fillip by giving them a captive market. From all estimates however, this deal would still materialize into a situation when only 8% of the energy generation in the country would come from the stable of nuclear energy in 2020.

Now opposition to this deal (which was consolidated during the 123 agreement, which went ahead to give India-specific commitments, overruling several prior objections to nuclear proliferation in third world countries, in the United States), was hinged on two legs. One leg was the ultra-nationalist one, which saw the deal as a cap on India's nuclear weaponisation programme (articulated by the BJP and its acolytes). The lesser version of the position was that articulated by the scientists, who still felt that the express commitments made were still harmful to the three stage indigenous process and the ability of India to be able to export that indigenous technology as well as reactors. The other leg, while sympathetic to the latter argument of the scientists, looked upon this deal in the angle of strategic partnership as well, seeing the deal as creating a situation where India acts as a junior partner of US imperialism in the South Asian region, thereby creating a dangerous situation where the current battleground against the US (which has been waged through the aegis of terrorism) would shift toward India full time (the theatre has already started playing itself out, witness the multiple terrorist acts in the nation, even by terrorist cells recruiting Indians themselves), as well as the further creation of hitches in India's already estranged neighbors. While countries in Europe, for e.g., had grown from nationalistic divisions after World War II, to form co-operative councils with stout economic relationships through the aegis of the European Union. Such a possibility has not been achieved in the South Asian region, because of the lingering antagonism between the various nations, India, China and Pakistan.

It is in this context that one should view the opposition of the Left toward the nuclear deal. Despite the pronouncements by Manmohan Singh that he would articulate a foreign policy that is considerate of a relationship with other powers as well as the United States, empirical evidence on the ground doesn't say so. The growing nexus with the United States has continued to under-cut relations with the multipolar world bringing a baggage of problems geo-politically, realistically and forcefully. The Left, which has always articulated an anti-imperialist zeal throughout its existence only continues to do so and hence rejects the deal. Its as simple to understand why when seen in this understanding. The Left is criticised by saying that the parties were dictated to by Moscow and were beholden to China. Easily forgotten is the fact that the largest and perhaps the only relevent constituent (the CPI(M)) wasn't recognized by the Chinese Communist Party as a fraternal Communist party till 1978 and which had split from the original CPI, primarily because of the differences in understanding of the nature of the Indian state and the bourgeosie, which were not shared by the right-CPI, ideologically closer to the Soviet party. That the CPI(M) was seen as an independent communist party, just like the Italian one is never mentioned. But I digress.

Let me get back to ranting now. Why do these superficial reporters (Dutt/Sanghvi/Sardesai) fail to understand this or atleast fail to report this? Is it because they lack the understanding of international politics? (Barkha Dutt called the details in the 123 Agreement as gobbledygook, thus disregarding any pretense of understanding things in detail). Is it because they want clearly to see national interest in the lines of what the urban middle class would want to interpret and love to hear? The latter seems to be the most plausible reason.

Why should the Left, whose traditional constituency is NOT the urban elite or the upper middle class, peddle its understanding to suit these very same sections? How are the ordinary Indian citizens who are also dependent on energy in great ways, going to benefit out of a deal which is only to get us 8% of the energy requirements at enormous cost in 2020? Why can't the very same investment made in renewable and environmentally secure sources of energy? Aren't these legitimate questions, which should be asked by a voice, that is not tarnished by the corruption that prevails in bourgeois political parties today in India?

It is but logical therefore that the Left, whose probity is lauded by these columnists, must represent the voice of the ordinary citizen, even if she/he doesn't understand the "gobbledygook" of the 123 agreement.

Taking this argument forward now, let us now understand how this translates into the political positioning of the Left vis-a-vis this government. The current UPA Government was formed as a coalition supported by the Left from the outside, on the basis that this will be a secular and humane alternative to the communal-driven and avowedly neoliberal NDA government that was defeated at the hustings. With 61 MPs, who were primarily elected after being victorious against Congress legislators, how can the Left be part of the government? That would be against the grain of probity that is subjectively installed in the Left consciousness. This is the precise reason for the formulation of the Common Minimum Programme, a catalog of policies that are not very different in content from the Congress party's, which won the most number of seats in the hustings.

So, everytime the Left stopped certain policies from culmination (FDI in Insurance/Retail; Disinvestment of well performing PSUs; pension reforms; others), all of them were in contradiction to the very DNA of what suggested the Left's social policy of increasing equitous development and creating self-reliance. Did the Left ever oppose FDI in manufacturing? No media person talks about that.

It was but sure that a confrontation between the neoliberal-led Congress government and the Left was bound to happen. The Left considers the Congress as a landlord-big bourgeois party which mouths social democracy while articulating the interests of its primary sections. No wonder, the Congress never did sincere land reform to eradicate rural oligarchies and consequently inequities that still plague the nation. Yet the bigger danger of communalism that has an innate fascist form (structurally different to the European version, but consequentially very similar: witness Gujarat) bound these very same antagonist forces. It was similar to the alliance between the Soviet Union and the Allied Powers against the German led axis powers in the World War.

Instead of harping upon the differences in the left-right-centre spectrum that constitutes every democracy, the superficial media sees this differences through the vacuous angle of "ego" and "personalities"; as if Manmohan Singh's reactions to the left's opposition were only driven by his "pious" personality rather than his neoliberal outlook. I see this trend as the biggest example of foreign direct investment from America, where the media plays a similar role in the manufacturing of consent (credit to Dr. Chomsky) and harps on the same meta-analysis in the television rooms without a substantive content.

I hope Sanghvi, Dutt and Sardesai realise their limitations and improve upon their substantive thinking. Anything less and these self-declared national experts are nothing but mediocre hacks who are lucky to get the spotlight that they get. I feel sorry for their viewers.

Betrayal of a Mandate

To use violence against people demanding government action on social and economic issues is second nature for a state that deals with such situations as they were only a question of maintaining “law and order”. The gunning down of six left activists in Mudigonda of Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh on July 28 during a bandh called by the CPI(M) and CPI to protest the failure of the government to redistribute land is only the most recent example of the state showing its brutal face when confronted with genuine demands. This has been how governments at the centre and the states have, since the 1950s, responded to movements seeking redistribution of agricultural land.

