Does secularism mean Hindu subservience?

The two hot debating topics this December first week were the demolition of a disused building in Ayodhya twenty years ago and the current Gujarat election. The Ayodhya anniversary has by now become an annual ritual which (especially) the English language media religiously (pun intended) runs through, dusting its old footage or commissioning new quotes from old columnists. The debate such as it is, is like a restricted club whose membership is closed to outsiders. It is like the yarn about investigating a murder that occurred during an Italian card game in New York. The investigator asks the first guy, ‘who fired the shot?’ and he replies, ‘I dunno. I didn’t see it. I was sitting with my back to the door, you see.’ The second guy says the same thing and all others say the same thing. It was one card game in which everyone sat on the same side of the table!

As the debate could have only one side, any new columnists would have to conform by spewing old arguments of the old columnists, but if possible, in new a idiom. Or face ostracism from what is known as the mainstream media. Even the few columnists who have a contrary view would have to shroud their views in a lot of verbiage as to practically make them unintelligible or at least sound neutral. Or pass them as social science theories. Columnists with a Hindu moniker have to be doubly careful to pass the test of secularism. Others are not hampered by any such shibboleths. Thus, to be admitted to the club while a columnist with a name like a Misra or a Sarma would have to constantly invoke the dangers posed by the ‘Hindu right’ to the ‘secular fabric’ of the nation, a Manu Joseph could be brazen about his concept of secularism. Joseph first dismissed the notion that India is secular in his December 5 column in the International Herald Tribune (India Is Not A Secular Republic). To make matters clear even for the dimwitted, Joseph elaborated his concept of secularism in his column of the same day in New York Times (Secularism in Search of a Nation):

“…what it really meant, without spelling it out, was that Hindus, who make up the majority of the nation, would have to accommodate themselves to the ways of the other religions, even if this meant taking some cultural blows.”

In order to leave no one in doubt, as to what he meant by ‘taking cultural blows’, Joseph elaborates:

“So, Hindus would have to accept the slaughter of cows, which they consider sacred (some Indian states have banned cow slaughter); …”

For Joseph this was not enough.

“… the Muslim community’s perceived infatuation with Pakistan;”

Having demolished an oft repeated if clichéd ‘the idea of India’, shibboleth chanted by the secular intelligentsia, he comes to the nub:

“…the conversion of poor, low-caste Hindus to Christianity by evangelists; and the near impossibility of getting admitted to some prestigious schools and colleges run by Christian organizations because so many places are reserved for Christian students.”

The last bit about ‘the near impossibility of getting admitted to some prestigious schools and colleges’ is a placebo thrown in to mask his main demand that India be made a grazing ground for number-starved Churches in the west. There was a time when Christian run schools and colleges were in demand but there is no such mad scramble for them now as non-Christian (calling them Hindu might offend secular sensibilities!) institutions offer quality education comparable to or even better than them.

As Joseph was writing in an American newspaper read mainly in America would he consider tendering the same advice to the Americans? For instance, being a secular nation, America should have taken the cultural blow of ‘the World Trade Centre being brought down by a few misguided youth’ and not waged a war first on Afghanistan and then on Iraq. Or that America should really not bother about some of its jobs being Banglored. Or that twenty-first century America should really be not so conservative. If it were not so why would a Bobby Jindal or a Nicky Haley would have had to go to such great lengths to conceal their ethnic identities and fabricate new ones!  

After all this din, the Indian mainstream media would have redeemed a bit of its credibility if it expended a wee-bit of its energies in mourning a humanitarian disaster that is comparable only to the holocaust. None bothered (or dared) ask, ‘if the day on which a disused structure was destroyed is to be described a black day and commemorated every year, what about the day on which an estimated 450,000 Hindus were exiled in their own homeland?’ Why do lofty ideals like secularism and composite culture do not have the same connotation in India’s northern-most state? If December 6 is to be celebrated as a ‘black day’ every year why don’t we commemorate January 19 the day on which the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits commenced in 1989 and did not stop till virtually all of them were driven out? By not speaking about it if not against it are not our intelligentsia and media guilty of complicity?

The Bankster

Book Review

Subramanian, Ravi. 2012. The Bankster. Rupa Publications. New Delhi. Pages: 358. Price: Rs 250/-

To an Indian, The Wall Street Journal’s commendation of the author, ‘Meet the John Grisham of banking’ might appear a bit patronizing, but it is nevertheless true. In ‘The Bankster’ Ravi Subramanian turned out in every bit, an ‘edge of the seat thriller’ from as wry a subject as banking. For, what would you expect from a bank - its premises buzzing with customers rushing in and out cashing cheques or buying drafts?

