Macron Walking Around Numerous Minefields Raises Islamophobia To Fight Islamic Terror

Macron Walking Around Numerous Minefields Raises Islamophobia To Fight Islamic Terror

                                                                                           Saeed Naqvi

One of our major newspapers, the Indian Express has, on page one, underlined for emphasis something significant: India became the first “non western country” to come out in support of French President, Emmanuel Macron in his fight against Islamic terror.

Less than a week after the macabre beheading of a school teacher, Samuel Paty, by an 18 year old Chechen, terrorists killed three more. The Chechen who had been through a decade of French secular schooling has obviously remained untouched by French grooming. In fact “secular” does not quite describe “Laicite”, or the complete separation of church and state, which has been a very French law since 1905.

The ignition for the spate of massacres was a somewhat inexplicable action by Paty: the teacher showed cartoons of Prophet Mohammad to the class, exactly the ones which had created an uproar in 2015 when two Arabs broke into the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo killing 12.

The Indian support for Macron on this occasion, though sound, signals something new. Umpteen world events in past decades placed a question mark on where India stood? India’s response was enigmatic silence.

The launch pad for terrorism and the subsequent Islamophobia which followed has not been closely studied: it was Operation Desert Storm in 1992-93. After defeating the Soviet Union, the victorious US went about putting its imprimatur on its status as the sole superpower by first allowing Kuwait to be occupied and then pulverizing Iraq for its misdemeanor. The US, UK combine unleashed unprecedented firepower. And, for the first time in history, on live TV. This heralded the arrival of the global media which would decisively influence and control subsequent world politics. Prime Minister Narendra Modi too is a beneficiary of the Indian cousins of the same media controlled by crony capitalism.

The global media launched during Desert Storm divided the world into two antagonistic, indeed hostile sets of audiences. The successful West celebrated its victory in its drawing rooms. For the Muslim world it was yet another humiliating defeat. In this situation, where did Indian audiences stand? We are squeamish asking that question because if we sincerely search for the answer we might find the majority and the minority communities having sympathies with opposite sides of the case. In response to an event outside our shores, we are internally divided – not quite the fifth column but a surly minority.

Against this backdrop, consider the Indian stand on Macron. A perfectly statesman like support has been made to look biased because of two reasons: the government is perceived as anti Muslim. And there is an absence of a key qualifier; that the brutalities by a few bigots, deserving the severest punishment, has caused the entire community to be tarred.

Another factor must be taken into account. Discussion on terrorism, as on any other contentious issue, will be unconvincing if a taboo is placed on looking at root causes. During the Cold War, when all western arsenal was focused on the Soviet Union, were there recorded instances of Islamic terrorism? It would be instructive to list them if, indeed, there were any. Yes, about the time Israel was in its birth throes there were terrorist outfits like Irgun and Haganah. I have seen Palestinian groups linked to George Habash and Yasser Arafat, bomb Northern Galilee with mortar shells from villages like Hebbariye where one drove via Syria. But that was at the cusp of what was called decolonization everywhere. Wars of national liberation had support from Progressive states.

Imperialism’s great responsibility was to protect Israel, Southern Rhodesia and South Africa. Indian passports in those days were not valid for the three countries listed above.

For states that were not “with us” ingenious excuses had to be invented to punish them. Peculiarly unconvincing was Ronald Reagan’s bombardment in 1986 of Benghazi and Tripoli in which Qaddafi’s daughter was killed. The real reason was Libya’s support to the Palestinians but the excuse for the bombardment was almost comical: chatter had been picked up in a Berlin discotheque that Qaddafi was planning some terrorist action. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, always easily persuaded, dispatched to Tripoli a delegation of Non Aligned Foreign Ministers, attending a conference in New Delhi, under the leadership of Foreign Minister Bali Ram Bhagat, as an act of non-aligned solidarity.

After kissing Qaddafi on both cheeks, Arab style, when Bhagat returned to his office in South Block, he nearly fainted in shock. He had been sacked. Rajiv, easily persuaded as I mentioned earlier, received a call from Ambassador Shankar Bajpai in Washington that all the wonderful arrangements for Rajiv’s visit to the Reagan White House in October 1987 would fall apart if Bhagat’s visit to Tripoli was not undone.

It is a nasty way to put it, but Islamophobic reaction to the recent massacres, enables a troubled Macron to shift sufficiently to the Right to neutralize the threat Marine Le Pen may pose in the elections 18 months away, when the yellow vests, pensioners, fuel price hike have all brought down his ratings from 60% to 23%.

