The Indian judicial system is insane. The Ayodhya dispute judgment is proof enough. The judgment is a travesty of justice. It is a majority (2-1) judgment only because it technically conforms to the legal definition of a majority decision. Possibly, the dissent gives it the legitimacy it lacks.
I am told I can criticize judgments, but not question the motives of judges. Here, I am only questioning their beliefs. You will not be chastised for thinking the judges were overawed by the presence of Lord Ram as a petitioner. Deconstruct the two vocal judges; find a Hindu and a Muslim. Justice, go shag.
I am still not clear what the judges really wanted to say. The only point they agreed upon was to divide the disputed place among the three involved parties. Otherwise, they disagreed on everything else. Worse, their pronouncements were based on myth and hearsay couched as ‘belief’. Belief of the majority.
Let me take you through the charade.
1. Which structure existed before the Hindu lumpens installed some idols inside it in 1949?
The Hindu judge says: Disputed structure was always treated, considered and believed to be a mosque and practised by Mohammedans for worship accordingly.
Then why should the area on which that structure stood before it was demolished be given to the Hindus? The same Hindu judge says: …. the part of the land which is held by this Court to be the place of birth of Lord Rama according to the faith and belief of Hindus.
He accepts it was a Muslim structure, but still gives it to the Hindus. Why? Not because of evidence provided by the Archaeological Survey of India. But because of the belief of Hindus. Then what about the Muslim belief which the same judge also attests to? The Hindu judge went by the majority belief.
2. Who built the three-domed structure?
The Hindu judge says: The plaintiffs have failed to prove that the building in dispute was built by Babar or by Mir Baqi. In the absence of any otherwise pleadings and material it is difficult to hold as to when and by whom the disputed structure was constructed but this much is clear that the same was constructed before the visit of Joseph Tieffenthaler in Oudh area between 1766 to 1771.
The Muslim judge says: The disputed structure was constructed as mosque by or under orders of Babar. It is not proved by direct evidence that premises in dispute including constructed portion belonged to Babar or the person who constructed the mosque or under whose orders it was constructed.
Can you believe both judges looked at the same evidence to come to such conclusions! Why? Because one was Hindu, the other was Muslim.
3. Was a structure demolished to build the three-domed structure?
The Hindu judge says: The building in dispute was constructed after demolition of Non-Islamic religious structure, i.e., a Hindu temple.
The Muslim judge says: No temple was demolished for constructing the mosque. Mosque was constructed over the ruins of temples which were lying in utter ruins since a very long time before the construction of mosque and some material thereof was used in construction of the mosque.
The Muslim judge at least obliquely admits that the ruins over which the structure was built were of temples. But the Hindu judge believes for sure that any non-Islamic structure has to be a Hindu temple. Simple man, he.
4. What is the earliest evidence of the three-domed structure being used for prayers?
The Hindu judge: It is held that the muslims at least from 1860 and onwards have visited the inner courtyard in the premises in dispute and have offered Namaj there at. The last Namaj was offered on 16th December, 1949. It is held that building in question was not exclusively used by the members of muslim community. After 1856-57 outer courtyard exclusively used by Hindu and inner courtyard had been visited for the purpose of worship by the members of both the communities.
The Muslim judge: That much before 1855 Ram Chabutra and Seeta Rasoi had come into existence and Hindus were worshipping in the same. It was very very unique and absolutely unprecedented situation that in side the boundary wall and compound of the mosque Hindu religious places were there which were actually being worshipped along with offerings of Namaz by Muslims in the mosque.
A rare agreement that both Hindus and Muslims were worshipping in the same area in the mid-19th century, but that it were the Muslims who were solely worshipping inside the three-domed structure. The Hindu judge would have admitted, at least to himself, that the Hindus had never, never worshipped inside the three-domed structure. Which logically means that the Hindus violated all ethics by stealthily installing some Hindu idols inside the three-domed structure in 1949. Remember, this was just two years after India’s independence and the violent Partition which saw many Muslims from around Ayodhya migrate to Pakistan, leaving their homes and property to be usurped by the locals. The locals could have been Hindus.
5. Was there a Hindu idol inside the three-domed structure before 1949?
The Hindu judge: The idol in question kept under the Shikhar existed there prior to 6th December, 1992 but not from time immemorial and instead kept thereat in the night of 22nd/23rd December, 1949.
The Muslim judge: That for a very long time till the construction of the mosque it was treated/believed by Hindus that some where in a very large area of which premises in dispute is a very small part birth place of Lord Ram was situated, however, the belief did not relate to any specified small area within that bigger area specifically the premises in dispute.
The Muslim judge is more forthcoming on this issue.
6. When and how did the Hindus claim for the first time that their deity Ram was born at the site of the three-domed structure?
The Hindu judge: It is held that the place of birth, as believed and worshipped by Hindus, is the area covered under the central dome of the three domed structure, i.e., the disputed structure in the inner courtyard in the premises of dispute.
The Muslim judge: That after some time of construction of the mosque Hindus started identifying the premises in dispute as exact birth place of Lord Ram or a place wherein exact birth place was situated. That for some decades before 1949 Hindus started treating/believing the place beneath the Central dome of mosque (where at present make sift temple stands) to be exact birth place of Lord Ram.
The Muslim judge is more forthcoming on the issue than the Hindu judge who understands belief.
The above are but a sniff. Read the full text of the judgment for the fragrance. By the way, I don’t know if the Hindu deity called Ram is aware he has been dragged to court as well by his believers?
Here is the suit: O.O.S. No. 5 of 1989 (R.S.NO. 236/1989
Bhagwan Sri Rama Virajman & Ors. Vs. Sri Rajendra Singh & Ors.
Here is the explanation of the suit: The instant suit was filed on behalf of the deities and Sri Ram Janm Bhumi through the next friend, praying that the defendants be restrained not to interfere in the construction of the temple of plaintiff nos. 1 and 2 on the ground that the deities are perpetual minors and against them Limitation Laws do not run.
So, is Ram a god or a human?
Anyway, here is what the court has to say on Ram: This Court is of the view that place of birth that is Ram Janm Bhumi is a juristic person. The deity also attained the divinity like Agni, Vayu, Kedarnath. Asthan is personified as the spirit of divine worshipped as the birth place of Ram Lala or Lord Ram as a child. Spirit of divine ever remains present every where at all times for any one to invoke at any shape or form in accordance with his own aspirations and it can be shapeless and formless also.
I read and re-read this paragraph and even pinched myself because I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Was it part of a judgment or an RSS pamphlet?
One can go on and on taking potshots at the judgment which runs into thousands of pages. It is already getting boring and had it not been considered the most crucial judgment in India’s history – as a dumb tv journalist in India kept on telling his believers – it wouldn’t have been given a second glance even by a third-rate lawyer.