Although nationalized banks in the pre-liberalisation, pre-competition era were walled-in by bureaucratic procedures and riven by trade unionism, many of them provided a cordial ambience. Regular customers were recognized and personalized service was the norm. After liberalisation many non-banking financial institutions in India barged into banking. A number of multinational banks too entered the market. The accent of the private players, both national and international is on aggressive marketing. But in spite of their glitzy interiors and automated procedures, somehow the personalized service that one experienced in the banks of an earlier era has been missing.  

Subramanian brought out in vivid detail the inner mechanisms of a multinational bank, including internal intrigues, coups and a bit of adultery. One would like to believe the last bit was included in the story only to embellish it and it is not really prevalent on a scale that would subvert the functioning, norms and ethics of the banking sector. The story revolves round a few central characters, Vikram, the head of retail banking, Tanuja the head of HR, Indrani, the president of the bank, Nikhil a branch manager, Harshita a conscientious Relationship Manager and Zinaida her unscrupulous counterpart of the Indian subsidiary of Greater Boston Global Bank known as GB2 within.

The author skillfully wove into the story some contemporary events. Recently a multinational bank has been in the news in the UK and the US for its role in money laundering. The same bank was involved in India in a legal battle for betraying the confidence of a client, who happens to be a popular actress. In the novel, an amoral Relationship Manager sold an unsuspecting customer a unit linked insurance product as a fixed deposit. The same Relationship Manager was also a major conduit in a money laundering operation. Her superiors ignored her malfeasance not only because she was producing results but also because she had no qualms about dangling her charms to seduce them.

In the real life case a Relationship Manager does the client in by investing her money in stocks over and over again to achieve his metrics and making profits for the bank. His indiscriminate and reckless investment of her funds in the stock market not only diminished her net worth because of his poor judgement in picking stocks, but when she actually did make a profit she had to pay a fortune as capital gains tax on short term gains.

By now everyone knows how some commercial interests in the west have been using greedy NGOs in India as Trojans to subvert power and irrigation projects in India. The agitation against the Kudankulam nuclear power project in Tamil Nadu and the one against an irrigation project in Madhya Pradesh are cases in point.  

Apart from funneling funds for such subversive activities, some employees of the bank (in the novel) play a part in circulating counterfeit currency using the bank as a conduit. All these illegal activities make for a deadly cocktail for some of its players. There were murders and chases. Technology plays a major role in solving the crimes. The author was successful in keeping a veil over the identity of the villain till the very end. The book is a good read for a cosy weekend or a journey. The only complaint this reviewer has is about is its language. It is full of banking patois and cliché-ridden. 

This review is part of the Book Reviews programme at Blogadda.com 

Congress’ Communism & Empress SoniaG’s Upkeep

Cho Ramaswamy's Tuglaq (the protagonist in the eponymous movie) says, ‘It is not possible to make the poor rich. Therefore make the rich poor and all will be equal!’ It is an unstated dictum of the communist proletariat. The communist elite (vlasti in Russian) had a different take on Marxist philosophy as George Orwell so vividly depicted in his Animal Farm. Irrespective of how they live, quite often the vlasti echo the proletarian edict, more to show that their heart is in the right place rather than because of an ardent belief that ‘all men should be equal’. Therefore it is no surprise to hear Mani Sankar Aiyar often cavil about Antilia, Mukesh Ambani’s 27-floor residence in Mumbai’s southern suburbs. Flaunting his knowledge of the Gini coefficient (a measure of inequality of wealth distribution) he often cites Antilia as an example of the deep chasm that exists between the rich and the poor in India. He did so again in the television debate, ‘Is India ripe for a revolution?’ hosted by Tim Sebastian on Bloomberg / Headlines Today recently. (Indian television anchors have much to learn from Sebastian, but that is a different matter altogether.)

Antilia

One way to look at Mukesh’s opulence is to attribute it to his business acumen, hard work and intelligence. For, although he has inherited a large part of his wealth he must have worked hard to grow the rest. In a democratic society which at least theoretically provides equal opportunities to all, one should not grudge Mukesh his success. Much has been said about Mukesh’s father Dhirubhai’s business acumen. His life is the stuff that made it to case studies in business schools. The less uncharitable (but probably more accurate) view is to attribute Dhirubhai Ambani’s success less to business acumen and more to his ability to network with the ruling establishment. Even this may be characterised as business acumen, but to put it bluntly Dhirubai was able bribe his way through the Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi administrations to tweak government policy to suit his business interests. Dhirubhai’s Reliance Industries was perhaps the first example of crony capitalism on a gigantic scale. It had all the ingredients: funnelling funds through invisible sources, stock exchange skirmishes and manipulation of government policy. V. P. Singh who took on Dhirubhai to alter government policy on import of purified terephthalic acid (PTA) lost his job as Finance Minister! (See For this fighter, life was a big battle). On hindsight one might even suspect that the Bofors scam could have been a decoy. This being so, why does Aiyar constantly invoke Mukesh as a negative example of economic distortions knowing fully well that the seeds of the Ambani empire were sown during Congress regimes? More importantly, the Ambani empire reached its exponential growth stage during the regimes of Aiyar’s deities, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.