The entire Muslim world has attacked Macron because of his inelegant references to Islam. This has caused Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohammad to completely lose his balance. Far from defending Islam he has unleashed an anti French tirade which clearly justifies for him an extended stay in serious psychiatric care. A desperate Macron meanwhile is flailing his arms in all directions. Behind the scenes, his hand is discernable in installing Saad Hariri as Prime Minister of Lebanon. He is running helter skelter to neutralize Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan bulldozing his way from the Turkish mainland as well as Turkish occupied Northern Cyprus to lay claims to extraordinary deposits of gas in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The Indian statement, meanwhile, is clearly the thin end of the wedge. Indian Foreign Policy was generally aligned with the West. The signal now is that it may be trying to outgrow its Brahminical caution.

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Navaratri, Other Systems Of Dieting; But Persian Maxim Trumps Them

Navaratri, Other Systems Of Dieting; But Persian Maxim Trumps Them

                                                                                         Saeed Naqvi

Corona has taken a toll of my discourses on elementary Hindu virtuals, like Navratra because my yoga guru from the Monghyr Ashram has placed himself under severe restrictions. Last year, between asanas, he was able to slip in the odd recipe centred around tapioca, water chestnut, without grain, meat and the amber stuff.

My man Friday, a Hindu of insufficient Hindutva, a gourmet cook of non-vegetarian delectations, is almost thrilled to forego his dietary excesses during Navaratri. What comes into play is his innate “aastha” or faith: scratch any skin, and it is there.

Two categories of Indians, of any faith, tend to have a link with religion which over the year has become tenuous: those exposed to western education continuously for two generations or those who grew up in a “progressive” household. The “progressives” in my environment represented a confluence of two streams. Their anti-feudal, anti-imperial stance had certain Marxist antecedents. Otherwise they derived from the Urdu poets of the 18^th and 19^th centuries with their innate abhorrence of religious orthodoxy, a caricature of the Mullah, an elegant irreverence towards traditionalism, committed to social justice – a modern outlook, way ahead of self proclaimed liberals reared on John Stuart Mill.

In modern times, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Krishen Chander, Rajender Singh Bedi, Ali Sardar Jafri, Ismet Chugtai, Kaifi Aazmi, Munish Narain Saxena, Niaz Haidar have followed the tradition.

Multiple social malaise continued to haunt Muslims in the grip of the clergy to whom they had been subcontracted by the politician. Those being targeted as “urban naxals” are precisely the sources of enlightenment for a community which would otherwise have sunk further into social backwardness.

By way of diversion, social backwardness has triggered an unrelated episode from my travels to the Connemara coast of Ireland where the great cricketer, Ranjit Singh ji (Ranji) had bought Ballynahinch castle on a river known for the finest river salmon, a paradise for anglers. W.G. Grace and C.B. Fry stayed with him, but for his sister he had made expensive arrangements in the nearby convent with some very strict conditions: she would not be converted to Christianity and she would only wear saris.

From childhood, participation in Diwali, Holi and Dussehra for Muslims and Eid, Bakr Eid and Moharram for Hindus was more or less compulsory among families and their circle of friends. Raksha Bandhan too was a beautiful occasion for cross religious participation. What has surprised me is my lack of acquaintance with, say, Navaratri, on which my yoga guru, absent because of Corona, has been my informal instructor. What I suspect has happened is that during my formative years observances like Navaratri, Ekadashi, pujas for change of seasons, elements, waxing and waning of the moon were either in a low key or confined to the mofussil who were marginal to Lucknow’s mainstream.

Ramzan, the month of fasting, was noticed by non-Muslims in a sensitive way: invitations for lunches or dinners were suspended. Only the closest of the errant friends made clandestine arrangements to imbibe prohibited beverages. There were eccentrics among the aristocracy in the vicinity of Lucknow who broke their fast with a shot of scotch. One instance I am aware of where a family protested at the eccentricity of their elder relative. They were roundly rebuffed for standing between the old gentleman and his God.

Ghalib was the biggest advertiser of his mischievous indiscretions during Ramzan. He mentions in his letters how he snatched a bite of “roti” (bread) here and gulped water there. Excuses he makes for not fasting were almost childish:

“Jis pas roza khol ke khane ko kuchh na ho

Roza agar na khaaye to lachaar kya karey?”

(If someone doesn’t have the means for an elaborate “Iftar”, or breaking of the fast:

He has only one choice: “swallow” the roza.) Swallow here means “end the fast”.

His poor finances and rising costs after 1857 were forbidding. They caused him to write bitterly. “Life in Delhi is becoming impossible; Scotch is selling at Rs.16 per dozen bottles.” There is a subsidiary group of Hazrat Ali’s admirers, among whom Ghalib counted himself, who fast only for three days of Ramzan, beginning 19^th when Ali was struck by a poisoned sword in the mosque at Kufa and Ramzan the 21^st when he died. My grandfather’s fasting companion during these three days was Pundit Brij Mohan Nath Kachar, a regular at our village during Moharram. His sermons attracted full houses.