As of today, India is no longer a secular state. It is a Hindu nation exhibiting theocratic tendencies. Evidence need not assist the cause of justice. Spiritual belief, of the majority kind, is the quiet, safe, substitute. For all the cynicism, the judgment may actually help resolve the Ayodhya dispute. But even then, the fact will remain that the reconciliation was achieved on the basis of a judgment based on puerile, but politically safe, grounds. It makes us Hindus first, Indians next. It is a new politico-religious binary we have to get used to.
I have half a mind to meet a local criminal in Patna, the capital of Bihar, who, when I used to work there in the 1980s, decided to install a statue of a Hindu monkey god right in the middle of a busy street. In a few months, he erected a brick structure around the statue. A brief while later, he hired a priest to perform ‘puja’. Slowly but surely, the locals, who originally protested against the installation saying it was causing traffic jams, started visitng the place. And soon, it was called a temple. When I visited Patna a few years ago, I saw this criminal had now turned into a bearded man in saffron clothing and wooden sandals. One of his henchmen told me he had given up crime because the temple was paying him much more. I want to tell this fellow to encourage some locals to file a suit against him and his temple. The court will eventually side with him because it will believe in his belief in his god sitting on the middle of the street. So what if the evidence shows that the god is obstructing traffic?
In India anything can happen. Because Indians are foolish believers in a polity which does not want them but their majority status to serve its own ends. Left, Centre or Right. It’s the turn of the Right today. India Shining, those who killed a Gandhi and brought down a mosque once said. India Believing, they say now, mockingly. Ram serves all. Believe it.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Sunday, September 5, 2010
NRIs? Grow up. They are HTIs: Happen To be Indians
I was watching the latest Bollywood film released this week, ‘We Are Family’ at a theatre in Leicester. Something was nagging me. Something seemed out of place. The puzzle solved itself when the film ended with the scroll of acknowledgements.
The background score appeared in the top third of the scroll and quite low down appeared the names of the playback singers alongside the songs sequenced in the way they appear in the film.
It was a typical Hollywood scroll.
More to come. I did not see a single visual of India in the entire film. Part of it was shot in some Mumbai studio, but the outside scenes were entirely Australian. Sydney, to be precise. I didn’t see a single brown face other than the actors. And half the time they conversed in English. The Hindi they spoke you won’t hear anywhere in India. It’s typical NRI Hindi. I know because my daughter speaks the same way.
If I didn’t know better, I wouldn’t be blamed for thinking that it was a Hollywood film about an Indian family Down Under.
I think the globalisation of Bollywood since Dilwale Dulhaniyan Le Jayenge and Hum Aapke Hain Kaun – which introduced the non-resident Gujarati life-style to India – to Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham and Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna and Namaste London -- which swayed under the influence of western family values – to New York and Kites – which still had something of India lingering in them – is now complete with We Are Family.
Not just Bollywood, current films in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Bengali, even Oriya have begun to represent India in a non-Indian environment.
And why not? For instance, in my home town of Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh and the neighbouring city of Vijayawada, it is a fact that at least one member of each house lives abroad. The same is true, even if in varying degrees, for most states in India.
In the 1960s and 1970s, my paternal grandmother used to say it was a punishment visiting her children’s families in Delhi or Madras. There’s nothing in these cities, no culture, no ‘samskar’, no proper way of bringing up children, she would moan. But by the end of her life, she had travelled abroad more times than even some of her other sons and daughters! She could tell the difference between a burger and a ciabatta, told us that Universal is much better than the Vauhini Studio in Madras, didn’t like flying Air India and thought Des Pardes was the most un-Indian film she ever saw.
Her children who live abroad even today pay their annual visits to India, the men exchanging their loafers and jackets for the simple pant-and-shirt, the ladies digging out their sarees from the store rooms. They take their children on tours to Indian cities and temples in a faint attempt to pass on their Indianness to the next generation. But for the current generation – my cousins and their children -- Indianness ends with their names, that is, if ‘Subramanyam’ has not become ‘Mony’.
One of them wrote to me after seeing Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham: Guys like Amitabh Bachchan (who plays Shah Rukh Khan’s father) still exist in India? I asked the same chappie about We Are Family. He said: It’s cool. That’s how it is out here. Would you tell your children in a matter-of-fact manner that you had cancer, the Indian in me asked him. Why not? No point getting emotional about it. They’ll have to grow up one day and the best you can do is prepare them for the future. He said. Would an Indian mother, er, mom, agree to train another woman to take her place as shown in the film? The Indian in me wouldn’t let go. Where are you, cousin? A friend of mine brought home a step-dad for her children a month after the hubby died and they don’t have any problems. He intoned. I wanted to ask if anyone had cared to check how the children were adjusting. But I stopped myself.
We Are Family destroys many Indian assumptions, the foremost being you are an Indian wherever you are. Wrong. There is a clear disconnect between India and the Indian diaspora. India may continue to be delusional about Indians living abroad remaining Indian. Hardly. The concept of ‘pravasi bhartiya’ that the Pawars, Modis and Chandrababu Naidus institutionalised to promote the supposition that the Indian diaspora is the prime example of India shining is a charade.
Nine out of 10 Indians settled abroad did so because they hated the Indian system. Now they are Americans or Europeans and all the PIO cards India can print would not make them return ‘home’. They are married to their present, living cultures and they must be comfortable with it. If India wants to show them off as its brood, as a cap in its feather, let it. It doesn’t harm them. I have been away from India for nearly five years now and I am beginning to understand how the roots wither as generations expand. If Dev Patel, who played the protagonist kid in Slumdog Millionaire, prefers acting in Hollywood movies to Bollywood ones, no one can accuse him of being un-Indian.
There’s a video library in Leicester run by a Punjabi in his 50s who makes regular visits back home. He tells me that the VHS tapes and CDs of the pre-1990 Indian films are gathering dust because only the ‘buddhe log’ (old people) ask for them. The hot sellers are Indian films extensively shot abroad and show life-styles and cultures the youngsters can relate to. He thinks We Are Family is going to earn him much more than any other recent film.
What he says may be true for him, though I know that there is still a craze for the old B&Ws. Many families abroad send their children to Indian dance or music schools. They perform ‘puja’ during festivals, downloading the ‘vidhan’ (method of doing the puja) from the internet. The temples and gurdwaras get a regular stream of worshippers. But to interpret this as proof of them being Indian is a misnomer.
We Are Family sets the record straight. It reflects the current cultural moorings of a family in a setting far from Indian shores. It is coincidental that the said family happens to be of Indian origin. Remember, you don’t even know the surname of the family. You don’t see pictures of their parents and grand parents. You don’t know which part of India they come from and whether the cancer patient’s family in India had been informed. I don’t think you even see the ‘pundit’ who performs the marriage at the end of the film. You don’t see anyone, even the youngest child, weeping, save the patient herself. Emotions are kept to a minimum and you would find the relationships a bit cold by Indian standards. Not that there is dearth of either emotion or warmth. Only it is expressed in a way perhaps largely alien in India.
I can keep on dissecting the film, but the conclusion doesn’t change. We need to grow up. The USP of India lies within its own boundaries. Latching on to the diaspora doesn’t help. We have left it to Bollywood to reflect Indianness abroad. Ironic that it is a Bollywood film-maker who has latched on to the diaspora audience for his return on investment who drops the scales from our eyes.