Be that as it may, if opulent living reflects a ‘vulgarity of greed’ to use an expression coined in the Films Division (of the I & B ministry) documentaries of the emergency era, how much does it cost to put up MPs like Aiyar in Lutyen’s Delhi? How much does empress Sonia’s upkeep cost the people of India?

[N.B.: What follows are only ‘back of the envelope’ calculations based on certain realistic assumptions.]

According to a recent Economic Times report, bungalows in Delhi’s Lutyen’s Bungalow Zone (LBZ) cost between Rs 111 and Rs 170 Crore. (See Delhi's most expensive realty deal: Torrent Group buys bungalow in Lutyen’s Zone for Rs111 crore). As No.10 Janpath is in an even more exclusive zone, it may be safely rated at the top end of the scale, i.e. Rs 170 Crore, assuming of course that it is of the same area and not bigger! At 1% of the price as rental value the bungalow costs Rs 1.7 Crore a year (as rent) to the people of India. [A] One might safely assume an expenditure of Rs 30, 00,000 per annum on staff and maintenance. [B]

Her electricity bills come to Rs 2. 49 Lakh a year. [C] (See Sonia Gandhi's power bill: over Rs. 7 lakh for 3 years). We are relieved to know, that of the Rs 7.47 Lakhs incurred in three years, she herself has paid all of Rs 0.09 Lakh whereas the Lok Sabha Secretariat paid Rs 7.38 Lakh!

As an MP she is eligible to salary and perquisites of Rs 36. 45 Lakh, excluding house rent which is already computed above. [D] (See SALARYOF MP'S - Indian Parliament members salary)

She is entitled to Z+ security which consists of 36 personnel of the NSG. An NSG Z+ team consists of various ranks from IG to constable. Assuming an average salary of Rs 3 Lakh per commando, the team cost Rs 1.08 Crore per annum. [E]

The total of [A]+ [B]+ [C]+ [D]+ [E] = Rs 3.47 Crore per annum. Based on a similar computation, Rahul’s expenditure to the exchequer (only salary and security included) comes to Rs 1. 45 Crore.

It is interesting to note that (if our rental computation is right) Sonia exceeds her rental allowance by 700% and her electricity allowance by 400%.

Is it not pertinent to ask, how many households in India can incur an expenditure of Rs 4.92 Crore per annum, especially in a country in which the BPL is set at just Rs 11, 520? 

The Krishna Key

Book Review

Sanghi, Ashwin. (2012). The Krishna Key. Westland. Chennai. Pages: 475. Price: Rs: 250/-

Indians do not have a sense of history. The ancient rishis did not leave a record of their scientific experiments and achievements. For them science was a philosophical pursuit, an eternal quest for truth and unravelling the mysteries of the universe, and aimed at improving the lot of mankind. (See SCIENCE INANCIENT INDIA).

If the youth of today does not have an understanding of the achievements of their ancestors, there are several reasons for this. One is that the nation was subjugated and ruled by aliens for nearly a thousand years. If the theme of the alien rule during the first six hundred and fifty years was inflicting physical cruelties, the British who ruled next for about three hundred years used a different tactic. Their objective was to keep the Indians physically and psychologically oppressed. By the time the British left in 1947, large numbers of Indians were oblivious of their ancient glory. They were convinced that they were always a backward civilization and that they were civilized by their alien rulers!

The history of India had been often a ‘made to order’ product commissioned to sub-serve the interests of those who did so. History was written to suit the religious and political interests of the rulers. The religious objective was to lower the self-esteem of the people and show India’s indigenous religion as a backward cult. The political objective was to cleave the society vertically and horizontally. It is as a part of this game plan that the ‘Aryan – Dravidian’ bogey and ‘Sanskrit is a dead language’ myth were created. (See Should WeRe-write Indian History?)

Any residual knowledge or achievements that survive were sought to be explained away as relevant only to the upper strata of the society. The caste system that plagues the nation today was in fact congealed into place during the two phases of alien rule mentioned earlier. Originally, it was merely a division of labour and social mobility permitted both upward and downward movement of people. The castes were no more different than the Anglo Saxon surnames like ‘Barber’ or ‘Carpenter’, which only connote the trades the ancestors of these people might have adopted in the past. Any hope that history written during the colonial rule would be corrected and rewritten in the post independence period to project the glories of the ancient civilization was shot down because of the political imperatives of the new rulers and their fellow travellers in the academia. Both the rulers and their fellow travellers, the ‘rootless intellectuals’ (to use Ernest Bevin’s phrase) who occupied the higher echelons of the academia failed to see the role of history as a unifying force and nation building. As a result, we are today not one nation but a loose conglomeration of states held together ironically, by a civilization which the rulers and the academia wish to airbrush. If the ‘official’ academia is unwilling to correct wrong history how do we educate posterity about the grandeur of their ancestry?