The speed with which Hindutva has in recent years transformed faith and practice of religion into religious assertion has left me a trifle shaken. Should my 50 years of commitment – films, books, columns on cultural commerce – be put away as a chronicle of wasted time? Or should I dismiss these as cow belt excesses exactly as the authors of the Constitution did.

After 1947, the UP Assembly grappled with a list of 20 alternative names for United Provinces. The matter could not be postponed indefinitely because the drafting of the new Constitution was nearing completion and the state’s new name had to be inserted. The Provincial Congress Committee met in Varanasi in November 1947. A majority of 106 members voted for “Aryavarta” as the state’s new names, 22 members voted for “Hind”. Both names were shot down by Nehru.

I had started this column on Navaratri, as nine days of austere dieting. Faith was not an issue at all. Under the guru’s advice, I had been persuaded that it was a healthier way of giving the body a rest than total starvation for 10 to 14 hours which Ghalib found difficult to cope with.

In fact the best I heard on this theme was from my uncle Syed Mohammad Mehdi. He used to recite a Persian maxim:

“Ba har hafta faaqa

Ba har maah qae

Ba har saal mushil

Ba har roz mai”

(Fast every week;

Drink litres of saline water and

Vomit it out every month;

Purgative every year;

Wine every evening.)

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There Can Be No Intra Afghan Talks Unless Ghani Steps Aside

There Can Be No Intra Afghan Talks Unless Ghani Steps Aside

                                                                                      Saeed Naqvi

President Donald Trump and his National Security Adviser, Robert C. O’Brien are aching to announce troop withdrawal from Afghanistan as a last minute sweetener for the American voter, rather like floral touches in an Indian wedding. Gen. Mark A Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is probably looking at life beyond Trump, unless there is a second coming. He is talking of ending the Afghan war “responsibility”, which means “not in a hurry”.

When President Barak Obama had set firm deadlines for withdrawal, I made an extensive survey of the country for the Observer Research Foundation. I had concluded that the US is “not leaving Afghanistan today; it is not leaving it tomorrow.” A super power enters a major theatre with one set of interests but, over a period of time, develops multiple compelling interests.

Why would a country, which is directly involved in 14 shooting wars in various parts of the globe, walk away from its longest war ever without any identifiable gain. Withdrawing empty handed would be an admission of defeat. Since this is not on the cards, the only conclusion one can draw is that a plan for the future is not being disclosed for now.

US involvement in Afghanistan has been a great tragedy, but its frequent false starts in a rush to the exit door and announce withdrawal, is material for a spoof by someone like Michael Moore. Take for instance the peace agreement the US signed with Afghan Taleban on February 29 in Doha. So eager was US negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad to flourish a peace agreement just when the election campaign in the US was picking up, that he would have inserted into the agreement anything the Taleban wished. Read the title headline of that agreement: it is patently absurd.

“Agreement for bringing Peace to Afghanistan between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taleban and the United States of America.” The fragility of the agreement is transparent in the pulls and counter pulls that have obviously gone into the headline. There is unbridgeable distance on the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s role, for instance. The Taleban will not talk to Ghani whom they describe quite brazenly as a US “toady”.

Ghani deludes himself if he imagines he is being “firm”. He is coming across to the world at large as a leader with a very thick skin. New Delhi wishes to keep appearances. In the trapeze act, South Block does not wish to be seen loosening the clasp of Ghani’s hand mid air. The zero sum game with Pakistan may operate as a factor but, in deference to realism, not a defining one.

If New Delhi is seen to be digging in for Ghani, it will only find itself embarrassed down the line because it is clear as daylight that intra Afghan talks will not move unless Ghani steps aside. By visiting Islamabad and New Delhi Abdullah Abdullah is positioning himself to step in as soon as the opportunity arises. This is not a process that is likely to reach fruition before the end of the year. So, no confetti on election eve.

One of the advantages the US extracts from its position of being a superpower is to keep making mistakes almost willfully without any fear of being called to account. It is almost a forgotten story that in December 2001 NATO helped by Russia, Iran, India and the Northern Alliance headquartered in the Panjsher valley defeated Taleban and Al Qaeda. Punjsher was also the operational headquarters for the Tajik hero Ahmad Shah Masoud. So strong was Masoud’s opposition to the Taleban and Al Qaeda, that he travelled extensively to acquaint various international fora of the danger that Al Qaeda and Taleban posed to Afghanistan. His address to the European Parliament in the summer of 2001, months before 9/11 was historic by any yardstick. Complete silence on this speech of Masoud’s is surprising. His forces had picked up chatter about a possible Al Qaeda action in the American mainland. He was speaking in Brussels. On September 9, precisely two days before September 11 (9/11) two Arabs, disguised as journalists, visited him in his hideout near the Tajik border for an interview. Their passports it was revealed much later, had been forged in Brussels. These “journalists”, while saying goodbye to Masoud, detonated their vests. All three died instantly. Two days later, the twin towers came down in New York. Is there nothing here that deserves investigation?