The background score appeared in the top third of the scroll and quite low down appeared the names of the playback singers alongside the songs sequenced in the way they appear in the film.
It was a typical Hollywood scroll.
More to come. I did not see a single visual of India in the entire film. Part of it was shot in some Mumbai studio, but the outside scenes were entirely Australian. Sydney, to be precise. I didn’t see a single brown face other than the actors. And half the time they conversed in English. The Hindi they spoke you won’t hear anywhere in India. It’s typical NRI Hindi. I know because my daughter speaks the same way.
If I didn’t know better, I wouldn’t be blamed for thinking that it was a Hollywood film about an Indian family Down Under.
I think the globalisation of Bollywood since Dilwale Dulhaniyan Le Jayenge and Hum Aapke Hain Kaun – which introduced the non-resident Gujarati life-style to India – to Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham and Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna and Namaste London -- which swayed under the influence of western family values – to New York and Kites – which still had something of India lingering in them – is now complete with We Are Family.
Not just Bollywood, current films in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Bengali, even Oriya have begun to represent India in a non-Indian environment.
And why not? For instance, in my home town of Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh and the neighbouring city of Vijayawada, it is a fact that at least one member of each house lives abroad. The same is true, even if in varying degrees, for most states in India.
In the 1960s and 1970s, my paternal grandmother used to say it was a punishment visiting her children’s families in Delhi or Madras. There’s nothing in these cities, no culture, no ‘samskar’, no proper way of bringing up children, she would moan. But by the end of her life, she had travelled abroad more times than even some of her other sons and daughters! She could tell the difference between a burger and a ciabatta, told us that Universal is much better than the Vauhini Studio in Madras, didn’t like flying Air India and thought Des Pardes was the most un-Indian film she ever saw.
Her children who live abroad even today pay their annual visits to India, the men exchanging their loafers and jackets for the simple pant-and-shirt, the ladies digging out their sarees from the store rooms. They take their children on tours to Indian cities and temples in a faint attempt to pass on their Indianness to the next generation. But for the current generation – my cousins and their children -- Indianness ends with their names, that is, if ‘Subramanyam’ has not become ‘Mony’.
One of them wrote to me after seeing Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham: Guys like Amitabh Bachchan (who plays Shah Rukh Khan’s father) still exist in India? I asked the same chappie about We Are Family. He said: It’s cool. That’s how it is out here. Would you tell your children in a matter-of-fact manner that you had cancer, the Indian in me asked him. Why not? No point getting emotional about it. They’ll have to grow up one day and the best you can do is prepare them for the future. He said. Would an Indian mother, er, mom, agree to train another woman to take her place as shown in the film? The Indian in me wouldn’t let go. Where are you, cousin? A friend of mine brought home a step-dad for her children a month after the hubby died and they don’t have any problems. He intoned. I wanted to ask if anyone had cared to check how the children were adjusting. But I stopped myself.
We Are Family destroys many Indian assumptions, the foremost being you are an Indian wherever you are. Wrong. There is a clear disconnect between India and the Indian diaspora. India may continue to be delusional about Indians living abroad remaining Indian. Hardly. The concept of ‘pravasi bhartiya’ that the Pawars, Modis and Chandrababu Naidus institutionalised to promote the supposition that the Indian diaspora is the prime example of India shining is a charade.
Nine out of 10 Indians settled abroad did so because they hated the Indian system. Now they are Americans or Europeans and all the PIO cards India can print would not make them return ‘home’. They are married to their present, living cultures and they must be comfortable with it. If India wants to show them off as its brood, as a cap in its feather, let it. It doesn’t harm them. I have been away from India for nearly five years now and I am beginning to understand how the roots wither as generations expand. If Dev Patel, who played the protagonist kid in Slumdog Millionaire, prefers acting in Hollywood movies to Bollywood ones, no one can accuse him of being un-Indian.
There’s a video library in Leicester run by a Punjabi in his 50s who makes regular visits back home. He tells me that the VHS tapes and CDs of the pre-1990 Indian films are gathering dust because only the ‘buddhe log’ (old people) ask for them. The hot sellers are Indian films extensively shot abroad and show life-styles and cultures the youngsters can relate to. He thinks We Are Family is going to earn him much more than any other recent film.
What he says may be true for him, though I know that there is still a craze for the old B&Ws. Many families abroad send their children to Indian dance or music schools. They perform ‘puja’ during festivals, downloading the ‘vidhan’ (method of doing the puja) from the internet. The temples and gurdwaras get a regular stream of worshippers. But to interpret this as proof of them being Indian is a misnomer.
We Are Family sets the record straight. It reflects the current cultural moorings of a family in a setting far from Indian shores. It is coincidental that the said family happens to be of Indian origin. Remember, you don’t even know the surname of the family. You don’t see pictures of their parents and grand parents. You don’t know which part of India they come from and whether the cancer patient’s family in India had been informed. I don’t think you even see the ‘pundit’ who performs the marriage at the end of the film. You don’t see anyone, even the youngest child, weeping, save the patient herself. Emotions are kept to a minimum and you would find the relationships a bit cold by Indian standards. Not that there is dearth of either emotion or warmth. Only it is expressed in a way perhaps largely alien in India.
I can keep on dissecting the film, but the conclusion doesn’t change. We need to grow up. The USP of India lies within its own boundaries. Latching on to the diaspora doesn’t help. We have left it to Bollywood to reflect Indianness abroad. Ironic that it is a Bollywood film-maker who has latched on to the diaspora audience for his return on investment who drops the scales from our eyes.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Aarushi: Her killer's is a lesser crime than sleaze-starved Indian media's
This is with reference to an article by Mr. Manoj Mitta in The Times of India on August 8, 2010, headlined ‘Aarushi coverage reignites debate on media coverage’. This is the link to that article: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Aarushi-coverage-reignites-debate-on-media-restraint/articleshow/6273245.cms
Dear Manoj Mitta,
How easy for you to say that in the Arushi murder investigation case, the ‘real’ culprit is the CBI?
Just as the person who gives a bribe is as much a culprit as the one asking for it, the media is a ‘real’ culprit too.
Take your own paper, TOI, for instance. Why didn’t you or any one else report the grounds on which the supreme court issued notices to TOI along with two others?
Was it self-preservation or self-censorship? I can understand the journalists today need to survive first in order to cry from the pulpit. But surely self-restraint could have been observed by TOI when reporting about the case in the first place?
What can I say about the journalistic sobriety and corporate responsibility of a paper as TOI which can do anything to earn a penny. Remember, how TOI once sold its own mast head as advertising space? For that matter, it was a tough experience opening the link to your article in the TOI as I had to negotiate links to marriage and advertisement sites popping up endlessly before I could read what you wrote on such a serious issue.
You should go through the TOI archives to see how precipitously anti-Arushi its coverage was from day one.
