Brown Pundits

For most parts of India, Muslims are in a minority and too much tied to Hindus (in economic terms if not social terms) to raise their voices. And if they do so the backlash is swift (in Asom, UP,…etc.). In Kashmir however people grow up in a Muslim-only society (having cleansed the valley of all minorities themselves) and a popular slogan is “bhooka nanga hindustan, dil se pyara pakistan.” The Abdullah family is allowed a free hand (to steal) and the suppression of liberty directly leads to discontent (and to provide fertile grounds for the extremists to recruit).

But things will not remain frozen in time/space and the potential for friction will rise fast. Indian Hindus as a group are shifting right-ward and this matches with the trend elsewhere in the non-western world. There will be little or no ground to be given to minorities, including Shias in Sunni land. Even in the west, the forces on the right are gaining ground, especially in Europe.

In the mean-time Kashmiris need education and jobs. The Kashmir valley population is 6.9 million (as per 2011 census, 97% muslim). Jammu meanwhile is 5.35 million (31% muslim) and Ladakh is 0.29 million (54% muslim). There will not be enough opportunities in the Gulf for the youngsters (or enough asylum claims to be sustained in the West). As far as political freedom goes, anything except soft boundaries may not be negotiable under any sort of political regime.

Let us be clear, if war breaks out (supported by jihadi squadrons from the western front) and history repeats once more, it will be much harder on the Kashmiri population. Jaganmohan may have been bad but Modi will be even worse. World-wide the patience with Jihadism will be much lower now, and the worst case (Syria like) scenario cant be ruled out.

Thus the (practical) choice for both Kashmiris and Indians is to find a way to show mutual tolerance otherwise the situation may reach boiling point. Will a soft borders resolution with Pakistan be a helpful compromise? It may not be clear to the politicians but it is urgent that the ball moves forward after the elections. Otherwise be prepared for incidents like this to snowball into something major.


A private university in Greater Noida
on Saturday expelled six students — four of them Kashmiris — from one
of its boys’ hostels after a stand-off between two groups over last
Sunday’s India-Pakistan cricket match. It’s the second such controversy this week after a university in Meerut suspended a group of Kashmiri students for celebrating Pakistan’s victory in the Asia Cup match.

The student cited the example of Swami Vivekanand Subharti University
in Meerut, demanding similar action against the four Kashmiri students.
The post elicited strong reactions and students started mobilizing on
campus. When the situation threatened to go out of control, Sharda
university authorities called police. Ranvir Singh, students’ welfare
dean, said the university expelled them from the hostel to maintain
discipline. All of them are first-year students.    regards

Here is how the present, past and future presidents of the USA describe Putin: President Obama has called Vladimir Putin “the bored kid in the back of the classroom,” putting on an unsmiling, tough-guy “shtick.” Hillary Clinton just compared the Russian president to Hitler. The State Department says Putin’s reasoning on Ukraine amounts to “two plus two equals five.” Republican House Speaker Boehner branded him a “thug.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly said he is “in another world.” And George W. Bush complained that debating policy with him was “like arguing with an eighth grader with his facts wrong” and called him “cold-blooded” to his face  

(the last accusation is remarkable as this would be a word for word description of GWB by the same liberals).


It is unlikely but another pit-bull may get hold of the atomic button and there is the same sound of hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing form the liberals (Neha Desai Biswal just about managed to confirm that he will get a visa).Great power is (a bit) about managing great expectations and it is clear that the UPA regime has not managed to do it well (in a way this is the inverse India Shining syndrome- UPA has done a lot for rural India – employment guarantee schemes etc., but the corruption, inflation and other vices has caused the urban voter to defect).

It is certainly the case that the Indian middle class finds a champion in an autocrat like Modi, just like Russians back Putin. But while Putin has vast gas resources at his disposal by which he can blackmail Europe, Modi will be running on empty for now (if he is smart he will push for an under-sea gas pipeline from Iran to India bypassing Pakistan). He can certainly be more assertive towards Muslims (just like Putin towards Crimean Tatars and Chechnyans). He can clamp down on Christian missionary led conversions though I doubt it. If he manages to annoy US/Europe they will stop the visas (not just for him). It is not clear at this point how Modi can resuscitate the India Shining campaign. But then again, Putin also faced a long and lonely journey to the top.