Maybe not before the US elections, but is the curtain is about to be brought down on US involvement? Whether Trump or Joe Biden win the election, China, Russia, Iran are likely to remain America’s adversarial concerns.

A little over a year ago, just when US military involvement in Syria was winding down, one common chatter was about Jabhat al Nusra and its variants being flown to newer theatres of action. Russia’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Morgulov Igor Vladimirovich told a high powered conference in New Delhi, with Zalmay Khalilzad in attendance, that militants were being flown from Syria to Northern Afghanistan. “Only the Afghan government and the US controls the Afghan air space.” The blame cannot be placed at any other door. Khalilzad mounted a token protest but nothing more.

The following Friday Iran’s Supreme leader, Ali Khamenei was more specific: Daesh groups were being flown to Afghanistan. The distinguished chronicler of the West Asian scene, Robert Fisk of the Independent made similar allegations. The allegation fitted neatly into the thesis that militants, trained to kill, cannot be sent to the slaughterhouse. They have to be deployed in other theatres where they are proximate to Muslim population into which militancy has to be injected to stir up the Islamic cauldron – Xinxiang, the Caucasus and a handful of Sunni enclaves in Iran.

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The Horror Of Hathras Yogi’s Latest Gift To The Opposition

The Horror Of Hathras Yogi’s Latest Gift To The Opposition

                                                                                  Saeed Naqvi

 

“London se Dilli aaye hain do yaum ke liye

Yeh zehmatein uthaeen faqat qaum ke liye”

(He has travelled all the way from London to Delhi for two days;

These inconveniences he bears only for his beloved people.)

This was the great satirist Akbar Allahabadi’s jibe at the senior Agha Khan, dabbling in Indian politics, at the turn of the 20^th century. It is difficult to see Samajwadi Party President, Akhilesh Yadav in the same frame as the Agha Khan but Akbar’s couplet does apply to the leader who had once promised to set the Gomti on fire. Akhilesh’s has been a reverse journey. Unlike the Agha Khan, he has travelled to London.

At the time of writing, Akhilesh and his family were in London’s Washington hotel, watching the situation from there: the farmers’ agitation, the horror of Hathras, Covid 19 lockdown. The Crown Prince of Samajwadi Party appears to have taken a philosophical view of a string of electoral defeats and a lurking fear of the CBI, Enforcement Directorate and such like busy bodies.

Trust malicious folk to float the rumour that in London he has found the charmed circle: Vijay Mallya, Mehul Choksi, Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi and sundry whizkids. No evidence has been furnished that Akhilesh has escaped as an economic offender but the rumour mills in Lucknow are working overtime. SP cadres are particularly miffed that neither the founder, Mulayam Singh Yadav nor the President, Akhilesh, were present for the party’s 28^th anniversary on October 4.

Bahujan Samaj leader Mayawati’s state of funk is on an even higher scale eversince her loot was exposed during demonetization. Meanwhile Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who mutated from Ajay Mohan Bisht, a thoroughbred Thakur from Kumaon, to a saffron robed mahant of the Gorakhnath Muth, has clutched his basic identity, a Thakur, firmly. Little wonder this has caused raised eyebrows among other upper castes. Aam Aadmi Party MP Sanjay Singh quoted a survey which accused Yogi of caste bias in employing officials in his government. According to Sanjay Singh 64% of those inducted across the board were Thakurs. Not only has Sanjay Singh attracted the charge of sedition but 14 other cases have been slapped on party affiliates.

Has the game of unforced errors being played by Yogi left him electorally vulnerable? Byelections in seven assembly seats by the first week of November will provide occasion to find out. These will be coinciding with the Bihar elections where further uncertainty has been introduced by Ram Vilas Paswan’s death. Where he stood in Bihar’s lineup was a useful guide on which way the cookie would crumble in the state.

The Narendra Modi-Amit Shah one-two punch, in which Mohammad Ali specialized, has so pulverized the pandits that they see no way-out. There is an English aphorism: “If you France will win, then with Scotland first begin.” In other words, if the duet in New Delhi are formidable, Yogi in Lucknow offers a more vulnerable opening in the parapet – just by his spate of excesses of which Hathras is the latest.