It is also very common for political parties to promise land reform during their election campaigns, but to very quickly retract on these commitments. In Andhra Pradesh, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), when it came to power for a second time in 1994 with a promise to implement welfare measures, took the path of neoliberalism under Chandrababu Naidu (after he was re-elected in 1999), only to be discredited in the eyes of the people and then drubbed at the polls in 2004. It was the backlash against the TDP’s regressive policies in the state that brought the Congress, led by Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, to power, but the present state government has not shown itself to be very different from its predecessor in the manner in which it has addressed the land issue. The inaction of the state government is a betrayal of the mandate of 2004, for redistribution of land was one of the important campaign promises of the Congress Party in the state assembly elections of that year.

The Andhra Pradesh Assignment Lands (Prohibition of Transfers) Act, 1977 was supposed to enable the state to distribute land to the poor. The Act had been passed to prohibit the sale or alienation of land assigned for distribution, to any third party. But the Congress government has amended the same Act to regularise unauthorised possession of assigned land. From private encroachment of the land meant for redistribution to illegal buying of such land from the poor in the name of “developing the land” and selling it for higher returns, the government has allegedly encouraged all kinds of malpractices. The government claims that it has distributed 4.37 lakh acres of land. However the CPI(M) and CPI allege that concrete steps have not been taken to implement the suggestions of the Koneru Ranga Rao Committee (set up by the Congress government in 2004) that came up with a list of measures to effect redistribution in accordance with already framed laws.

The left parties had demanded that the recommendations made in the Koneru Committee’s report be implemented and an independent authority be formed to monitor the implementation of the redistribution process as well as an ombudsman be appointed for the Indiramma housing project for the poor, which has seen a number of irregularities. The bandh call on July 28 was the culmination of the agitation, which had been going on for nearly three months.

The police were at their most brutal in Mudigonda. The use of AK-47s against unarmed protesters is reflective of what the state really thinks about people’s protests. That the use of firearms must be the last resort and only under extreme duress are rules that are too often disregarded by the police. In the present case, the firing upon the protestors was ordered even as they were being lathi charged. The measures taken by the chief minister after the incident to punish the personnel involved and to compensate the victims will not be enough to mollify the anger that has erupted against this regime.

The drubbing that Rajasekhara Reddy’s predecessor received at the polls should forewarn the Congress Party in Andhra Pradesh. The incumbent government has to demonstrate that it is serious about addressing the issue of land reform. Only that would be a fitting compensation to the activists who lost their lives in the police firing in Mudigonda on July 28. But is the Congress government in the state capable of such action?

Editorial written for the Economic and Political Weekly

My first foray into professional journalism...

This is the first edit piece that I have written. The topic is a bit controversial and there are a lot of opinions on the same. I am trying to be as much responsive to both the sides of the opinion (wherever there is fairness in argumentation) in my piece.

http://epw.org.in/epw/uploads/articles/10840.pdf

Ears to the Ground over Eyes on the numbers

http://flonnet.com/stories/20070601004801500.htm

Vidya Subrahmanian whose reports in The Hindu accurately predicted a majority for the BSP in Uttar Pradesh ..(she called Mayawati the Next Queen of U.P in an article written over a year ago), writes about how Opinion Polls got the picture wrong in UP. ..

America's favorite pastime is now mine too..

Baseball is considered America's favorite pastime; a sport that represents American ethos. Anyone who has watched the movie, "A field of dreams" would definitely agree. The sport started off to be an exclusively American one, with its professional origins as a Major League seasonal sport going back to the late 1890s. The initial years were all about Cy Young, the metronomic pitcher and "small ball" stalwarts such as the abrasive batter Ty Cobb and the consistent Roger Hornsby. What changed the game was the arrival of the "Sultan of Swing", one of the most dominant sportsperson of the century, Babe Ruth. An excellent pitcher who later on turned out to be a master slugger of a batter, Babe Ruth revolutionized baseball and made it extremely popular. The game was indeed popular but the match fixing controversy of the late 1910s tainted it and it took the Bambino (Babe Ruth) to resurrect the image of the sport.

Baseball however didn't really truly American before the introduction of African American players into the sport, who were hitherto denied Major League entries, confining themselves therefore to the Negro Leagues. Jackie Robinson (whose number 42 was prominently worn recently in remembrance of the 60th anniversary of his first game in the Major League) was the first African American to play in the Major League, which became truly representative.

Today's Major League Baseball is a global sport played out in the USA. Large swathes of players are from Latin America (with Dominican Republic dominating the high quality representation) and from Japan (where the sport is followed with equal fervour as in the USA).

The current batch of players in the Major League include some who are among the all time best. If Barry Bonds is chasing the highest Home run total ever, there are pitchers such as Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Randy Johnson who are sureshot considerations in the All time best list. Then there are versatile players such as Alex Rodriguez who define power in batting and finesse in fielding to near perfection and rate among the best ever. Clearly Baseball in America is enjoying a golden era. Or so it seems, for despite the abundance of talent, there are questions being raised about malpractices, in the form of steroid usage and doping. Though there have been few "convictions" (Jose Canseco for e.g.), the swirl of rumours about doping has created a cloud of haze over America's national sport.

It is in this milieu that a cricket lover like me has started to get addicted with Major League Baseball. Apart from getting hooked to the qualitative aspects of the sport, I am also intrigued by the mystique of inter-league play rivalries, and the whole art of Baseball statistics which has contributed a unique term to English vocabulary, "Sabermatrics".

Statistics and statistical analysis is regarded favorably by many sport analysts in a whole array of sports. Statistics in Cricket, for e.g., plays a vital role in defining debates about performances, eat up a lot of space in delineating opinions among chatterati. However, the amount of statistics that is covered in Baseball is mind boggling. There are umpteen categories which are tracked, evaluated and discussed for players and teams in baseball. The art of "sabermetrics" is a science in itself. Some teams such as Oakland Athletics take up Sabermetrics so seriously that it governs their entire philosophy of selecting teams and preparing budgets! Billy Beane, the GM of Oakland Athletics, therefore swears by "Moneyball!", the entirely statistics based tome on baseball and the way its played.

The wide representation in race, ethnicity, nationality and language that characterizes baseball today is a positive indeed. Baseball, in contrast to cricket remains a professional sport that generates wide intra-country rivalry within the United States and is not an international concern as much as cricket is. However, with the addition of the World Baseball Classic to the international baseball calendar has added "international intrigue" to the sport today. The recently held Classic featured the victory of Japan over Cuba in the finals with the United States not even among the top 4 of the tournament.

The election of Mayawati and questions..