It is against this backdrop that ‘The Krishna Key’ assumes significance. The book discusses in great detail the history of the extinct Saraswati River and the civilization that shadowed its growth and decline. Thanks to all the scientific evidence that has come to light in recent decades, the politically motivated ‘Aryan - Dravidian’ theory can at last be laid to rest. (RIP Aryan Invasion / Aryan Migration Theory!) The evidence includes not only new archaeological evidence but dating historical events based on the planetary configurations described in our epics. It would be ridiculous to argue that the writers of the Ithihasas not only exhibited extraordinary skill in creating everlasting stories but went to the extent of calculating planetary configurations that predated them by thousands of years simply to include them in their works. It was not beyond the power of the rishis who created the epics to do so, but it would only be natural for them to describe the planetary positions as they were seen in their time. It is in this context, after demolishing the impugned ‘Aryan - Dravidian’ theory, the book pointed out the possibility of an ancient civilization spreading from east to west instead of west to east as always presumed. Ironically it bases its argument on the same philological logic on which the protagonists of ‘Aryan - Dravidian’ theory based theirs. If ‘Dalton’s atomic theory’ could be rescinded within forty years of its proposition, why should we also not discard the ‘Aryan - Dravidian’ theory in view of mounting evidence to the contrary? There is a lot of discussion in the book about the cryptic symbolism of numbers and various other practices of Hinduism which were originally initiated by the rishis in their scientific wisdom. It is for this wealth of detail that the book should be read by everyone interested ancient Hindu civilisations.  

The novel is about the quest of a group of four scholars (a historian, an archaeologist, a marine archaeologist and a geneticist) to unlock the secrets of Krishna’s ancient kingdom of Dwaraka. The storyline is a broth of mythology, history, archaeology and theology cunningly intermingled with the current narrative that makes for compelling reading. The story of Krishna and Mahabharata is used as a backdrop for a story of murder and mystery. The cast of characters includes an intelligent, middle-aged, widower professor and a dutiful (and middle-aged), widowed woman police officer to pair him. There is a beautiful, clever, not so honest (again middle aged) spinster, research scholar and her unquestioning, criminal acolyte. There is a sharp, ruthless criminal lawyer who made his pot of gold representing the criminal underworld (imagine someone like ‘Raj Malhotra’ in the Govinda starrer, ‘Kyonki main jhut nahi bolta ’) and a gangland boss with a hoary ancestry dating all the way back to Sri Krishna. As the narrative picks up speed (it does so right in the beginning) the characters run about from Jaipur to Pune to Delhi to Jodhpur to Dwaraka to Chandigarh via Manasa Sarovar and finally to the Taj Mahal in Agra, the crooked on a murder spree and the righteous in pursuit. As in all virtuous stories, in this novel too good triumphs over evil and the culprits were captured. Giving away more details of the story would be spoiling the thrill of reading it. One can’t help recall Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code after reading all those twists and turns, allusions to mythological events and cryptic puzzles.

Though there are only a few errors in the book, some of them are significant and cannot be ignored. See these examples: There is a story behind Bhima’s slaying of Jarasandha. It was not about Sri Krishna's  desire to strengthen his Yadava kingdom by eliminating a potential enemy, as mentioned. (p. 187) According to the Mahabharata, five mahabalas (immensely strong warriors) were born at the same time under a single birth star. They were Bhima, Bakasura, Duryodhana, Keechaka and Jarasandha. According to a divine ordinance, the first to slay any one of the others would also slay the remaining three. Therefore for Bhima to slay Duryodhana at the end of the war according to his vow, it was necessary for him to slay any one of the others first. Yudhisthira’s first Rajasuya Yaga  was to make the kings of all those kingdoms through which the horse roamed accept his suzerainty; not as an equal. (p. 187). The raison d’ etre for performing a Rajasuya Yaga was correctly described when Yudhisthira performed it a second time after the war. In line 14, p. 189, it should be Sastra chikitsa or tantra (meaning surgery) and not Sastra karma. In the sentence ‘Some coincided, others differed’ (line 7, p 272), shouldn’t it be ‘concurred’? The Rig Vedic hymn (line 6, p. 293) should read as ‘ekam sat; viprah bahudha vadanti’ (not vidhaante). Isn’t it ‘Rahika and Saini’ and not ‘Priya and Saini’ in p. 301? Prithviraj Chouhan the last Hindu king was killed in 1192 AD and not BCE (p. 328). In line 9 page 330 the sentence should read as ‘… Indian blacksmiths had succeeded’, not ‘succeeding’. Is it necessary to repeat the story of ‘Syamantaka mani’ once told by Sri Krishna and a second time by Sir Khan? The event of Gandhari bestowing Duryodhana with vajra sareera with her fondling touch had occurred in his childhood, not before the war. Sri Krishna prevented Duryodhana’s whole body being bestowed with a vajra sareera by jeering at him for walking naked (p. 372). Sri Krishna thus ensured the upper part of his thighs remained vulnerable, to enable Bhima to hit there and so fulfil his vow which he made when Draupadi was insulted. It should be Saini and Radhika who put their hands up and not Priya and Saini (line 16-17 p. 389). The sastra that dictates temple architecture is the Aagama Sastra and not the Vaastu Sastra. (p. 402). A nerve does not supply blood. It should be a blood vessel (line 13, p. 406). Avoiding these errors would have improved an otherwise excellently researched well-written novel.