The manner in which the Yogi administration is stumbling along leaves one with the impression that he is badly advised. It is possible that if advice is given to him, there is in him a natural resistance to it.

Does this style of functioning endear him to power centres in Nagpur and UP? The history of his ascent to the Lucknow gaddi should offer some guide. Winning 324 of the 403 assembly seats in March 2017, should have led to an easy transfer of power. But it was far from easy. The RSS-BJP High Command had set its heart on Manoj Sinha as Chief Minister. But the Yogi threw a ginger fit. His powerful Hindu Vahini would, like Samson, bring down the edifice if the Yogi’s claims were overlooked. This manner of coming to power would have miffed many who would, presumably, be waiting for him to slip.

The field in UP has opened up for two possible formations: The Congress and, believe it or not, the Aam Aadmi Party which is already in preliminary conversation with those elements in SP who have grown tired of Akhilesh’s indifference. In 2013, the SP was in alliance with the Congress, which proceeded to double cross its allies. Why did the Congress do this? The Congress cannot help its irrepressible desire to “revive”. At some stage there will have to be a conversation with the Congress. The fly in that ointment is that AAP is the leader of opposition in a Congress ruled Punjab.

The 2017 election was no doubt a debacle for the opposition, but there was also plenty of electoral hokey-pokey on the part of the BJP. A catalogue of electoral fraud was drawn up but Congress President Sonia Gandhi refused to proceed in what she thought was a controversial matter. What makes cowards of the two ladies in the Gandhi triumvirate is a simple fact. Whisper “Robert Vadra” in their ears, and their knees buckle.

Rahul Gandhi, it must be admitted, has come into his own in recent weeks. I have been sceptical of his ability to “connect” with his interlocuters, his ability to think on his feet, his attention span and so on. But he appears to have come out of his shell somewhat because he is no longer mincing his words. “Give us back the media and the institutions Modi controls, and he will not last long”, says he. Or “It is a fallacy that Modiji is running the country; Ambani and Adani are.” There is no desperation in his tone. He is simply being more pugnacious than he has ever been before. Possibly because he has spotted the regime’s vulnerabilities.

With the police running amuck on his behalf, the Yogi has achieved the impossible in the state. Except for Thakurs, he has alienated every section – Muslims, Dalits, OBC’s and, after the Vikas Dubey showdown, Brahmins. And in UP it is a rule of thumb: you cannot alienate Brahmins and win.

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Vajpayee And Jaswant Were Friends But Could Differ Like Gentlemen

 Vajpayee And Jaswant Were Friends But Could Differ Like Gentlemen

                                                                                      Saeed Naqvi

Jaswant Singh’s final goodbye acquired extra poignancy. Ushered into his study in my mind’s eye by the reliable Thomas, his secretary, I can see him induce a smile by way of politeness, gesture with his right hand, slowly nodding his head disapprovingly. He would have been pained at the Hathras rape and a blanket “not guilty” verdict on all and sundry accused in the Babari Masjid demolition conspiracy case. He was a gentleman politician with whom one could disagree and yet return satisfied with many takeaways. He had the rare ability to change his views (as on Jinnah) if that is what the evidence suggests.

Jaswant Singh reminded me of Ismat Chugtai’s description of Dilip Kumar who acted in films for which she had written the script and which her husband, Shahid Lateef, had directed. “Dilip Kumar is not a handsome man but he knows how to act as one.”

Likewise, Jaswant Singh’s “haw, haw” English was plausible, if not always authentic. He spoke with deliberation which was custom made for pauses enabling him to pluck out words he enjoyed using. His feudal Rajput background, polished by his years at the National Defence Academy under the supervision of Commandant Leslie Keith Malcolm (Bonny), a fastidious Scottish officer, his yen for polo and custom made safari suits with epaulettes (sans insignia), all these enhanced his aristocratic bearing.

The “style” came in handy when as External Affairs Minister, he kept Bill Clinton’s Deputy Secretary of State, Strobe Talbott, in his thrall during the marathon series of exchanges on the nuclear issue.

In the choreography of Atal Behari Vajpayee’s cabinet, the Jaswant Singh persona had a deliberate placement. Was his “princeliness” a criteria? That would have exposed Vajpayee to the charge of having a class fetish. After all the Minister of State in the foreign office, Vasundhara Raje Scindia was a thoroughbred princess. It was Vajpayee’s larger than life figure, his seniority over any RSS Chief during his time, his evolution into international cosmopolitans through the Nehru years, his incomparable oratory and a natural bent for deep reflection, left in him no smallness of mind to nurse prejudices or be overawed by “style”.