The larger issue is the media, in India, today is a self-server. Nothing else. Had Arushi belonged to a poor family living in a slum, the reputable TOI wouldn’t even have bothered to covered the original crime in the first place. This is true for each and every publication and broadcaster who claims to undergo a journalistic routine in this country.
The Supreme Court correctly described the media as ‘irresponsible press’. Only the court waited thus far to say it. We have heard of the Indian courts suo moto trying to restrain excesses of various kinds in the past. What happened to the courts in Arushi’s case? Weren’t the judges reading the papers? Or did they realise that the late Arushi’s reputation had been tarnished by the media only after her father went to the court?
When the Arushi story broke all those years ago, I had the opportunity to talk to most print and TV journalists covering the case. Initially the novices – the bite carriers – were sent out to do the story. The talk, in newsrooms and the Press club, essentially was around who among the girl and her parents was sleeping with whom. But once the big bosses realised the story’s potential, and their own scope for self-doodling in signed columns or on live television, they took over. Bereft as they are all, without exception, of common sense and without a modicum of shame, they spilt their guts out, trying to stereotype Arushi as nothing less than a hooker. They made out their parents to be nothing short of night-time Romeos and Juliets.
I will not condescend to even talk about what the NOIDA police or the CBI did, beneath contempt as they truly are. Or, for that matter, Renuka Chowdhry, the then minister who shed crocodile tears and thus gained media mileage of her own by brandishing the press as sensationalist. Did she even go to Arushi’s house even once? What with her being a woman, a wife, a mother and all? Pooh.
The bile comes up when I see and read so-called senior journalists sitting in arm chairs in air-conditioned cubicles talk of human rights and individual privacy and media ethics and what not when in fact they are nothing but insensitive lackeys of media profiteers.
Let Arushi rest in peace. As Indian journalists that is the least the lot can do for her after all that it has already done. And next time when any of you are called on to the stage to accept an award for courageous,distinguished, human or social journalism, try to run away as far as possible. If not, I know none of you wouldn’t, at least cover your face while accepting such awards.
I remember a journalist, a cut-throat one at that, who would go out to tarnish women complaining of rape. One day, his own niece was raped. And I saw him – this now helpless hack – in tears calling up fellow hacks in other papers to condemn the rape and importantly, not to mention the name of his niece as that would spoil her future. I don’t know how the fellow hacks responded to his please, but I, with a hand over my heart, can say I took the opportunity to tell him without mincing words that he was reaping what he himself had sown, notwithstanding all my sympathies for his niece.
I know that journalists won’t change. Until it happens to them. Not that I wish it. But I can’t stop Arushi’s family from wanting to. Or, those hundreds and thousands of nameless, faceless Indians who are daily victims of the mighty pen-pushers.
Manoj, don’t take it personally. I know you as one of the most honest and sensitive of journalists I have come across. But then, even God makes mistakes sometimes.
What about me when I was a journalist, you or anyone can ask. I quit the shit when I found myself a lone voice. I didn’t care for the money or the position. Not a society-changing act, but better than the rest, I believe.
Dear Manoj Mitta,
How easy for you to say that in the Arushi murder investigation case, the ‘real’ culprit is the CBI?
Just as the person who gives a bribe is as much a culprit as the one asking for it, the media is a ‘real’ culprit too.
Take your own paper, TOI, for instance. Why didn’t you or any one else report the grounds on which the supreme court issued notices to TOI along with two others?
Was it self-preservation or self-censorship? I can understand the journalists today need to survive first in order to cry from the pulpit. But surely self-restraint could have been observed by TOI when reporting about the case in the first place?
What can I say about the journalistic sobriety and corporate responsibility of a paper as TOI which can do anything to earn a penny. Remember, how TOI once sold its own mast head as advertising space? For that matter, it was a tough experience opening the link to your article in the TOI as I had to negotiate links to marriage and advertisement sites popping up endlessly before I could read what you wrote on such a serious issue.
You should go through the TOI archives to see how precipitously anti-Arushi its coverage was from day one.
The larger issue is the media, in India, today is a self-server. Nothing else. Had Arushi belonged to a poor family living in a slum, the reputable TOI wouldn’t even have bothered to covered the original crime in the first place. This is true for each and every publication and broadcaster who claims to undergo a journalistic routine in this country.
The Supreme Court correctly described the media as ‘irresponsible press’. Only the court waited thus far to say it. We have heard of the Indian courts suo moto trying to restrain excesses of various kinds in the past. What happened to the courts in Arushi’s case? Weren’t the judges reading the papers? Or did they realise that the late Arushi’s reputation had been tarnished by the media only after her father went to the court?
When the Arushi story broke all those years ago, I had the opportunity to talk to most print and TV journalists covering the case. Initially the novices – the bite carriers – were sent out to do the story. The talk, in newsrooms and the Press club, essentially was around who among the girl and her parents was sleeping with whom. But once the big bosses realised the story’s potential, and their own scope for self-doodling in signed columns or on live television, they took over. Bereft as they are all, without exception, of common sense and without a modicum of shame, they spilt their guts out, trying to stereotype Arushi as nothing less than a hooker. They made out their parents to be nothing short of night-time Romeos and Juliets.
I will not condescend to even talk about what the NOIDA police or the CBI did, beneath contempt as they truly are. Or, for that matter, Renuka Chowdhry, the then minister who shed crocodile tears and thus gained media mileage of her own by brandishing the press as sensationalist. Did she even go to Arushi’s house even once? What with her being a woman, a wife, a mother and all? Pooh.
The bile comes up when I see and read so-called senior journalists sitting in arm chairs in air-conditioned cubicles talk of human rights and individual privacy and media ethics and what not when in fact they are nothing but insensitive lackeys of media profiteers.
Let Arushi rest in peace. As Indian journalists that is the least the lot can do for her after all that it has already done. And next time when any of you are called on to the stage to accept an award for courageous,distinguished, human or social journalism, try to run away as far as possible. If not, I know none of you wouldn’t, at least cover your face while accepting such awards.
I remember a journalist, a cut-throat one at that, who would go out to tarnish women complaining of rape. One day, his own niece was raped. And I saw him – this now helpless hack – in tears calling up fellow hacks in other papers to condemn the rape and importantly, not to mention the name of his niece as that would spoil her future. I don’t know how the fellow hacks responded to his please, but I, with a hand over my heart, can say I took the opportunity to tell him without mincing words that he was reaping what he himself had sown, notwithstanding all my sympathies for his niece.
I know that journalists won’t change. Until it happens to them. Not that I wish it. But I can’t stop Arushi’s family from wanting to. Or, those hundreds and thousands of nameless, faceless Indians who are daily victims of the mighty pen-pushers.
Manoj, don’t take it personally. I know you as one of the most honest and sensitive of journalists I have come across. But then, even God makes mistakes sometimes.
What about me when I was a journalist, you or anyone can ask. I quit the shit when I found myself a lone voice. I didn’t care for the money or the position. Not a society-changing act, but better than the rest, I believe.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Indian Judiciary: Courting Mythology
If The Times of India on May 22 is to be believed, a judge of the Punjab and Haryana high court has quietly re-written India’s millennia-old history. And, but for a solitary piece in the TOI, India is yet to take note of it.