The results of the Uttar Pradesh elections came as "mindblowing" (as one of my friends mentioned) and "shocking" to political observers in the country. Mayawati, the autocratic leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party, a party forged through Dalit leadership and support over the years, was able to win the elections with an absolute majority for the BSP. This event was seen as a tectonic achievement in a state that had seen coalition governments since 1991 and which has a fragmented polity like no other state in the country. The number of effective parties in Uttar Pradesh must surely be the highest in the country. Even in such a fragmented polity (with three major parties apart from the BSP: the Samajwadi Party, the Indian National Congress and the Bhartiya Janata Party), the BSP was able to forge an alliance of the Dalits and other sections including the upper castes into a formidable vote coalition that ensured an absolute majority for the party.

Though, this victory came as a shocker, particularly pollsters across the board predicted an hung assembly (the CNN-IBN being the most generous to the BSP handing it a 152-168 seat victory in its "Post-Poll" calculations), it was not that much of a surprise to those readers who had read Vidya Subrahmaniam's articles in The Hindu which emphasized a positive wave for the BSP being created for quite some time (since 2005) in Uttar Pradesh. Subrahmaniam reported how the "Brahmin Jodo Abhiyans" and the multiple campaigns to reach out to other communities by the dedicated cadre of the BSP helped extend its reach to a large section of the voting public as well as its core votebanks among the Dalits which her party had built over the years. While the pollsters were sanguine about the increase in the vote share because of such projects by the BSP, they underestimated the reach of the cadre in building such a formidable unit of support which eventually won the elections with an absolute majority.

Political parties gave their own spin after the elections. For the BJP, it was a matter of anti-incumbency against the SP being reaped by the BSP much more effectively than themselves. This argument doesn't hold much water because the SP was able to hold on substantially to it's vote share despite a loss of number of seats and wasn't relegated below the second position with 97 seats. In contrast, the BJP was trounced and was held victorious in 50 seats alone, suggesting that the victory of the BSP was also a victory against the kind of communal mobilization that the BJP attempted to garner in order to come back to power.

The ruling party at the Centre, Indian National Congress' performance was as bad as the previous elections and it's seat share was reduced further by 3 to 22. This performance was despite a high voltage campaign given full publicity and launched by Rahul Gandhi, the son of party supremo Sonia Gandhi, across the length and breadth of Uttar Pradesh. Invariably the questions asked by the media were directed to the failure of Rahul Gandhi rather than throwing light upon the fact that the INC had lost its hold of the electorate in Uttar Pradesh primarily because of its inability to understand the ground reality that governed the UP society today long before the incumbent elections.

As for the Left, they were completely wiped out. Internally divided and also confused as to what the primary contradiction in UP society was, i.e. communalism or casteism and not organizationally in a position to take on either, the Left parties drew a blank and were left with wooden spoons. The classes that they primarily represent, through the width of their policies chose the BSP over them overwhelmingly. The Left was left in the end with the consolation that the politics of communalism had been soundly defeated in Uttar Pradesh, fearing as they had that the rise of BJP was being made possible through communal rhetoric and disenchantment with the UPA government in recently held State and Municipal elections across the country.

So, how could Mayawati succeed this tremendously? What were the basic calculations she made that worked in her favor and what does this result portend to the whole notion of "caste based politics"? These are the questions one needs to answer.

Mayawati runs a tightly knit ship where she holds the rudder, the wheels, the deck and even the anchor. She has complete control over her organization which is run more as a political movement rather than a party. The party doesn't even have a spokesperson who is accountable to the media nor does it have a voice other than Mayawati's. While this has helped the party concentrate on its primary duty of building its base silently rather than playing itself out in the public arena of the media, it's interesting to note how there exists such complete uniformity of action by its disciplined cadre despite total autocracy practised by its leader. Clearly a system of patronage has been worked out for sections who are the core unit of support for the BSP (i.e. the Dalits). The dominant Jatav community provides near unanimous support owing to the base built by Mayawati (who belongs to this community) and because of the measures enunciated during her previous short-term stints in power. Mayawati therefore could forge an umbrella coalition similar to the Congress system, with the master keys of patronage distribution however held by Dalits. That even the lower OBCs (who were distinct from the Yadavs, the core constituency of the SP) could bind themselves to this umbrella coalition suggests the strength of caste arithmetic that the BSP stitched for itself.

The standard reasons that affect incumbent governments across the country (with their non-involvement in forging genuine social growth projects through public investment and state action) worked in Uttar Pradesh too, but the important point was the channelizing of this anger against incumbency. The channelizing was done through the stitching of the caste arithmetic from the vantage point of the most oppressed. The Left articulates a similar concern with the policies of the incumbent but it failed to win, primarily because it couldnt' channelize the discontent toward building a "class alliance" as demanded by its theoretical praxis.

Will this coalition between the upper castes and the Dalits last? Signs of having to adjust to the pattern of coalition are already in place with Mayawati disbursing ministries to Brahmin candidates who were victorious in the elections. The system of patronage with its inclusivity sounds good on paper, but the primary contradiction lies in India's villages, where there still exist enough areas of antagonism between the dominant upper castes and the Dalits. How this bargepole could be broken by Mayawati remains to be seen. It's one thing stitching up an arithmetic, but it is difficult to maintain chemistry strictly through patronage. In the early 1990s, the SP and BSP were able to formulate a similar arithmetic of the OBCs and Dalits coming together but the primary contradictions between the OBCs and Dalits resulted in the eventual breakdown of the arithmetic arrangement.

A tenuous link between the upper castes and the Dalit is therefore both a blessing as well as a bane for Mayawati's BSP. Unless she articulates a radically different programme of redistribution rather than patronage, which addresses the primary contradictions of feudal Uttar Pradesh society, through fervent State action, it would be near impossible for her to sustain the tenuous short term patnership that she has built upon now. With the composition of the BSP's ministry being consisted of tainted ministers with egregious criminal records and the party's opportunist bases (the BSP's MPs were named in nearly all the scandals that rocked India's parliamentarians in the past few years), it sure looks that politics of pilf and pork remains to stay despite the identity based victory of the BSP.