The scariest scenario (for the west and the liberals) will be for Modi, Putin and Xi Jinping (also Iran) to join hands together (even symbolically) and for India to align with an axis of autocrats. This will require a super-diplomatic effort but certainly big money can/will enable this and the middle-class will be vociferous in its support. China (unlike USA/West) is not hung up about minority rights and may even persuade the Maoists to switch to jaw-jaw mode (in exchange for locking up rights to all the mines). China and India may also find common ground in working against Islamists from Taliban-held Af-Pak. If Modi can manage some movement in this direction he may be (like Putin) unstoppable.

Here is the million-dollar question- which model will appeal to the voters- the white-commonwealth model or the dark-autocracy model? The opinion makers (middle-class) will tell us to relax and enjoy the ride, greater prosperity will cancel out all the negatives (just as muslims from Bengal are coming over to Gujarat to earn their daily bread). A billion votes (814 million to be exact) will decide the future this May. Yes folks, this is the most momentous general elections ever (after 1977).


At the risk of over-statement, there seems to
be a bizarre similarity between the hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing in
the western strategic community over the events in Ukraine and the
agonized lamentations of India’s minuscule liberal community over the
possible outcome of the forthcoming general election. In both cases, the
target of derision is a leader that many see as forthright, decisive
and nationalist and others view as illiberal, authoritarian and even
fascist.

There are obvious similarities that can possibly be
drawn between Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and the man who may end
up as India’s Prime Minister in May. Apart from the fact that both evoke
polarized responses — adored by supporters and loathed by opponents,
the rise of both Putin and Narendra Modi can be explained by broadly
similar circumstances.

Putin took over a Russia that was
unreconciled to its steep economic decline and loss of self-esteem. In
just 14 years, whether ruling directly or through a proxy, Putin
affected a dramatic U-turn in the country’s fortunes. The post-Soviet
Union stereotypical images of starving pensioners queuing in the snow
for food hand-outs and gangster-infested cities were replaced by those
of cocky oligarchs buying up Chelsea FC and prime real estate in London,
and crime lords running global operations stretching from Moscow to
Goa.

All stereotypes have a basis in reality but only partially.
Yes, Russian society has traditionally been prone to excesses and
high-handedness. However, the reason why Putin commands the respect of
most of Russia (and Russian speakers in the other regions that once
constituted the Soviet Union) seems obvious when seen from an Indian,
rather than European or American perspective. He restored the glory of
Russia and put it back in global reckoning.

….But Putin’s bid
to reclaim Russia’s status as a Great Power was only possible because
the economic and political foundations for an enhanced role have been
firmed up over the past decade. In India, on the other hand, the fierce
desire of the past 25 years to transcend mediocrity, shoddiness and look
the world powers in the eye has floundered. It is not that the UPA
government has no achievements to its credit. India has progressed but
it has seriously under-performed in terms of its potential. More to the
point, there is a growing mismatch between the philosophy of governance
of Sonia Gandhi’s National Advisory Council and the impatience of a
young India that wants a more fulfilling life with lesser impediments in
the path of personal success.

regards

A few quibbles before we jump into the white-waters. First off, much as we despise Mugabe and Museveni, Marxism and Christianity, which are singled out for their ill effects, took specially strong root in brown land via the earnest efforts of white men who were eager to lift brown people out of darkness. We can hardly fault brown-folks now if they have learned their lessons too well and decide to stay faithful to their borrowed tenets.

Also it seems (to a neutral observer) that you have to take the good with the bad (just like the colonial project itself). While one set of white bible-peddlers helped cover breasts in Kerala, another set of WBPs are helping to expose necks in Uganda (in a non-erotic manner). And marxism is good (if for nothing else) for scaring the shit out of crony capitalism, all the trees in central India would have probably disappeared in the absence of the Red Army.

The author engages in a bit of white-washing as well. Australia (also NZ) was not really empty space settled by British emigrants, there did exist a native population which was wiped out with or without deliberate malice. That such a fate escaped India was not for a lack of trying (large fractions of population under white rule perished with regular frequency, for some reason this phenomena stopped post-1947).

To end on a positive note, the author does admit that (baby) George cant do it all by himself, he will need an (adult) Mandela by his side. Just like Gandhi was considered a recruiting agent for the British-Indian army to fight WWI on behalf of their colonial masters. Amidst all the confusion that is state-craft these days, it is always a good practice to underline the obvious.

I must admit to being something of a Commonwealth sceptic. The way
Britain largely abandoned the organisation of its former colonies and
dominions when it joined Europe in 1973 was, to many of us, utterly
shameful. Blood is thicker than water, however, and when one experiences
the importance of democratic values — as one does when talking to a
Commonwealth people who live under threat of invasion and within earshot
of sabre-rattling — it is rather humbling.