This review is part of the Book Reviews programme at Blogadda.com 

Rahul Gandhi, BCG’s ‘problem child’!

In marketing, Boston Consulting Group’s growth share matrix (or BCG matrix) is an instrument used to assess the current state and predict the future performance of a product (brand) or product line. In marketing parlance, the grid determines a product’s ‘attractiveness’. The grid plots a product’s relative market share against market growth to analyse its current state and predict its future. The four quadrants in the grid which represent the life cycle of a product are named ‘dogs’, ‘question marks (or problem children)’, ‘stars’ and ‘cash cows’. While ‘stars’ and ‘cash cows’ are every marketer’s dream the ‘question marks (or problem children)’ are a real dilemma. This is because if these products make the ‘success test’ in the market place they move into the ‘stars’ category and eventually into the ‘cash cows’ category. But while they consume large amounts of resources for promotion, they do not generate immediate revenues. If they gain market share, they move into the ‘stars’ category but after years of consumption and effort, if they fail, they degenerate into the ‘dogs’ category. Even as ‘dogs’ they pose another dilemma to the marketer. Some marketers believe that although the ‘dogs’ do not generate large net revenues; they are still useful because they split overheads. More importantly, from a human resources standpoint, they help in maintaining employment potential. Occasionally marketers have to choose the hard option – bite the bullet as it were – and shed the ‘dogs’.

What does all this have to do with the politics? Well, political philosophies are like product lines and individual political leaders are like products. Remember, how the ‘India shining’ campaign turned out to be the undoing of the BJP in 2004. Not even its enemies predicted the BJP would lose the election. For the common man, prices were stable and inflation was under control. The era of licences and permits and scarcity was well and truly past. There was an abundance of never before choices in the marketplace. The sun was shining on a billowing economy; presaging increased employment generation. ‘God appeared to be in his heaven and all well with the world!’  Why then did the campaign bounce back? It is perhaps one of those marketing enigmas. The story is quite similar to that of brand Churchill who won the Second World War for Britain with his slogans, ‘All out for England’ and ‘V for victory’, who was then quietly shown the door by the British electorate! 

As we advance to 2014, the Congress party wishes to launch brand Rahul. The teasers for brand Rahul have been in the air for far too long, that people wonder whether they would see the première at all. An elementary principle of brand management is that even the fattest advertising budgets or the slickest commercials will not be able to help a marketer if a brand does not have inherent strengths.

In 2008 Barack Obama rode to power on the flood tide of his oratory. One is yet to see Rahul delivering his ‘Gettysburg address’! From what little one has seen Rahul’s oratory does not exactly seem to set the Ganga on fire. In all these years since he came to represent the family fiefdom of Amethi in parliament, one has heard only one ‘Kalavathi’ speech from him and no other intervention, not even to ask a question!

Although according to his sycophants Rahul ostensibly represents youth in spite of his 43 years, he does not seem to inspire the youth brigade of the internet age with his profound wisdom. As students of Mumbai discomfited Barack Obama, their brethren in Patna and Ahmedabad made Rahul squirm. What is the vision he has for the youth of this country? How does he plan to educate and employ them? No one knows, for no one has heard him elaborate. The only solution his party comes up with in times of crises is offering freebies and proposals of reservations and more reservations.

Notwithstanding his pilgrimages to Dalit homes and second class suburban travel, his understanding of men and matters leaves much to be desired. (Gujarat is larger than the European Union!) One fine morning he decided to take up the cause of the victims of Bhatta-Parasul village whose lands were forcibly acquired by the UP state administration. Narrating the horrors he witnessed of people (presumably) killed and burnt, he informed the media that there were ‘70 feet of ashes’, whatever it meant!

If the piece in The Economist (Adams Robert. The Rahul problem. September 10, 2012) is anything to go by, even his biographer (Ramachandran, Aarthi. Decoding Rahul Gandhi) was hard put to paint a colourful portrait of him. AR says, ‘this is the moment for Congress to dare to think of something radical: of reorganizing itself on the basis of policies, ideas and a vision of how India should develop.’ According to his biographer (as cited in the article) Rahul wants to apply the principles of management he learnt from Toyota to modernise the Congress party’s youth organisation. 