Another larger question to be asked in the context of the UP Election victory is whether process of regionalization that heralded the previous decade in Indian Politics will continue to marginalize and fragment the National polity to such an extent that the National parties would have their significance reduced to nominal levels and would they be reduced to secondary partners all across the country? The answer to this question is much more clearer. From a centralized centripetal Centre-dominated nation, India has slowly emerged into a much more participatory, decentralized and fragmented polity. Local issues dominate the agenda of choosing representatives more than abstract Central notions. It is almost sure that the regionalization and fragmentation of the Indian polity is here to stay and unless the National Parties themselves adjust to this fragmentation by metamorphosing into decentralized units, it will be difficult for them to maintain their relevance in the respective states.

Will the BSP be able to replicate this form of success in other states too? This question is more difficult to answer. As such, the BSP was able to forge into a formidable unit in Uttar Pradesh because of the efforts it made in creating a well integrated cadre structure that translated political legitimacy into power and power into expanded bases. It currently lacks such a dedicated structure in any other state. A ripple effect of the Uttar Pradesh victory can translate into a few gains in nearby municipal and state elections, but an overwhelming victory can only be possible through the building of a solid organization. For this to happen, Mayawati would have to cede her unanimous control to people who have more grounding in their respective states and the invariable tensions of working across federal units would have their say in the organizational hold of the one-woman party that Mayawati so tightly runs.

Added to all this is the slow but pernicious effect of neoliberalism that has ravaged the project of equity in this country. As withdrawal of the state from its welfare roles deepens and correspondingly, the vagaries of livelihood is made anarchically related to the grossly unpredictable market, the spread of inequality, the increased distances between the haves and havenots and lopsided development across federal regions would have their effects on the polity bringing out new variables that could affect party formation, sustenance and fragmentation. Already the voting percentages in the elections (not going beyond 45-48%) suggest a growing discord against electoral democracy and a rising legitimacy accorded to asystemic forces such as the Naxalites. How these variables will pan out would require further brainstorming.

A Cup of Woes..

For some of my closest friends, its indeed intriguing as to why I didn't take up sport-writing as a career. Truth is, I wanted to, but realized the futility of spending hours writing on sport but never having the pleasure of sharing the sweat, blood and tears as part of the games covered. Therefore, I decided being a sport fan shall be a venture that I shall possess on to death, but I will never make a profession of it.

But, again, in dry times, when the life gets morose and times get still, its sport that enlivens one's daily routine. Unfortunately, the enlivening part has worked for me only through two rather alien sports, Major League Baseball and Basketball of the NBA variety.

Cricket's 4 year extravaganza, the World Cup has on the other hand turned out to be a dam squib. The World Cup is seen as the saving grace for One Day Cricket, which has reached a stage of monotony from which its newest offspring, 20-20 cricket has promised to lift the sport from. Being a Test Cricket fan though, I have never relished a slammer-banger form of slam bang cricket. Yet, the ODI World Cup always turns out to be the exception, as an arena where there is a chance of full play of competition, emotions and achievements.

This World Cup promised to throw up sub-soap-operas in the form of this being a Swansong for senior cricketers such as Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Glenn McGrath, Sanath Jayasuriya, Inzamam Ul Haq and others. But more than being a swan song, the World Cup has been a harsh cup-ful of woeful cries from quite a few competitive teams, primarily India and Pakistan. Both these teams failed to qualify to the Filtered Super Eight, instead being relegated to exit by Ireland and Bangladesh. If the plot meant that these upset-garnering teams would march on to mount more meaningful opposition in the Super 8s, the results of the expectations turned out to be mild.

Meanwhile, Australia went about its juggernaut business and reeled on victory after monotonous victory. They are now unbeaten in a World Cup after last losing a game against Pakistan in the group stages of the 1999 World Cup, which is a long time ago. The only meaningful opposition they face is in the likes of Sri Lanka and New Zealand, who have shown versatility in attack and presence of mind at tough situations to march on to the Semifinals, alongwith the mercurial South African side, which somehow made it after an embarrassing loss to the Bangladeshis.

Achievement wise, Glenn McGrath and Sanath Jayasuriya timed their swansong performances to perfection, the former being the top wickettaker and leading bowler still. The World Cup has been marred by two stigmas, one, the death of Pakistani coach Bob Woolmer, which is widely seen as a murder and the near unending length of the tournament, which has taken the cup to become very dreary indeed.

All in All, this World Cup so far has been a cropper and only some good performances in the Semis can probably salvage some reputation back into the World's Premier competition.

Or else, the Thwacks of Alex Rodriguez and the epic quest of Barry Bonds to reach 756 home-runs in Baseball, the March of the Mavericks in the NBA Playoffs would have to soothe my sport-loving hormones.

Next phase of life..

It's indeed a changed world for me. On 24th of January, I got married. I am still trying to get into the "New Praxis" though.. .

Old Habits die hard..!

Landmark Decision...

Some time back, I had penned this blog entry:

http://srinivasanvr.blogspot.com/2005/12/cash-on-camera-scam.html

..where the Cash on Camera scam which resulted in 11 MPs being expelled, was discussed. Nearly a year later, the Supreme Court decided to upheld this decision by Parliament to throw these legislators out of Parliament, a significantly landmark decision, predictably welcomed by incumbent Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Somnath Chatterjee.

Hopefully this judgement acts as some kind of notice to errant MPs, who still populate the so called hallowed desks of India's popularly elected national legislature.

Saddam's Execution

Only a week ago, was Saddam Hussein, a name that has been on the lips of global watchers and commentators for nearly three decades, executed through hanging. Hussein was still the incumbent leader of Iraq, if one considers the current dispensation a mere puppet of American and British masters who have occupied the country through illegal means and using flimsy lies to justify their assault on Iraqi sovereignty. His execution, which was televised as a grainy video taken through ostensibly a mobile camera, has been followed by responses bordering upon anger in places where ethnic or religious identity of people have been closer to Hussein's and disappointment and outrage in other places. There have also been voices which have welcomed Hussein's execution, voices that are not only emanating from the mouthpieces of Imperia, but also from ethnic identities which were persecuted for certain reasons during Hussein's chequered rule of Iraq.

A friend of mine writes this eloquent piece about how American Imperialism has cajoled, coaxed, apart from throttling and dismantling sections of third world populace to establish hegemony and this very feature dominates reactions to Saddam's execution. He writes as to how, the execution of Saddam, wrought out through the means of "victor's justice" flies at the logic of reason and rationality that the so called liberal world over Iraq based its premise for the continuing occupation of Iraq.

While I agree with his assessment of the structures of hegemony work and how this enforces pliancy of opinion even among those who are oppressed by the very same structures, and while I also agree with his characterization of the aftermath of the Saddam execution, I don't agree with his understanding of Hussein himself.