Justice Rajive Bhalla, according to TOI On May 22, “recently” observed that “Maharishi Valmiki was not a dacoit before turning into a sage and writing the Ramayana”. The learned judge had no concrete proof – either a birth certificate or an ancient police FIR – so he based his observation on a research by a Punjab University scholar. Why was no proof submitted before him? The judge reportedly said that “actual facts appear to be lost in the mists of antiquity”.
The TOI correspondent also says about the nature of research by the scholar which became the judge’s basis for his observation: “The judge stated the salient features of the research, saying that “from Vedic literature up to 9th century AD, there is no reference as such that Maharishi Valmiki led a life of a dacoit or highwayman.” It was also stated that in his own work ‘Ramayana’, Valmiki is called Bhagwan, Muni, Rishi and Maharishi and no reference of his highwaymanship is available there.”
How did Valmiki’s past become the current topic for judicial discourse? The TOI tells us: “Justice Bhalla was hearing an appeal by a national television channel, asking the court to quash an FIR filed against it in Jalandhar for airing a serial that raised a question about Valmiki being a dacoit before he turned into a sage.” Understandably, I think, the protest was filed a member of the Valmiki community.
Here are two interesting reactions posted at the end of the TOI report:
Phadnis, Mumbai: “Courts have no business to pass Judgments on such issues. This is not a matter of Law. Whether the belief about Valmiki is correct or not is another matter. Many parts of the Ramayana or Mahabharata are controversial. Are the Courts going to Rule on such matters?”
M. Pankaj, New Delhi: “A mythology mixes facts, fiction, reality and divinity all to express the author's ideals and views. It cannot be ascertained or adjudged one way or another. Indeed media should be responsible, but religious believers should also not be over sensitive or angry since it shows the lack of their inner-confidence in their own belief. Focus on the substance…not on the superficial or what others say ...”
Since when has mythology come to be questioned in courts? Anything can happen in India. Remember, how the proposed Sethusamudram Project – envisaging a navigable sea route around the Indian peninsula passing through the Sri Lankan strait – was mired in controversy with the rightist Bharatiya Janata Party and dumb Hindu fanatics moving the courts saying the project would destroy a bridge – Rama Setu – apparently built by monkeys to help Rama – the protagonist of the Hindu epic Ramayana – to cross over into Sri Lanka to free his wife, Sita, from the clutches of the villain-king, Ravana.
That was in 2007. The then Congress government had submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court of India, with reports of the Archaeological Survey of India as appendices, that the existence of Rama was questionable and therefore not germane to the Sethusamudram Project. But imagine the power of the faithful! The government of India, foreseeing political oblivion if it did not bow before the protestors, subsequently withdrew that affidavit.
There are similarties in both cases:
1. In the Valmiki case, the defendants say they went by mythology while portraying Valmiki’s dacoit past. Justice Bhalla, despite his curt observation, leaves himself an escape valve by saying that “actual facts appear to be lost in the mists of antiquity”.
2. In the Sethusamudram case, the government says there is no “scientific” evidence of the fabled Ram Setu and yet withdraws its report. The Supreme Court order curtly asks for continuation of the Project in the interim, but orders that “the Ram Setu should not be touched”.
The similarity is that both the courts, despite their clear observations, seem hesitant to actually and directly challenge mythology and popular belief. What if?...the doubt lingers in their honourable minds.
These cases suggest that the mosaic of sanity covering the Indian judiciary, however thinly, is beginning to crack. This can only spell disaster for the country’s future for the following reasons:
1. The Indian judiciary’s sense of justice deems that heresay is no evidence. Now it becomes the judiciary’s responsibility whether mythology and belief fall under the category of heresay or not. If not, the above observations by the two courts are unjustified.
2. A judicial case is fought on the basis of facts. Facts, as I know them, are supposed to be tangible evidences which can be physically examined for verification. In the Valmiki case, the court ruling is based on a researcher’s evidence which contains no tangible proof other than claiming that there are no references of Valmiki’s dacoit past found in ancient Hindu/Indian literature. I do not know if the researcher has added a disclaimer that the literature she has gone through is all that exists and there is no possibility of other, yet unknown, literature existing. In short, there is no way of claiming that mere absence of the said reference in literature is clear, unequivocal proof that the reference never existed at all. There is a question of reasonable doubt here. So, is the researcher’s evidence an incontrovertible ‘fact’ in judicial terms? I think not. Similarly, in the Sethusamudram case, the court only asks the government not to disturb the Ram Setu, without giving any reasons. Does this mean that the court, as the case continues, thinks it will come across evidence that will prove the Hindus right and the Archaeological Survey of India wrong? The doubt lingers.
However, with the Indian courts not shying away from pronouncing on things mythological, I want ruling on the following:
It is generally believed – mind the word, ‘believed’ – that Valmiki belonged for the Kirata Bhil Adivasi, a tribal caste. It is this belief that brings together members of the caste and similar castes under the umbrella of the entire Valmiki community in India (and in Pakistan!)Now, there is another ‘belief’ that, as stated in Wikipedia, Valmiki re-incarnated himself as a Brahmin in the 15th century. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsidas)
The Wikipedia says: “Tulsidas is regarded as an incarnation of the great sage Valmiki. In Bhavishyottar Purana, Lord Shiva tells Parvati how Valmiki got a boon from Hanuman to sing the glories of Lord Rama in vernacular language in the Kali Yuga. This prophecy of Lord Shiva materialised on the Shraavan Shukla Saptami, Vikrami Samvat 1554 when Valmiki reincarnated as Tulsidas.
“Valmikistulasidasaha Kalou Devi Bhavishayati; Ramachanadrakathaametaam Bhashabhadhdhaan Karishyatihi. (Bhavishyottar Purana, Pratisarga Parva, 4.20).
“Nabhadas, a contemporary of Tulsidas and a great devotee, also describes Tulsidas as incarnation of Valmiki in his work Bhaktmaal. Even the Ramanandi sect (Tulsidas belonged to this sect) firmly believes that it was Valmiki himself who incarnated as Tulsidas in the Kali Yuga.”
If I believe all this to be true, then I will come to certain conclusions:
1. Valmiki should no longer be considered a tribal, but a Brahmin.
2. This means the Valmiki caste grouping falls under the Brahmin category.
3. This means the community now has all rights to all Brahmin rites.
4. This means the community can no longer avail of benefits the government offers to tribal communities in terms of reservation and other social benefits.
Now, suppose I move the courts to certify these conclusions on the basis of evidence available in Wikipedia, will I win my case? Going by the precedents, I should.
If not, do I have the right to move the courts, again, to nullify every social, cultural and political custom that exists in the geographical region called India and which is based on the tenets of Hinduism on the ground that Hinduism is not a religion, is a collection of beliefs and there is no evidence, especially written, of its history?
Won’t I be taken for a fool?
I rest my case.