For brand Rahul the time has come to move from the quadrant of ‘problem children’: up, to the quadrant of ‘stars’ or down, to the quadrant of ‘dogs’, to be dropped eventually. As of now there is nothing to indicate that brand Rahul can become a ‘star’!  

The ‘Naroda Patiya’ Judgement in context

The August 29 judgement of Judge Jyotsna Yagnik in the Naroda Patiya massacre case is as unprecedented as the crime it seeks to adjudicate. It may or may not be the first time in independent India that sentences on several counts in a criminal case were ordered to be run consecutively. The usual practice in India unlike in the US is to order sentences to be run concurrently. That is why we have never heard such bizarre sentences as, for instance, ‘105 years in prison’ as we do from US courts. The judge also dispensed with the definition of ‘life’ imprisonment which in her own words was usually 14 years because she felt that it would be ‘grossly disproportionate and inadequate’. Be that as it may, in the present case, one of the key accused, Maya Kodnani, a BJP MLA was sentenced to 28 years in prison. This in effect means the middle aged Kodnani is unlikely to come out alive from prison. The judgment however mentions that ‘there is no evidence that she, in fact, has physically contributed commission of any offence’. She was punished more for her role in instigating the rioters and abetting the crime. Babu Bajrangi, another key accused was sentenced to life imprisonment with no remission permitted if one understands the judgment correctly. The judge felt that these were the minimum terms that would meet the ends of justice even while keeping in mind the agony the accused suffered with a sword hanging over their heads for ten and a half years. Nowhere in the judgement, which runs to about 2000 pages was there even a hint that links Narendra Modi to the violence. 

The secular establishment shrugged off the sentences as their real target is not the 32 convicted, but Narendra Modi. For over ten years, he has been pilloried by the secular establishment, for what he had not done rather than (at least) acknowledging what he had done to contain the 2002 riots.

First, let us see what he had done:

He had had the army deployed in 48 hours. His police fired 10,000 rounds of bullets to quell the mobs. In the process some 77 Hindus and 93 Muslims were killed. 27,901 Hindus and 7,651 Muslims were arrested as a preventive measure. (According to some sources, the number of Hindus arrested was as high as 35,000.)  The riots rendered 40,000 Hindus homeless, a fact which was not even whispered by the secular media. They were sheltered in relief camps for a long time alongside the Muslims uprooted from their homes. Finally, one has to keep in view that 254 Hindus were also killed in the riots along with 790 Muslims. Therefore the riots were not as one-sided as they are made out to be.

Let us see what would have satisfied the secular establishment:

1. The bodies of the 59 Hindus (more than half of whom were women and children) who were burnt to death should not have been brought to Ahmedabad to be handed over to their families. Would the secular establishment rather that they were buried in Godhra as orphans? Did they not deserve some consideration in death, of a decent cremation, when they were denied life? Should their kith and kin not be allowed to keen in grief and pay their last respects - to the unfortunate victims of a pernicious ideology, who had to die for no fault of theirs?

2. The police/army should have taken sterner action. It is difficult to comprehend this logic. What could the police or for that matter the army, could have done more? Should the police/army have shot everyone at sight and killed hundreds of people? Had the Gujarat Home Ministry given such an order would it have been obeyed? What would have happened if the police had disobeyed an order of the government? P. V. Narasimha Rao had faced a similar dilemma in 1992 at the time of the ‘Rama Janma Bhumi – Babri Masjid’ demolition. He too had been accused of not calling in the army to shoot the agitators at sight. (What else would he order the army to do?) In the end Narasimha Rao had decided that it would not do for the army to revolt. (This is according to an unimpeachable secular source!)

3. The courts should have worked faster and hanged everyone accused (especially the politicians including Narendra Modi), with the least possible delay. How could the Gujarat government have facilitated this? Why, by somehow rendering the defence of the accused in the courts, ineffective. In other words the state government should have obstructed the course of justice, and do to the Hindus what it has been, though falsely, been accused of doing to the Muslims.  

However, a despicable aspect of the saga of (Naroda Patiya) was the conduct of the secular intelligentsia which circulated a story about a womb being ripped open and a foetus gouged out. Arundhati Roy concocted the story in her article in Outlook of  May 4, 2002. It was not exactly calculated to bring about harmony between communities at a time when the atmosphere was still rife for another round of explosive violence.Thousands of people from both communities uprooted from homes were still living in camps. In view of the reputation of the 'source' the story was repeated without verification, thousands of times since. Human rights outfits of dubious reputation like New York's Human Rights Watch went to town with it.

Three postscripts with respect to the judgement deserve mention here:

1. This could also be a rare judgement in which the principle of secularism as defined in the Indian constitution was invoked in delivering judgement in a criminal case. (p. 1955)

2. The judge primarily relied on an ‘extra-judicial confession’ (her expression) of a key accused made in a ‘Sting Operation’ to convict him. 