Hussein has been described by many as a coherent voice against imperialism and a person who articulated pan-Arab nationalism, someone who was a consistent secular voice and someone who upheld these "virtues" for years. This painting of Hussein has been used by anti-imperialists of late, especially after his execution to drum up more noise against the illegal occupation of Iraq.

Personally, though I disagree with this underestimation of the subversive role played by pan-Arab nationalism and its skewed variation of socialism articulated as Baathist socialism, that was propounded and expounded by Saddam Hussein.

Maidul Islam in the aforementioned article says this: "During the Iran-Iraq war, however, Saddam could manage to consolidate a significant Shia population in Iraq under the banner of Arab nationalism where the linguistic and cultural identity of both the Shias and Sunnis of Iraq was made distinguishable from the non-Arab Persian linguistic and cultural identity of Iran besides the use of repressive state apparatus for the mobilisation of war. "

While trying to explain how American duplicity (support to Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war while painting Hussein a mass murderer today) has worked, fitting into the patterns of imperialism, Maidul has displayed a correct understanding of the American project in West Asia, his portrayal of the Iran-Iraq war as a battle between Arab nationalism vis-a-vis expansionist Shiaite Islamism with the primary contributing factor being Imperialism seems problematic.

I argue that the dynamic of nationalism and the contours of Islamic conflict over centuries was dialectically processed by Imperialism to achieve certain ends and not vice-versa. One only has to understand the history of conflict and politics in the Arab and Persian West Asia to see the point that I am making. The very history of the Baath party and its Saddamist version after merely a few years after formation, its articulation of socialism and its radical opposition to class based socialism as articulated by the different Communist Parties of these Arabic nations (Syria and Iraq for e.g.), the problematics of the Islamic Revolution in Iran (which was welcomed by the Post-Modernist Foucault who saw different structures of resistance from Marxist resistance) has a dynamic that goes beyond mere imperialist influence.

Seen in this prism, Saddam Hussein's portrayal as an Anti-Imperialist, to put it mildly, is wrong, in my opinion.

The above understanding is important in the context of understanding the response to American occupation of Iraq. Fuelled by an understanding that doesn't divorce from the minutaie of ethnic, sectarian and nationalist responses to imperialism, the resistance to imperialism remains fractured, incoherent and self-defeating in certain respects. The very fact that car bombings and sectarian warfare contribute more to Iraqi casualties rather than American oppressive tactics, proves this argument.

As Aijaz Ahmad had pointed out, until and unless, a clear understanding of the contradiction that imperialism has imposed between the hegemon and the hegemonized, is not realized by those oppressed in Iraq, a coherent response to Imperialism will not emerge. Therefore, even if the American forces withdraw from Iraq tomorrow, ostensibly, due to internal opposition in America, Iraq will not succeed in becoming a coherent nation that Vietnam became. The internal contradictions that plague Iraqi resistance in comparison to the class based articulations that drove Vietnamese resistance will plague the Iraqi identity further.

A Socialist in the American Senate?

Thus spake The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/midterms2006/story/0,,1937064,00.html

He is an unapologetic socialist and proud of it. Even his admirers admit that he lacks social skills, and he tends to speak in tirades. Yet that has not stopped him winning eight consecutive elections to the US House of Representatives.

"Twenty years ago when people here thought about socialism they were thinking about the Soviet Union, about Albania," Mr Sanders told the Guardian in a telephone interview from the campaign trail. "Now they think about Scandinavia. In Vermont people understand I'm talking about democratic socialism."

Democratic socialism, however, has hardly proved to be a vote-winning formula in a country where even the word "liberal" is generally treated as an insult. Until now the best showing in a Senate race by a socialist of any stripe was in 1930 by Emil Seidel, who won 6% of the vote.

John McLaughry, the head of a free-market Vermont thinktank, the Ethan Allen Institute, said Mr Sanders is a throwback to that era. "Bernie Sanders is an unreconstructed 1930s socialist and proud of it. He's a skilful demagogue who casts every issue in that framework, a master practitioner of class warfare."

When Mr Sanders, a penniless but eloquent import from New York, got himself elected mayor of Burlington in 1981, at the height of the cold war, it rang some alarm bells. "I had to persuade the air force base across the lake that Bernie's rise didn't mean there was a communist takeover of Burlington," recalled Garrison Nelson, a politics professor at the University of Vermont who has known him since the 1970s.

"He used to sleep on the couch of a friend of mine, walking about town with no work," Prof Nelson said. "Bernie really is a subject for political anthropology. He has no political party. He has never been called charming. He has no money, and none of the resources we normally associate with success. However, he learned how to speak to a significant part of the disaffected population of Vermont."

Mr Sanders turned out to be a success as mayor, rejuvenating the city government and rehabilitating Burlington's depressed waterfront on Lake Champlain while ensuring that it was not gentrified beyond the reach of ordinary local people. "He stood this town on its ear," said Peter Freyne, a local journalist.

"I tried to make the government work for working people, and not just for corporations, and on that basis I was elected to Congress," Mr Sanders said. He has served 16 years in the House of Representatives, a lonely voice since the Republican takeover in 1994. He has however struck some interesting cross-party deals, siding with libertarian Republicans to oppose a clause in the Patriot Act which allowed the FBI to find out what books Americans borrowed from libraries.

He says his consistent electoral success reflects the widespread discontent with rising inequality, deepening poverty and dwindling access to affordable healthcare in the US. "People realise there is a lot to be learned from the democratic socialist models in northern Europe," Mr Sanders said. "The untold story here is the degree to which the middle class is shrinking and the gap between rich and poor is widening. It is a disgrace that the US has the highest rate of childhood poverty of any industrialised country on earth. Iraq is important, but it's not the only issue."

In a state of just over 600,000 people he also has a significant advantage over his Republican opponent, Rich Tarrant, a businessman who has spent about $7m on his campaign. "Sanders is popular because even if you disagree with him you know where he stands," said Eric Davis, a political scientist at Vermont's Middlebury College. "He pays attention to his political base. He's independent and iconoclastic and Vermonters like that."

More links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders

JNUSU Elections 2006, math, "pre-math" and aftermath

Yours truly was a keen participant in the "Dance of Democracy", the JNUSU Election Festival for the past two years in 2004 and 2005. While both the years saw victories at the President's Post by AISA's Mona Das, this year saw the SFI retaining the President's Post after a gap of 2 years, with Dhananjay Tripathi winning the coveted post defeating the AISA's candidate, Awadhesh Tripathi.