Note: No disrespect to the Valmikis
Monday, May 17, 2010
Caste in India is the real outcast
This blog is in response to an article by distinguished journalist, Mr. A.J. Philip, in the newspaper he edits, The Herald of India. Here is the link to the original article: http://www.heraldofindia.com/article.php?id=489
Dear Mr. Philip,
Your reference to Bihar brings back lots of memories of my own stint as a journalist in that state. A senior colleague of mine, the late Arvind Das, used to call Bihar the centre of the universe, given the state's social complexities. While I appreciate your views on caste, and do abhor discrimination of any kind, I would like to point out a couple of things. Discrimination is as Darwinian as oppression. The evolution of a society is studied through the many cycles of catharsis that it has experienced. Our sociologists and historians have been trying for centuries to simply understand what is India and why is India different from any other society in the world. I have not found a decent answer yet in my many readings. I feel a society has to be seen in its living past and living present. Ignoring or denying any variable of that society and then attempting to study its evolution is a backfiring proposition. We may abhor cateism, we may deny we are casteists, but that does not make casteism go away. For the simple reason that our actions of the present have their moorings not only in our geneology but also in our cultural past. These actions define our identity, our location in society, whether we believe or not. Our society has evolved over thousands of years, its culture influenced by societies from across the seas at frequent intervals of history, now more so and at faster intervals because of the factor of globalisation. Some of the best Sikhs I know, professionals all in various countries abroad, came from Khalsa College. I know of two youngsters currently at an IIT who proudly say they are the alumni of the Brahman-Bhumihar Collegiate in Muzaffarpur. I know of many families with liberal values subscribing to caste-based matrimony publications. And so forth. Are these people casteist? I'd say yes. And any other answer conveys self-denial. More than ever before I today feel the need for a full-fledged caste census in India. For, never before has our society seen siesmic social and cultural changes as like now, what with India in the vortex of globalisation. There are many who predict a homogenous mass of peoples in a few generations' time. That would be the time of a society, truly classless and casteless. That would also be a time to forget where this society came from because for the citizens of that future society, their past would be an alien, long-forgotten, un-understandable phenomenon. In short, the legacy of this society of our times and our past will not remain even a memory. Why? Because nobody in our times cares to write a true account of it in the first place. I challenge any sociologist or historian to refute that their research of the Indian society is based on half or quarter knowledge considering the singular fact that never in our history has an accurate data of the caste composition been made available. Furthermore, histories and social texts are contructed realities and mediated by the ideologies of their authors. For example, I want to recall the controversy created when social and history theoreticians of the Left and Right fought over the origins of Ayodhya in the 1990s. Secondly, histories are written by conquerors, whether Hindu, Pashto, Iranian, Persian or Christian. And we have never had any clear interest in the subaltern and native histories except some works which in any case have never become mainstream reading material. For example, how many Indians even know what Kamban Ramayan is? See, even our so-called national epics have not escaped the scalpel of a divided society. So, when I say I am a a Vaidi ki Velanati Brahmin from Vemuru village in the coastal Andhra region of south India, am I speaking the truth? I have no way of verifying it. None of us Indians have. The point is, when we talk of caste even if to deny it, we have no historical or cultural basis to do so. That is why I support the caste census. Let us at least know what is that multi-cultural society we are a part of? We have already lived quite long in a social oblivion, basing our identities and ideologies developed out of socio-cultural castles built merely on belief. What we need is a new sociology of our not-so-new past.
Dear Mr. Philip,
Your reference to Bihar brings back lots of memories of my own stint as a journalist in that state. A senior colleague of mine, the late Arvind Das, used to call Bihar the centre of the universe, given the state's social complexities. While I appreciate your views on caste, and do abhor discrimination of any kind, I would like to point out a couple of things. Discrimination is as Darwinian as oppression. The evolution of a society is studied through the many cycles of catharsis that it has experienced. Our sociologists and historians have been trying for centuries to simply understand what is India and why is India different from any other society in the world. I have not found a decent answer yet in my many readings. I feel a society has to be seen in its living past and living present. Ignoring or denying any variable of that society and then attempting to study its evolution is a backfiring proposition. We may abhor cateism, we may deny we are casteists, but that does not make casteism go away. For the simple reason that our actions of the present have their moorings not only in our geneology but also in our cultural past. These actions define our identity, our location in society, whether we believe or not. Our society has evolved over thousands of years, its culture influenced by societies from across the seas at frequent intervals of history, now more so and at faster intervals because of the factor of globalisation. Some of the best Sikhs I know, professionals all in various countries abroad, came from Khalsa College. I know of two youngsters currently at an IIT who proudly say they are the alumni of the Brahman-Bhumihar Collegiate in Muzaffarpur. I know of many families with liberal values subscribing to caste-based matrimony publications. And so forth. Are these people casteist? I'd say yes. And any other answer conveys self-denial. More than ever before I today feel the need for a full-fledged caste census in India. For, never before has our society seen siesmic social and cultural changes as like now, what with India in the vortex of globalisation. There are many who predict a homogenous mass of peoples in a few generations' time. That would be the time of a society, truly classless and casteless. That would also be a time to forget where this society came from because for the citizens of that future society, their past would be an alien, long-forgotten, un-understandable phenomenon. In short, the legacy of this society of our times and our past will not remain even a memory. Why? Because nobody in our times cares to write a true account of it in the first place. I challenge any sociologist or historian to refute that their research of the Indian society is based on half or quarter knowledge considering the singular fact that never in our history has an accurate data of the caste composition been made available. Furthermore, histories and social texts are contructed realities and mediated by the ideologies of their authors. For example, I want to recall the controversy created when social and history theoreticians of the Left and Right fought over the origins of Ayodhya in the 1990s. Secondly, histories are written by conquerors, whether Hindu, Pashto, Iranian, Persian or Christian. And we have never had any clear interest in the subaltern and native histories except some works which in any case have never become mainstream reading material. For example, how many Indians even know what Kamban Ramayan is? See, even our so-called national epics have not escaped the scalpel of a divided society. So, when I say I am a a Vaidi ki Velanati Brahmin from Vemuru village in the coastal Andhra region of south India, am I speaking the truth? I have no way of verifying it. None of us Indians have. The point is, when we talk of caste even if to deny it, we have no historical or cultural basis to do so. That is why I support the caste census. Let us at least know what is that multi-cultural society we are a part of? We have already lived quite long in a social oblivion, basing our identities and ideologies developed out of socio-cultural castles built merely on belief. What we need is a new sociology of our not-so-new past.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Dear Swapan, BJP no different from Labour
All that can be said of Swapan Dasgupta is that he writes good English. What he writes about is bunkum -- I am sorry to say that -- if you read his front-page piece in The Pioneer on Sunday. He is all out criticising British PM Brown for trying to cobble up a government with the help of Liberal Democrats. It is going against the wishes of the people, he says, Cameron style. He lambasts Brown for readily agreeing to reform the British electoral process in return for Clegg's support. This is not done, this is not justice, this is not democracy, he laments. Perhaps he thinks Indian readers are idiots. That is why he has conveniently brushed under the carpet what the dead and beaten BJP is doing to somehow remain in circulation. For example, the BJP's attempts to come to power in whatever way in Jharkhand. Or, for that matter, the so-called alliance based on compromises including the BJP's own position on Aydodhya, to cobble up an alliance governmetn at the Centre. He flays Brown for trying to undo a 60-year-old electoral law just to appease the LibDems and without the backup of the electorate. For one, he again conveniently forgets how the BJP thrust upon unsuspecting Indians a 5000-year-old lie or fantasy about Ayodhya. For another, Brown in the same breath said there would be referendum. For yet another, if Dasgupta thinks a mere change of law cannot make the budget deficit of Britain go away, he should be told in equally clear terms that a dumb mound of earth in a place called Ayodhya cannot make India's poverty go away. He looks quite ill wearing the collar of a pedagogue. Best he returns to what he is -- a good journalist -- for which he has always been respected.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
IPL corruption: Sharjah it to save the culprits?