Jaswant Singh’s flair was allowed full play in the cabinet but reins were firmly with Vajpayee, something which became so clear when Vajpayee flinched away from what would have been a disastrous military engagement in northern Iraq and on which Jaswant Singh had set his heart. Having pulverized Iraq in April 2003, the US thought of sharing administrative responsibility with “allies” on what it imagined was a “conquered” oil rich country. Blandishments came India’s way.

Singh was not the only one so dazzled by the projection of American power on new global television, particularly the hyped up drama on April 9 on the pulling down of Saddam Hussain’s statue: the story put out by the US was that the statue had been pulled down by anti Saddam masses. Nothing of the sort had happened. That’s another story which must be told in detail.

The pulling down of the statue registered with Vajpayee as the rise of an “awesome power”, an event which dictated that festering regional conflicts should be ended. A week later, on April 18, 2003, while on a visit to Srinagar, he held out his hand of friendship to Pakistan. This, despite the two armies poised for military action – after Operation Parakram. Jaswant Singh saw the same events somewhat differently: as a confirmation of a powerful unipolar world. India had come so close to this powerful entity that a bonding was full of promise. Hence his enthusiasm for an Indian role in Iraq. India was to take charge of the Kurdish North – an imperial role atlast. Something in Jaswant Singh was turned on.

A senior Indian diplomat was dispatched on a secret mission to gauge the level of hospitality India would receive, should it accept its new imperial role. The diplomat returned after meeting Masoud Barzani, Jalal Talebani and, by way of a bonus, with a bag full of truffles strewn all over Talebani’s Estate.

With foresight, the diplomat made a clever detour to Dubai to establish contact with Adnan Pachachi, a former Iraqi Foreign Minister who the diplomatic grapevine in West Asia tipped as the possible front for the new “conquerors” of Iraq.

The Indian Ambassador to Iraq, B.B. Tyagi had been parked in a three star hotel in Amman, waiting for the Americans to declare themselves the country’s new rulers. Tyagi would charge down and present his credentials. Such unseemly obsequiousness.

Away from the herd, Vajpayee had made his own calculations. He realized his cabinet colleagues had been taken in by the sole superpower moment. At this moment (his colleagues thought) it would be tactless to refuse an American invitation. But Vajpayee asked tough questions. A Division plus 8000 soldiers and men would be required. The thrill and grandeur of the expedition was alluring, but not if New Delhi had to foot the bill. Permanent membership of the Security Council would be worth the gamble but that is not what the Americans were talking about.

Vajpayee the skilful politician came into play when he called up CPI leader, A.B. Bardhan, a friend of many years. Would Bardhan be happy at the sight of Indian troops, in Division strength, operating under US command without a UN flag? Vajpayee’s signal to Bardhan was to mobilize public opinion against the idea. Not only would it help India, but it would enable his colleagues to slide down the pole they had climbed up to impress the Americans.

That Singh corroborated to me bits of this untold story, a story in which he himself does not come out smelling of roses, shows the kind of gentleman he was. In fact Vajpayee’s was a cabinet of women and gentlemen, a few rotten apples notwithstanding. Supposing Prime Minister Narendra Modi stood in front of a mirror and kept a photo of this team of seniors by his side, for easy contemplation, I wonder what thoughts would cross his mind.

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Will Lockdown Wipe Out Lifestyles Built Over 30 years?

Will Lockdown Wipe Out Lifestyles Built Over 30 years?

                                                                                    Saeed Naqvi

 

The ancient Indian protocol for social distancing is embedded in the lines my yoga guru, from the famous ashram in Monghyr, Bihar, taught me:

“Chaar miley, chausath khiley,

Miley bees ek saath.

Harjan se harijan miley,

Bihsain bahattar hazar”

(When two plus two i.e. four eyes meet each other; 32 plus 32, 64 teeth smile together’

10 fingers of both palms, greet 10 of the other, a total of 20.

Then a person, blessed by the Lord, is in union with another without physical contact.

This results in 36,000 vital points in one human body and 36,000 in the other, sending ripples of joy through 72,000 points in the two beings.)

The current etiquette of social distancing possibly has precedent in past practice. Arrival of outsiders may well have wrenched us away. With Freudian prescience, Akbar Allahabadi put his finger on the nub of the matter:

“Tifl mein bu aaye kya ma baap ke atwar ki,

Doodh to dibbe ka hai taaleem hai Sarkar ki.”

(How should an infant inherit characteristics of his/her parents on a diet of powdered milk and government education?)