The 2005 Election was a victory of sorts for the SFI-AISF combine. Even though they had lost the President's post, data revealed that this happened primarily because nearly 142 votes from the extreme Right JPF were transferred to Mona Das, a consequence of the hatred of the JPF toward the SFI-AISF and its problems with its organization that it broke off from, the ABVP.

SFI-AISF, however instead of being complacent despite winning 3 CP seats and 16 councillors overall/29, realized that this defeat at the Presidential post was clearly more due to a lack of solid agitations for pressing issues, that were part of their erstwhile glorious legacy established in the campus.

What followed therefore was focus on several relevant issues and emphasis on student mobilization for the same. Be it mobilizing students to protest imperialist policies pursued by George Bush during his visit to India, opposing the entry of the ship Clemenceau into Indian waters, articulating the rights of farmers who were committing suicide in hundreds across the country, all these were also some of the main tasks well accomplished by the SFI.

Yet, its primary task was to identify the level of problems faced by common students studying in the university while undertaking higher post graduate education and research. Palpably, many realized that there were quite a few students dropping out, quite a few having been forced to take up jobs even while having to continue with research etc, all owing to financial pressure. What was needed was a clear scientific survey which could determine how many such people were there in the campus and what were their aspirations with regard to necessary support that they needed to pursue unhindered academic study and research in the campus.

What followed was a dedicated questionnaire campaign by the SFI-led JNUSU which ascertained clearly the necessities of a large chunk of students who were facing financial troubles in the campus. Subsequently efforts were made to pursue the administration to substantially increase the width as well as the scope of the existing financial scholarships that they are providing to students.

All was hunky-dory till now, upto April 2006. What came as a bombshell onto the campus was the announcement by the Government to implement 27% reservation for OBCs in higher education (as mandated constitutionally in the aftermath of the Mandal Commission recommendations' implementation in the early 1990s). The entire focus of the campus changed from issues such as financial assistance, anti-imperialism and solidarity with peasant/worker movements across the country toward this controversial announcement by the Government.

On the face of it, what the Govt had announced wasn't anything new. Ever since the Mandal Commission recommendations were accepted for jobs, it was inevitable that such a ruling was to be implemented in the sphere of education too. The Govt also willed itself to not disturb the existing number of seats available in the open category and promised only to increase the seats substantially (54%) to incorporate the reserved sections.

What followed was a major resentment among a section of students representing primarily upper casteist elements which protested this move; with ample media coverage. The spill over of this motley group of protests led by doctors primarily was the formation of number of groups within an overarching umbrella organization called "Youth for Equality". In JNU, too, YFE, mainly consisted of sections from Science Schools, took up the issue of protest and went ahead with several campaigns (ostensibly inspired by the movie Rang De Basanti), which ultimately culminated in a month long fast with vague demands. The Fast acted as a trigger to mobilize large chunks of apolitical sections of the campus, into one amorphous unit of anti-reservationists.

AISA, on its part, went on a counter fast (against the YFE's fast...fast rendering the idea of fasts as fatuous) and tried to mobilize opinion among pro-reservationists in the campus. The SFI on its part, thankfully didn't take up the route of a fast to generate opinion on the necessity of reservation. It had already released the first response supporting the move for 27% reservation, while necessitating the caveat of a Creamy Layer and appropriate increase of facilities to accommodate the subsequent increase of seats to 54%.

The problem however was that by June 2006, the reservation plank had so much occupied the arena of political contestation, that all other important issues, particularly the financial assistance agitation in the offing were not on the radar of the students at large. Despite this predicament, the SFI-led JNUSU went ahead with the agitation starting from August and into September and valiantly achieved the demands it had strove to achieve. Clearly, if not for the reservation issue being such a campus-mood-clincher, the SFI-led JNUSU's achievement would have earned it enough brownie points to do better than their 2005 performance.

However, come election time, the entry of the so called apolitical YFE into the fray and further noise pitched in by organizations solely focussed on reservation such as the Bahujan Students Front, made the election almost a referendum for reservations.

In this heightened political environment featuring parties of all hues and shades and the presence of organizations solely focusing on reservation (one anti and another pro), predicting the result of the elections became a tough affair. The fact that nearly all political parties were for reservation, clearly established that this election was going to be a personality affair. In essence, for any person, whichever personality belonging to that political outfit corresponding to his/her position on reservation, based on his personality traits and popularity, turned out to be the criteria for election rather than issue based, performance based support that shaded voter opinion and behaviour in the past.

Dhananjay, the SFI candidate for President, owing to his popularity, incumbency and voter identifiability was therefore touted as a sure winner and he did become the winner, after all. The story however was the near consolidation of votes from Science Schools by the YFE candidates. Clearly, the existing composition of Science Schools tilted toward greater upper caste representation in contrast to the far more egalitarian (gender wise, caste wise, region wise) distribution of students in say, the School of Social Sciences was a factor in determining the support to the YFE. Hence the spectacular performance of the YFE in the Science Schools, where they were able to reap 6 councillor posts and managed leads of more than 230 votes against their nearest rivals in the voting for the Central Panel votes.

As regards, the victory of the AISA in 2 Central Panel posts, the reasons were very clear. The Gen Sec candidate for AISA was a person from the School of Social Sciences (and an erstwhile Hindi student from the School of Languages(SL)) who was known pretty well across the campus for his activism (a fame/notoreity that was nurtured with his role in the Prime Minister's visit to the campus in Nov 2005). The AISF candidate pitched against him was someone who was contesting this election after a year of non-activity in Student Union affairs and someone who belonged to the smaller School of International Studies. The factor of voter knowledge and identification therefore worked in the favor of the AISA candidate in this post.

Similar was the case with the Post of Vice President. Tyler Williams, the AISA candidate, an American, had the highest polled votes in the SL Councillor elections in 2005. His name being touted, because of his identity and nationality, in the media was an additional factor. Pitted against him was Murtaza, someone who was contesting elections for SFI after a gap of 2 years of relative inactivity in student politics in the campus. Added to this disadvantage was a malicious campaign on his personal life, which affected his prospects seriously. Again, a case of voter knowledge and identification played a role in the defeat of the SFI-AISF candidate.

In the post of Jt Secretary, Jyotsna, a two time councillor and sitting Convenor from School of Social Sciences, comfortably won against both the AISA and YFE candidates owing to the same factor again.