I was talking to my brother-in-law, Prasanna Ojha, in Mumbai early Sunday morning. He is a senior banker and avid cricket lover. We didn’t have time to talk things personal as the conversation was mostly around the IPL controversy. Put off by the dirt surrounding the League, Prasanna observed: I think the IPL won’t last long. It’s going the Sharjah way. It will be wound up, if only to protect the real culprits who’ve used the IPL to make and launder dirty money.
Gem of a thought. Original. I was surprised how our Indian media, agog over the IPL controversy, never thought of this angle. After all it is a thought and thoughts more than facts govern journalism, don’t they!
For 15 years everybody who was somebody in the Sharjah circuit made money. There are umpteen reports and investigations into match-fixing and player-buying. Careers of many cricketers were botched up as a result. As luck would have it, a timely bout of strained India-Pakistan relations was just the excuse the culprits needed to kill the golden goose that was Sharjah. Was any official, ever so minor, ever brought to book? No.
So, what’s stopping the real crooks behind IPL to do a Sharjah? Notwithstanding the fact that the franchisees would lose money or that companies and corporations which bought rights of television, logos, tickets, travel, accommodation, etc, would move courts for breach of contracts?
I feel there’s someone everyone’s trying to protect. And this someone is the chap who should be hanged for everything wrong with IPL. And this someone is known to all. The man who painstakingly won the epithet of ‘would-have-been-Prime-Minister’. The man who, it is said, is worth all smugglers put together in black money. The man who has the blood of thousands of farmers who committed suicide. The man who can stop off-loading of grain or other food stuff at Indian ports till such time that local prices shoot up. The man who controls a metropolis. The man who with support of a single-digit number of MPs can blackmail the government. Do I need to name him? Only morons would say yes.
The tax authorities were already on to the IPL dirt even before the present controversy arose. The Shashi Tharoor-Lalit Modi spat, intentional or not, only hastened the inevitable outcome that the IPL books would one day have to be checked. Lalit Modi has a lot to answer for, least for his so-called dictatorial attitude. He is what he is because of his ability to wheel and deal and not because of his short temper.
The question at hand is: Has Lalit Modi fallen out with his mentor, the man described above? On this tenuous answer hangs the future of IPL and a lot more. If yes, there’s going to be a catharsis. If not, let’s all look forward to IPL 2011.
In India where cricket is religion, cricket is politics too. Crass politics at that. Can the present Indian government dare to take a decisive decision on the IPL? A big, fat no. It is too busy in self-preservation. What if Sharad Pawar and the NCP break-away if they are to lose by any decisive government action? On such silly excuses is laid the future of this country! Shame!
But the opposition fares no better. Incidentally, have you heard the BJP cry foul about the corruption charges against IPL? Again, a big, fat no. Instead, the BJP cried hoarse about Tharoor who, in any case, was incidental to the real controversy surrounding IPL. Why?
Because, something the moronic parliamentarians could never do inside the august House – come together on a national issue – they have achieved it to hide the IPL dirt. The ruling Congress, opposition BJP and semi-conductor NCP are all involved with IPL. Rajiv Shukla, Arun Jaitley and of course the Pawar-Patel duo. Why politics, even cricket makes strange bedfellows. It is now left to cricket’s political have-nots, the Left parties, to cry about the real issue of corruption in IPL. But who cares for these guys? If they are honest about wanting to know the truth about IPL, it is only because they have not yet got the opportunity to be dishonest. They share no cake of the IPL pie. That’s all.
With politics in the hands of such corrupts and dimwits, IPL should be able to thrive. The BCCI, which perhaps is the most corrupt body in India, and to that matter the Indian government itself, do not have the balls to emulate the English cricket board. When the investment fraud of Texas billionaire Allen Stanford came to light, the English Cricket Board lost no time in severing all ties with his Stanford Cricket Series.
I have been keenly watching the fables and the fabulous passed off as IPL news in NDTV by Prannoy and his disciples. I studiously ignore Star for the simple reason that its main anchor still can’t sit or stand still and is devoid of basic broadcasting intelligence. Aajtak, on the other hand, continues to be refreshing, what with fresh and still freckled kids replacing professionals to dig out the IPL truth all by themselves with the help of non-exissting sources. (Maybe I really am acute scpetic to feel this way.)
The semi-retired and senile journalists, experts and politicians who make up a large part of the furniture in the NDTV studios continue to confuse the viewers mostly through calculated ignorance. In the last week, all their studio shows focussed only on IPL, just as their news fillers in the advertisement wheel. But at the end of the day, they didn’t amount to anything other than the information put out by agencies or the IPL culprits themselves on social networking sites. The one issue these forms of wood spoke at length was whether the government would go in for a JPC (joint parliamentary committee) to probe the IPL issue. Were they suggesting a way out for the culprits to go scot free, considering these very experts have in the past exposed the JPC for what it really is – the most legal form for hiding the dirt under the carpet? What was laughable was that these guys should be talking of a JPC when even politicians, like Abhishek Manu Singhvi of the Congress, were admitting on record that a JPC is ‘not binding on anyone at all’!
Of course, I must mention Barkha Dutt, whose unrivalled investigation brought her face to face with Pretty Zinta, part-owner of King’s Eleven from Punjab. She asks Zinta leading questions about the latter’s stake in the team and Zinta gives led answers to the effect that she is completely above board. And for some good reason, she also gives a clean chit to Shah Rukh Khan of Kolkata Knight Riders. Was Dutt fronting for Zinta’s real or contrived innocence? It is fair to give all parties in a controversy to have their say. But Dutt appeared desperate to get Zinta to say that she is innocent. Obviously, the ‘Padma’ journalist had done no homework. Otherwise the questions would have been direct and hitting. I think after frauds and sycophants, it will be the turn of the journalists to re-invent the Indian tradition of respecting elders or the powerful, as the case may be, by touching their feet or saying ‘Sir’ and ‘Madame’.