The lockdown outlawed any toing and froing, conditions which Ghalib had described with great simplicity about Delhi during 1857:

“Koi vaan se na aa sake yaan tak,

Aadmi vaan na ja sake yaan ka”

(No one from there can come here;

Likewise, no one from here can go there)

This limitation on visiting each other soon began to reveal our instinctive comfort level with social separation. We were quite comfortable within the Lakshman rekhas we sketched around ourselves. More revealing were telephone conversations with neighbours, and members of the Residents Welfare Association. What they expressed was indifference to the migrants who had walked away from the suddenly imposed penury, joblessness, no roof over their heads in the torrid heat – and now it seems, the approaching winter. Were these millions condemned by their “karma”, to be judged for suitable slots only in the next life?

When I visited South Africa to cover Mandela’s release what struck me was not the exclusive white enclaves. I had expected them. After all that is what Apartheid was all about. What astonished me was Lenasia, the Indian colony outside Johannesburg. Sprawling mansions with two swimming pools was the lot of many Indians. Unlike the joyous “Black” South Africa, much the overwhelming majority, Lenasia was uneasy at the end of White rule. It was possible to meet Manek Patel in his bungalow who thought “apartheid helped keep bloodline pure”.

Hierarchies and class are inescapable. A revolutionary like Ho Chi Minh did live in a modest, two room, oak cottage but it had the nicest view of the lake. The rare visa which enabled me to cover the 1979 China-Vietnam war was arranged by a member of the Bao Dai family, an old Vietnamese aristocracy.

The Indian hierarchy, based on caste, is unique. Unlike racism, it is not based on prejudice: it is simply a time honoured practice which draws red lines, not to be crossed, between occupation based caste groups arranged in a vertical hierarchy. Egalitarianism disrupts these red lines. The unease with the Constitution is deep seated for this reason with the present regime which harks back to a pre Islamic “golden past”.

As we enter the seventh month of the lockdown, it may be worthwhile taking stock. My wife and I (and a live-in help) have been moderately cautious: we have entertained, keeping social distancing and never having more than four guests. Likewise, we have visited friends for meals, and taken the masks off, once seated.

My daily three kilometer walk in the park adjacent to our apartment (I take off the mask; it suffocates me) has been sacrosanct as has been my yoga. The clan in hundreds spread across north India, has so far reported no expiry. But there have been three positive cases in Lucknow including an 85 year old with co morbidities. They recovered within three days and three children in the same apartment remained untouched by the virus.

The bleakness that I see ahead cannot be extrapolated from our experience in the health arena. It is the economic sphere, joblessness, abysmal drop in resources, redesigned kitchen budgets, even within cousins where darkness is catching up.

A visit to South Delhi’s Select City Mall was scary. Hanuman Chalisa was being chanted in the biggest food mart to invoke the monkey God. The lobby of the five star hotel was as eerie as the empty road in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, where a biplane swoops down on a terrified Cary Grant. A five star restaurant without a customer abutting a bar, stocked to the ceiling, but without a soul. Trust Ghalib to invade my mind:

“Bharē hain jis qadar jaam o subu, maikhana khali hai.”

(Goblets and cups are full to the brim, but the tavern is totally empty)

How long will Indian capitalism survive such tightly sealed goblets? Corona, I suspect, will wipe out lifestyles boosted by 30 years of reform. The new middle class will revert to their first car, the Maruti and mother’s vegetarian recipes.

This middle class may adjust without too much fuss to the pre reform austerities, a mood that will dovetail nicely in the march towards Hindu Rashtra. A fly in the ointment may well be mass anger. After all, those who walked, their ranks swelled by the jobless and the hungry, will ask questions. Will bread trump faith? To forestall any trouble on that count, the regime has already unfurled a range of draconian measures to put away anyone with a talent to mobilize public anger. As a backup there is also the scary virus as a deterrent against public anger bursting onto the streets. This scarecrow can be made scarier. But that might accelerate velocity of the economy’s nosedive. Which economy? What better way to stop the leak than to sink the ship? Salvation shimmers over the sands as silhouettes of the Hindu Rashtra appear.

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Antecedents Of Anti Muslim Bias In Media Including Sudarshan TV

Antecedents Of Anti Muslim Bias In Media Including Sudarshan TV

                                                                                        Saeed Naqvi

There have been many but let me cite just two reactions from the family to Justices D.Y. Chandrachud, Indu Malhotra and K.M. Joseph’s utterances restraining Sudarshan TV from telecasting its “UPSC Jihad” show. A relative mailed a couplet comprehensive in its simplicity:

“Door insaan ke sar se yeh musibat kar do

Aag dozakh ki bujha do, use jannat kar do”

(Remove this menace hovering over our heads,

Douse the leaping flames of hell; make it a paradise)

“Leaping flames of hell”: that is how a majority of Indian TV shows register with petrified Muslims. TV news is daily mortification; lynchings happen outdoors. The Supreme Court’s quest for “some mechanism” for self regulation of the media brings her hope. “Cricket will be played within a well measured boundary?” Not too much to expect.