In essence, from my understanding, this election reaffirmed the Leftist, progressive credentials of the campus. The victory of two candidates from the Ultra-Left in the Central Panel, despite the good work by the SFI in achieving its primary targets for the year, were primarily because of the impact of the Reservations issue in the campus plus the subordination of all other issue based considerations to merely the factors of voter knowledge of the candidate and the voter's opinion on the reservations saga predominantly.

Unionization of BPO Workers, Letter to Indian Express

The Indian media has gone ballistic after hearing that the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has launched a forum which is some type of union of BPO workers.

The Indian Express has published an editorial and op-ed piece on the same. The Op-Ed Piece has quoted an article by Amandeep Sandhu about BPO unionization too. I have made some critical points on both these articles (the edit and the op-ed piece) in a letter to the Indian Express. If time permits, I shall write a longer piece on the issue itself.

Subject: Unionization of BPO Workers in Kolkata.
While your editorial waxes eloquent on the need to keep BPO workers from unionization because of loss of competitiveness, which in itself is a spurious logic, it doesn't talk about the appalling work conditions of the BPO workers themselves. The opinion piece by Saubhik Chakravarti quotes the article by Amandeep Sandhu in EPW, about how unionization has hitherto failed and the lackadaisical attitude of the BPO workers toward the same, but the important reasons for the same are conveniently omitted. BPO workers have been clearly fed the logic that unionization is an activity meant only for the blue collared, eventhough their unskilled work itself doesn't pertain to the white collared. Sandhu aptly quotes another important work done on unskilled workers in Barbados where a similar attitude prevails.
Clearly, there is more to the opposition toward unionization than just loss of competitiveness. Also, there is no sufficient logic provided by your editorial or opinion writer as to why indeed unionisation *will not* help BPO workers tide over unhealthy work conditions. In addition to this, the editorial doesn't deem it necessary to notice that unions and unionization in the form of pressure groups exist in all types of societies to secure wages, good working conditions for workers, of the blue collar or of the white collar type (lawyers, sportspersons, etc). Even the Indian cricket players have a pressure group and a players' union, whose formation your lead writers have lauded in the past in your own newspaper! Perhaps if your editorial and opinion writers had however talked about the unionization of BPO workers under the thrall of ideologically motivated organizations such as the CITU as the primary problematic, it could have carried more sense. Blind opposition to unionization however seems prejudiced and devoid of complete logical veracity.

Sincerely,
V.R.Srinivasan.

4 years later in Gujarat

A terrific reporter (who happens to be a great friend) working with Himal Mag has come up with a riveting expose of Gujarat 4-years-post-Gujarat-2002.

http://himalmag.com/2006/october/cover_story.htm

Himal have an exclusive cover story on Gujarat:

http://www.himalmag.com/

What un-nerves a secular Indian is the stark brutality exhibited by the Bajrang Dal leaders and the pride that they wear for it.

No wonder, Praveen Swami and Anupama Katakam have shown so forthrightly how Indian Muslims are lured towards fundamentalism because of the clear dichotomization of Indian society in Gujarat under the rule of Narendra Modi.

El Pueblo Unido Jamas Sera Vencido!

The People United shall always be victorious!

Heartiest congratulations to the SFI-led JNUSU for achieving a landmark deal that seals scholarships that will benefit scores of students pursuing Graduate and Post Graduate Education. After a valiant hunger strike in the campus, which included a one day sit in at the UGC headquarters, the JNUSU along with other students were able to achieve this long standing demand.

I miss being there at both the hour of pain (the indefinite hunger strike) and the hour of pleasure (the victory).

Anand has got a valiant account to narrate.

http://mayookham.blogspot.com/2006/09/hunger-strike.html

On Kanshi Ram

The Hindu's Political Editor, Harish Khare, who FYI is a PhD in Political Science from Yale University, came up with a very good article in The Hindu about Kanshi Ram, after the latter's death.

I had a few things to say about the article and wrote a letter to The Hindu.

The original unedited letter goes as follows:

Subject: Apropos the Article, "The Debt we owe Kanshi Ram" by Mr. Harish Khare.

Mr Khare succinctly points out Kanshi Ram's legacy in forging an independent political identity for the Dalits. In making this point, Mr Khare points out that two seminal developments, that of Market Reforms and the Mandir agitation were responsible for the sudden rise of the BSP, through the means of realignment of forces. Kudos to Mr Khare for this analysis. Mr Khare however, in my opinion, has missed the most important of developments that resulted in strengthening of the "Bahujan" forces, the Mandal Commission Implementation.
Together, the three Ms (Mandir, Mandal and Market) changed the political discourse in India forever. Its a pity however that the "Bahujan" consolidation, that was Kanshi Ram's dream frittered away, because of the nature of the parties that the Samajwadi Party and BSP eventually turned out to be, under the leadership of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati. Far from forging together a representative identity of the historically marginalized, thereby challenging the hold of the upper castes, the two parties went on to articulate the OBC and Dalit identities as requisites for power rather than for genuine redistribution and social change. BSP, under Mayawati therefore has disappointed those who hoped this party would realize the Ambedkarite vision of "Annihilation of Caste". Uttar Pradesh politics of late has only seen a shifting of caste alliances rather than a roadmap for caste-dissipation.

Movie Subjects on the Subjective...

Its been a while since I blogged.. well..things have changed a bit.. atleast the location has.. and there have been some fruits from the change of location..have been able to borrow some really good movies from my university library....Rashomon and "12 Angry Men".. movies, quite a vignette from the past.

"Rashomon Effect": This was a phrase I heard once in a talk given by a former distinguished correspondent for the Frontline, Sukumar Muralitharan..He was trying to use this phrase to describe the spin that was provided by academicians, politicians et al about the verdict of the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. Each vested interest was providing an account of or trying to analyse an event of the past from his/her own subjective perspective. An apt term, I believe, the one used by Muralitharan.. which brings us to try to understand why indeed is the term being used?

Rashomon is a brilliant movie directed by Akira Kurosawa, the Japanese film director supposed to have been among the best in the business of his time. The story is pretty simple. A murder is being investigated in court and the people involved, the witness all give a versinn of the murder in their own terms and spheres of understanding. The truth is never revealed. Who killed the man found to be killed? What exactly transpired before his death? No one can tell for sure even after watching the movie. But what is clear is this, the human subjective element has a vital role to play and therefore any "spoken truth" is got to be prejudiced with the perspective tilted in the speaker's memory to show his/her relative 'goodness' in the whole affair of the past.