In the end, I doubt if the truth will come out at all. After all, the IPL culprits have the best possible defence batting for them: a cowardly government, a lame duck media, the partnership between the Congress and the BJP in the IPL and, of course, the Indian people who’d rather show the other cheek too, in the Gandhian way, if that would get them a chance to sit in a private box to watch cricket live from the stadium.
If there are any Indians who are exceptions to this ancient vestige of intellectual slavery, let them come out to ensure they are heard above the din of the silence of the lambs.
PS: We’ll have to wait for IPL 2011 to see if the foreign players will be keen to join the league after this scandal. As it is, many senior international players have retired despite auction selections, many top rankers from the 2008 auction have completed their three-year contracts, and very few known faces remain for being auctioned in 2011. Unless the organisers look at our neighbours, who failed to get in in 2010, to fill the slots.
Gem of a thought. Original. I was surprised how our Indian media, agog over the IPL controversy, never thought of this angle. After all it is a thought and thoughts more than facts govern journalism, don’t they!
For 15 years everybody who was somebody in the Sharjah circuit made money. There are umpteen reports and investigations into match-fixing and player-buying. Careers of many cricketers were botched up as a result. As luck would have it, a timely bout of strained India-Pakistan relations was just the excuse the culprits needed to kill the golden goose that was Sharjah. Was any official, ever so minor, ever brought to book? No.
So, what’s stopping the real crooks behind IPL to do a Sharjah? Notwithstanding the fact that the franchisees would lose money or that companies and corporations which bought rights of television, logos, tickets, travel, accommodation, etc, would move courts for breach of contracts?
I feel there’s someone everyone’s trying to protect. And this someone is the chap who should be hanged for everything wrong with IPL. And this someone is known to all. The man who painstakingly won the epithet of ‘would-have-been-Prime-Minister’. The man who, it is said, is worth all smugglers put together in black money. The man who has the blood of thousands of farmers who committed suicide. The man who can stop off-loading of grain or other food stuff at Indian ports till such time that local prices shoot up. The man who controls a metropolis. The man who with support of a single-digit number of MPs can blackmail the government. Do I need to name him? Only morons would say yes.
The tax authorities were already on to the IPL dirt even before the present controversy arose. The Shashi Tharoor-Lalit Modi spat, intentional or not, only hastened the inevitable outcome that the IPL books would one day have to be checked. Lalit Modi has a lot to answer for, least for his so-called dictatorial attitude. He is what he is because of his ability to wheel and deal and not because of his short temper.
The question at hand is: Has Lalit Modi fallen out with his mentor, the man described above? On this tenuous answer hangs the future of IPL and a lot more. If yes, there’s going to be a catharsis. If not, let’s all look forward to IPL 2011.
In India where cricket is religion, cricket is politics too. Crass politics at that. Can the present Indian government dare to take a decisive decision on the IPL? A big, fat no. It is too busy in self-preservation. What if Sharad Pawar and the NCP break-away if they are to lose by any decisive government action? On such silly excuses is laid the future of this country! Shame!
But the opposition fares no better. Incidentally, have you heard the BJP cry foul about the corruption charges against IPL? Again, a big, fat no. Instead, the BJP cried hoarse about Tharoor who, in any case, was incidental to the real controversy surrounding IPL. Why?
Because, something the moronic parliamentarians could never do inside the august House – come together on a national issue – they have achieved it to hide the IPL dirt. The ruling Congress, opposition BJP and semi-conductor NCP are all involved with IPL. Rajiv Shukla, Arun Jaitley and of course the Pawar-Patel duo. Why politics, even cricket makes strange bedfellows. It is now left to cricket’s political have-nots, the Left parties, to cry about the real issue of corruption in IPL. But who cares for these guys? If they are honest about wanting to know the truth about IPL, it is only because they have not yet got the opportunity to be dishonest. They share no cake of the IPL pie. That’s all.
With politics in the hands of such corrupts and dimwits, IPL should be able to thrive. The BCCI, which perhaps is the most corrupt body in India, and to that matter the Indian government itself, do not have the balls to emulate the English cricket board. When the investment fraud of Texas billionaire Allen Stanford came to light, the English Cricket Board lost no time in severing all ties with his Stanford Cricket Series.
I have been keenly watching the fables and the fabulous passed off as IPL news in NDTV by Prannoy and his disciples. I studiously ignore Star for the simple reason that its main anchor still can’t sit or stand still and is devoid of basic broadcasting intelligence. Aajtak, on the other hand, continues to be refreshing, what with fresh and still freckled kids replacing professionals to dig out the IPL truth all by themselves with the help of non-exissting sources. (Maybe I really am acute scpetic to feel this way.)
The semi-retired and senile journalists, experts and politicians who make up a large part of the furniture in the NDTV studios continue to confuse the viewers mostly through calculated ignorance. In the last week, all their studio shows focussed only on IPL, just as their news fillers in the advertisement wheel. But at the end of the day, they didn’t amount to anything other than the information put out by agencies or the IPL culprits themselves on social networking sites. The one issue these forms of wood spoke at length was whether the government would go in for a JPC (joint parliamentary committee) to probe the IPL issue. Were they suggesting a way out for the culprits to go scot free, considering these very experts have in the past exposed the JPC for what it really is – the most legal form for hiding the dirt under the carpet? What was laughable was that these guys should be talking of a JPC when even politicians, like Abhishek Manu Singhvi of the Congress, were admitting on record that a JPC is ‘not binding on anyone at all’!
Of course, I must mention Barkha Dutt, whose unrivalled investigation brought her face to face with Pretty Zinta, part-owner of King’s Eleven from Punjab. She asks Zinta leading questions about the latter’s stake in the team and Zinta gives led answers to the effect that she is completely above board. And for some good reason, she also gives a clean chit to Shah Rukh Khan of Kolkata Knight Riders. Was Dutt fronting for Zinta’s real or contrived innocence? It is fair to give all parties in a controversy to have their say. But Dutt appeared desperate to get Zinta to say that she is innocent. Obviously, the ‘Padma’ journalist had done no homework. Otherwise the questions would have been direct and hitting. I think after frauds and sycophants, it will be the turn of the journalists to re-invent the Indian tradition of respecting elders or the powerful, as the case may be, by touching their feet or saying ‘Sir’ and ‘Madame’.
In the end, I doubt if the truth will come out at all. After all, the IPL culprits have the best possible defence batting for them: a cowardly government, a lame duck media, the partnership between the Congress and the BJP in the IPL and, of course, the Indian people who’d rather show the other cheek too, in the Gandhian way, if that would get them a chance to sit in a private box to watch cricket live from the stadium.
If there are any Indians who are exceptions to this ancient vestige of intellectual slavery, let them come out to ensure they are heard above the din of the silence of the lambs.
PS: We’ll have to wait for IPL 2011 to see if the foreign players will be keen to join the league after this scandal. As it is, many senior international players have retired despite auction selections, many top rankers from the 2008 auction have completed their three-year contracts, and very few known faces remain for being auctioned in 2011. Unless the organisers look at our neighbours, who failed to get in in 2010, to fill the slots.
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