3. The judge also dispels the myth about a foetus being gouged out of a womb when a pregnant woman was killed. In her opinion only a trained gynaecologist or someone more experienced in such procedures could perform such an act. (p. 1686-89) The secular establishment perpetuated the myth unmindful or oblivious to the  consequences of putting out such a story, especially during the early days of the riots when the atmosphere was palpably incendiary. 

Why should a secular nation have minority reservations?

Thanks to the Congress party’s unrelenting pursuit of vote bank politics the issue of reservations for minorities in jobs and educational institutions is back in the news. Designed as a ploy to regain a foothold in UP (as a key to capturing power at the centre in 2014), it carved out a 4.5% sub-quota for minorities (primarily Muslims) in the 27% reservation provided for OBCs. In its vulgar greed to capture power at any cost it conveniently forgot the sequence of events, beginning with the creation of separate electorates based on religious lines in the 1930s, which eventually led to the partition of the country. The creation of separate electorates was precisely based on the same logic and for the same reasons that the government now seeks to create reservations for Muslims.

As soon as it came back to power in 2004 the Congress party began planning its long term strategy to woo permanent vote banks that would be beholden to it. In the first fifty years after independence it expropriated the freedom movement as a convenient anchor to lay claim for power. During this period also it tried its best to project itself as a champion for the welfare of minorities.

The Justice Rajender Singh Sachar Committee was constituted on March 9, 2005 to prepare a report on the social and educational status of Muslims (not minorities) in India. The other members of the committee were Mr. Sayyid Hamid, Dr. T.K. Ooman, Mr. M.A. Basith, Dr. Akhtar Majeed, Dr. Abu Saleh Shariff and Dr. Rakesh Basant. Dr. Syed Zafar Mahmood, a civil servant, was appointed as Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to assist the commission. The Committee submitted its report on November 17, 2006.

The Committee was asked to prepare a report on the relative, social, economic and educational status of Muslims at the district, regional and the state levels by obtaining relevant information and conduct[ing] a literature survey. Please note the last part in the first item of the terms of reference. The Committee was not expected to conduct any field research; it just had to conduct ‘literature survey’! This gives the committee led by J Rajinder Singh Sachar virtually the latitude to write anything it wants. (That the said J Rajinder Singh Sachar later turned out to be an honoured guest of Pakistani ISI-Front, Gulam Nabi Fai is another matter.)

PRS Legislative Research (“PRS”) which posted a summary of the report on its website has this to say of the report: “Barring some generic observations about the cause for the ‘development deficit’ among Muslims, there is no explicit or detailed discussion of the causes of such conditions.” (Click here to see the summary: Sachar Committee Report)

Sample some of the recommendations of the report, apart of course from recommending reservations for Muslims which was the latent reason for constituting the committee:

“… Work out mechanisms to link madarasas with higher secondary school board.  

“Recognise degrees from madarasas for eligibility in defence, civil and banking examinations.”

On the other hand governments in various states have been merrily closing down Oriental Colleges, which were established during the British reign to impart Samskritic education in Vedas and allied sciences. The ostensible reason for closing these colleges, most of which were over a hundred years old is their dwindling enrollment.

But the most perilous course that the Committee recommended is in this recommendation:

“Establish a delimitation procedure that does not reserve constituencies with high minority population for SCs.”

If this course is followed the problems the nation is facing in Jammu & Kashmir are likely to surface in other states like Assam, West Bengal and Kerala. (See below for population ratios of these states.)

The following may be summed up as the report’s errors of commission and omission. The report did not take into account the bulk of educated employed Muslims that migrated to Pakistan when the country was partitioned. It did not take into account the numbers of Muslims engaged in trades and other professions. The Committee willy-nilly concedes that the “[…] most striking feature is the relatively high share of Muslim workers engaged in self-employment activity, primarily in urban areas and for women workers. […] Muslim participation rates in traditional manufacturing and trade (especially wearing apparel, auto-repair and electrical machinery) is much higher than for other groups, while their participation in the agricultural section is lower.” It excluded the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes from corresponding Hindu figures thus annulling any equity in its comparisons. Last but not least it excluded educated and well off Muslims from comparisons.

The Committee also had to concede that the literacy rate among Muslims @ 59.1% was slightly below the national average of 64.8%, “with the greatest gap in urban areas” for reasons already mentioned above, but that “the literacy rates were higher than those of SCs and STs.”

The Committee ignored the fact that the country did provide fair and equitable opportunities to all and those Muslims who availed of them did prosper - in filmdom, in industry, in government / university jobs or in politics. If you go by the findings of the report, Asghar Ali Enginner, A. G. Noorani, Azim Premji, Syed Shabuddin, the Khan trio and other Muslim celebrities of Bollywood and a host of other Muslims in high places (Sayyid Hamid, T.K. Ooman, M.A. Basith, Akhtar Majeed, Abu Saleh Shariff and Syed Zafar Mahmood included) - all need reservations in government jobs!