Surely the flashes from the back is lashed with details that glorify the role of the "telling" subject and therefore any jury hearing the same *must* consider this subjective element to bear upon the testimony. Kurosawa brings out this element beautifully. Even if the movie is a tad slow and has some extravagant acting by some of its actors, particularly the Kurosawa favourite Toshiro Mifune, its enjoyable purely because its a cerebral delight.

Add to the above is the fact that all the flashbacks are themselves narrated in flashback, the present itself showing characters who reveal their undersides. In essence the contours of the whole affair of murder can be reasonably ascertained by considering the present and the past including the subjects.

Yet another movie which relies deeply on the subjective element is the 1950s classic, "Twelve Angry Men". I had been itching to see this film, but never got the chance to see it in New Delhi. I had seen the Hindi remake, "Ek Ruka Hua Faisla" during a cosy channel surfing session in those lazy old days of mine in Hyderabad. The movie featured quite a few of the recognized thespians of today who owe their filming talent to the honing at the FTII, Pune. Names such as Pankaj Kapur, Suresh Raina, Anu Kapoor, etc re-enacted the original, transposed into the Indian milieu, an exercise that was done fantastically, in my opinion.

Getting to the point, "Twelve Angry Men" is a very different movie. Its wholly based in a single room, involving twelve unnamed strangers who argue about whether a person is guilty or not. Facts are reasoned out irrationally by some using the notions of identity or personal opinion. It takes a sharp interrogation by an "unconvinced till its convincing" man, played by Henry Fonda to make all others around him see reason. Reason therefore is played out inch by inch, statement by statement. Deduction and Lateral thinking prevail eventually over primordial notions and prejudices. Its almost the victory of the Enlightenment over the Dark Ages. The movie is brilliant, because it establishes without doubt that no matter how convincing it seems, anything cannot be accepted until its beyond reasonable doubt.

I had a sobering effect after watching this classic. Never again would I jump to conclusions, I tell myself, but perhaps this is just a subjective delight for the present!

I dont want to write a review of the movies, for that would involve trying to explain the story, which I think must be seen by any viewer to make out on his own, for the concern of these movies, is indeed subjectivity.

Tol Mole ke Bol! (Weigh and Tell)

Jaswant Singh always had a funny way of saying things. While the pliant media always spun it to look elegant, yours truly thought that the verbal callisthenics provided by this ex-army man was nothing short of verbal jugglery in the manner of the typical circus clown (no disrespect to the clown intended).I have never been that much enamoured of this person who has served in some of the highest ranking posts for India, ranging from Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission,to the External Affairs and Foreign Minister. Harish Khare himself comes up with an article questioning whether indeed Mr. Singh deserves the kudos that has been invariably reserved to him through a potent mixture of aura-building and spinning yarn about the BJP's honchos that was the name of the game during the NDA's regime.

Getting to the point though, "Jest"want Singh's USP is being a sophisticated version of former US Vice President Dan Quayle. I have always found his verbal gymnastics rather funny and esoteric. Sidd Varadarajan had perhaps reached his end of patience after reading Singh's "A Call to Honour" where maybe Singh went about applying his verbal pyrotechnics to written language. AG Noorani had also pointed out that this "anmol" ratan had his way of explaining things that were more tongue behind molars rather than tongue in cheek. Sample this in this book review of Strobe Talbott's book:

"However, `we explained our diplomacy in public,' he [Jaswant] said, `people will demand of me, why are you even talking to the Americans about matters that are none of their business?'" Rightly. Why indeed? Vajpayee took the easy route, which he followed throughout his term - deceive the public and the press by using flowery and opaque language. In this Jaswant was a willing accomplice. The author does not find fault with his ridiculously stilted language but with the press.

"The journalists dutifully scribbled down the oracular utterances, never asking for clarification or amplification, and then reported them to their readers as though they provided insight into what was going on in the talks." Talbott sees nothing wrong in his phrases - "Calculus of human life involved," said this famous visitor to Kandahar in his defence; "the architecture of the dialogue that had been put in place earlier will be fully implemented". Pray, how do you implement "architecture"? The sayings of Jaswant Singh would make Irish Bulls seem prosaic. Sample one - all along the untrodden paths of the future lie the footprints of an unseen hand. Jaswant Singh is more than capable of uttering such profundities.

Oratory, for the BJP, always borders upon the maverick. They have a Goebbelsian hatemonger in Narendra Modi, a dialectician in dialect, Shri Vajpayee (he always provides thesis followed by antithesis in his speeches), a clown prince orator in Venkaiah Naidu and etc. The loss of foot-in-the-saffron-mouth Uma Bharati, ultrasonic Madan Lal Khurana and Machiavellian Mahajan has reduced their acoustics quite a bit though.

Shri Jaswant, when asked to name the "mole" in his book, said that he was not in the business of "indecent exposure". After being unable to expose the "mole"cular structure of the "mole" he had in mind, his agenda seems now exposed. The mole was merely to get more of his books sold in the Mall. Sanjaya Baru of the PMOle insinuated the very same when he said there were unfortunately no "moles or malls" in his recently released book, much to the disappointment to his publishers. A mellow Jaswant now suggests that what he said has been "molested" by the media. Sample this in rediff.com: "The media misinterpreted me. Perhaps I did not communicate this in the din,".The key phrase is "I did not communicate.."! Maybe, he *should not* communicate.

BJP deputy leader of Parliament, Shri Vijay Kumar "Mole"hotra in the meantime takes offense to the fact that the PM had disrespected Jaswant for not acceding to Singh's request of an one-on-one meeting. I think that the PM would disrespect his office if he wasted time trying to extract information about the mole from the black hole that currently occupies Shri Jaswant's brain right now.

Getting to the issue though, its a known fact that the US has always tried to poke its nose, molars and surveillence teeth into India's or for that matter any country's affairs. Considering the fact that its the sole superpower in the world and is worried about nuclear proliferation, it is clear that there must have been US surveillance in India during the days when India had plans of going nuclear. That India succeeded in exploding bombs despite such a close watch was a success of India's camouflage powers as much as a failure in US' HUMINT (human intelligence). Yet, the Rabindra Singh episode also showed the weakness of India's security apparatus vis-a-vis American pressure and lure. Now this was one real "mole" episode that is to be well researched.