The other reaction, from a younger relative is more cynical: if the Supreme Court had sharp instincts, it would have taken suo moto note of the outrage, before Sudarshan TV was able to telecast even one episode.

Incipient communalism was part of the Republic from the very beginning. Contentious issues on that score, however, did not come up when the electronic media consisted only of Doordarshan. DD, launched in the mid-70s, faced roadblocks too – as in the screening of Tamas, based on a novel by Bhishm Sahni, directed by Govind Nihalani. Centered on Partition, the director pulls no punches on exposing communalism on all sides. Since Hindu communalism had never been placed under the scanner with such candour in independent India, there was a furore. Screening was stopped. Only when Justices Bakhtawar Lentin and Sujata Manohar of Bombay High Court cleared the serial was it screened.

The Sudarshan TV’s “UPSC Jihad” is in the words of Justice Chandrachud, a “rabid” vilification of Muslims. The channel felt encouraged to cross the red line because this particular line is considered Kosher in the current political atmosphere by mainstream channels as well as fly-by-night media operators.

An anti Muslim edge is a perceived requirement of Modi’s march towards Hindu Rashtra. But an anti Muslim edge in the media has antecedents which predate Modi. Four apparently disparate events stirred the cauldron of communalism. In 1990, the Soviet Union collapsed. The disappearance of a column in the international system on which India had depended, plus an unprecedented economic crisis, caused Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao and Finance Minister Manmohan Singh to lurch towards Washington and swiftly embark on liberal economic policies.

With the new market economy came consumerism and the need for multiple TV channels to accommodate the burgeoning advertising. Remember, when the Babari Masjid fell in December 1992, there was only Doordarshan to televise the news. About this time Mandal versus Kamandal, caste versus communalism spiraled out of the control. It is pointless speculating whether a mushroom growth of channels went some distance in amplifying the new, energetic, communal politics. Market and identity politics is a separate study. Internal politics, however communal, would have been amenable to management. The real problem arose when globalization, spurred on by unbridled capitalism caused even Barack Obama to ask in retrospect: “Did we mishandle globalization?” I have often wondered if Ghalib’s imagery is applicable:

“Rau mein hai rakhsh e umr kahaan dekhiye thamey,

Nay haath bag par hain, na pa hai rakab mein.”

(The steed is in full flight; I know not where it will halt;

I have lost control of the reins and, feet are not in the stirrups.) That was globalization.

All Prime Ministers of India from 1947 to the mid-90s depended on traditional forms of mass mobilization, prior to the TV era. A more media savvy prime minister than Narendra Modi there has not been. He played all the strings to arrange for himself a saturation coverage of the 2014 and 2019 elections with expert ease. Crony capitalism was essential and it was easily managed.

Having brought down the Soviet Union, the US put its imprimatur on a Unipolar World Order by embarking on operation Desert Storm in February 1992. In some ways, Desert Storm bared the plans the US had for the future. The most important of these, pertinent to our narrative, was the inauguration of the Global Electronic Media which the Pentagon planned with such stealth that even arch ally like UK found itself flat footed. BBC’s senior correspondent, John Simpson walked around Baghdad with a lowly satellite telephone while Peter Arnett of the CNN launched the New World Information order from the terrace of Baghdad’s Al Rasheed hotel. For the first time in history, a war was brought live into our drawing rooms.

The unprecedented fire power which I saw from the 14^th floor of Al Mansour hotel, remained a nightmare for months. This frightful exhibition, let it always be remembered, divided the world in perpetuity into two hostile sets of audience – the triumphant West and the defeated Muslim world, humiliated yet again. Had multiple channels been operational in India (they were not in 1991-92), would they have been cheering western victory or Muslim defeat? It would have been bad form to pose this query then? Please note how times have changed and why the Supreme Court’s intervention is timely.

The Post 9/11 war on terror transformed itself into a crusade against Islam. Journalistic restraint became a casualty. Geraldo Rivera of Fox News flourished a revolver in front of a TV camera in October 2001 in Afghanistan. “Should I see Osama bin Laden anywhere, I shall finish him off with this”, said he, his finger on the trigger.

The copycat Indian media, now in a phase of rapid expansion, picked up every inflection. When Narendra Modi arrived in Gujarat in October 2001 for his baptism as Chief Minister, the fireworks over Afghanistan, demonization of Osama bin Laden was dominating the airwaves. Global Islamophobia dovetailed nicely into Indian communalism. The February 2002 Gujarat pogrom produced some excellent TV journalism but the confluence of Islamophobia and hard saffron muffled the murderous events for an attentive global audience.

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