The National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) has concluded that the findings of the Sachar Committee were manipulated. The committee’s job was all the more easier as it was given the theories; it was only expected to go out and find facts to fit into them! Lo and presto, it did it and how? Try as you might, you cannot accuse the Committee of objectivity or doing anything right either by commission or omission. The Committee’s report, to borrow from information technology jargon, was doomed to be GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) right from inception. The Committee set out with faulty assumptions, faulty data collection and faulty analysis and of course ended up in arriving at faulty conclusions.

However the report made certain interesting findings with regard to the Muslim population in India. The states with the highest percentage of Muslims include Jammu & Kashmir (67%), Assam (30.9%), West Bengal (25.2%) and Kerala (24.7%). In 2001 the population of Muslims in India was 138 million which grew to 150 million by 2006. Between 1961 and 2001 their population grew from 10.7% to 13.4%. The committee estimates it is likely to grow to between 18% and 21% by 2101. These statistics are quite significant in that they raise a query about the definition of minority as applicable to Muslims.

The Constitution of India in Article 15 (1) ordains that “[t]he State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them.”; and in Article 16 (1) that “[t]here shall be equality of opportunity for all citizens in matters relating to employment or appointment to any office under the state.”

By its latest executive fiat and in spite of court of after court questioning its motives the government at the centre seems to pursue a perilous course that might once again threaten the unity and integrity of the nation.  

The Devotion of Suspect X

Book Review

Higashino, Keigo. (2011). The Devotion of Suspect X. Translated from Japnese by Alexander O. Smith & Elye J. Alexander. London. Little Brown.  Pages: 374. Price Rs. 350

The story has all the elements of a normal whodunit. There is the murder; there is a beautiful woman, there is her secret lover and the rich, single third man, for whom her feelings are a bit ambivalent. There is jealousy; the secret lover hates the other man.  But the similarity with an ordinary whodunit ends there. As the criminal investigation moves apace, it grips the reader in suspense. Will the murderer be caught or not? It is a situation in which, the reader for a change, is not on the side of justice but sympathises with the criminal.

The female protagonist, Yasuko Hanaoka and her teenage daughter, Misato (from her first marriage) live together in a flat. As Yasuko’s ex-husband Shinji Togashi (obviously not Misato's father) who has been stalking her for awhile, barges into their flat little did the mother and daughter know of the storm that was about to blow into their lives. After another futile argument with Yasuko during which Togashi proposes they reunite, he was about to leave but attacks Misato for supporting her mother. Yasuko first tries to extricate her daughter from Togashi but when she fails, in a fit of rage, she strangulates him with an electrical cord. As Misato frees herself, she helps her mother in the murder of her ex-husband. After mother and daughter get over the initial shock, they come to grips with the enormity of their crime. As they were arguing as to who should confess to the crime before the police, their neighbour Tetsuya Ishigami – who secretly loves Yasuko – steps in. He helps them hide the crime and constructs an iron-clad alibi for them. Ishigami is a genius mathematician who teaches in a nearby high school. He foresees each move that a crime investigator is likely to make and plans countermoves with the meticulousness of solving a mathematical problem step by step.  

The case comes up for investigation by Shunpei Kusanagi. His old college-mate and a university lecturer in physics, Manabu Yukawa helps him unravel the crime. Kusanagi who usually takes his more difficult and intricate cases to Yukawa for resolution nicknamed the latter, Detective Galileo. By a strange coincidence Ishigami and Yukawa were also classmates. The story progresses as a chess game with Ishigami and Yukawa indirectly matching wits. Ishigami’s moves were to throw the investigators off the scent of evidence that would put Yasuko and Misato in the dock. Yukawa helps the police to be back on track.  

In the meanwhile Kudo, a rich single man whose wife died of cancer enters the scene. He was an admirer of Yasuko when she was a bar dancer. Yasuko gets attracted to him. Misato disapproves of her mother’s relationship. While not exactly suggesting that her mother should have a relationship with Ishigami, Misato wonders whether her relationship with Kudo might not anger Ishigami. However Ishigami who observes every move that Yasuko makes, is stung by pangs of jealousy. He was about to warn her.  

Kusanagi brings together the old classmates and friends, Yukawa and Ishigami. At first when Yukawa informs Ishigami that he was helping the police solve the crime and his own suspicion of Yasuko’s alibi he did not suspect his old friend’s hand in it. As he unravels the mystery and inches closer to the truth, he seeks his old friend to subtly warn him. The hint from Yukawa warns Ishigami that the game was up. 

The story takes a quite unexpected turn and ends in a stunning denouement, for which the reader is absolutely unprepared. The only distractions from a tense plot in the story are the two discussions on mathematics and physics. 

This review is part of the Book Reviews programme at Blogadda.com