 
The British government these days certainly does take the
Commonwealth seriously. This may be partly an effect of the mounting
disillusion with Europe, but it is also because of a new recognition
that the ties of shared history binding the Commonwealth count for
something significant in an increasingly unstable world.  

This is also
true in Australia, a country infinitely larger and more populous than
the Falklands, but built on the same values and a common pioneer spirit.
A recent poll showed that support for the idea of a republic in
Australia has fallen by 15 per cent since the referendum of 1999,
suggesting that the Anglo-Saxon notion of a constitutional monarch and a
non-political head of state continues to hold great attraction even in
the 21st century.


 
But before one gets carried away on a tide of nostalgic affection for
the idea of the Commonwealth, one should pause to consider the
fragility of the institution itself. Word is that behind the scenes at
the last Heads of Government Meeting in Sri Lanka in the autumn of 2013
there were some fraught discussions based not on cultural
misunderstandings but on sheer cultural differences between some of the
players.  

One is loath to talk about a ‘white Commonwealth’, but there
does seem, with certain important exceptions, to be a measure of
polarisation between those countries that were settled by British
emigrants and those that were conquered and colonised by them.


 
Zimbabwe was suspended from the club for serial human rights
violations under the Mugabe regime in 2002; and it chose to leave the
organisation altogether in 2003, determined not to accept the view that
other nations had of it. Since then certain other black African
countries have lobbied relentlessly to allow its readmission, despite
the evidence that nothing much has changed in Zimbabwe, and will not do
so until Mugabe (who has just celebrated his 90th birthday) has gone to
the final reckoning. 

One of those interceding on Mugabe’s behalf is Jacob Zuma, whose own
conduct of office in South Africa increasingly leaves much to be
desired: Nelson Mandela he is not. South Africa is seen as increasingly
corrupt, cronyist, dangerous and authoritarian, and it sits increasingly
uncomfortably within a Commonwealth template of advancing democracy,
civilisation and political integrity.

It would be fatal for the Commonwealth to become polarised between
‘white’ and ‘black’ countries, not least because some nations whose
rulers are not of Anglo-Saxon descent behave perfectly reasonably and
honourably. Yet there is a growing challenge as some nations within the
family behave in a fashion unacceptable in polities such as Australia,
Britain, Canada or New Zealand.  

At the end of February Yoweri Museveni,
the president of Uganda, signed into law a Bill making homosexuality
(which was already illegal) and same-sex marriages crimes punishable by
life sentences, and the promotion of homosexuality a crime carrying a
still heavy sentence of seven years. Hitherto such sanctions as existed
applied only to men: now lesbians will feel the force of the law too.
After the furore surrounding President Putin’s homophobic policies in
the context of the Sochi Winter Olympics, it will be hard for the
Commonwealth to turn a blind eye to Uganda locking up people for life
because they are homosexual; we must wait and see.


 
In an ideal world, an institution such as the Commonwealth would lead
all its members along the path to enlightenment. The most significant
country in this respect is India, which has become progressively more
westernised as it has put its considerable economic and human capital to
work on becoming one of the great business success stories of the 21st
centuries. Without considerable leadership from the non-white
Commonwealth, extending the values of Australians, Britons and
Falklanders into parts where they hitherto have not reached may be
problematic at best, and impossible at worst. 

Had South Africa produced
another Mandela, he — or she — would have had this leadership role,
because (other than Pakistan, which has nightmares all of its own) the
part of the Commonwealth where those values are most under threat is the
collection of Britain’s former colonies and possessions in Africa. It
used to be called the white man’s burden; but in the interests of good
government, liberty, prosperity and decent human rights it can no longer
be his alone.

regards

Search crews from China, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia were joined
by the American Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer destroyer
in a search for any evidence of the airliner in the South China Sea. The
passengers included 154 citizens from China or Taiwan, 38 Malaysians,
seven Indonesians, six Australians, five Indians, four French and three
Americans, among others.

It emerged Saturday that two of the names on the flight manifest matched stolen European passports.
Italian and Austrian officials confirmed the names of two passengers
were from passports reported stolen in Thailand. U.S. officials told NBC
News that they have not ruled out a terrorist attack as a possible cause for the plane’s disappearance.

The flight’s pilots were veterans
who together had logged more than 20,000 flying hours, reports CNN. The
plane was meant to touch down in Beijing at 6:30a.m. after a 2,300-mile
trip. But the flight suddenly lost contact mid-flight, and search teams
and experts have begun to lose hope passengers will be rescued.

“The aircraft had not been at altitude long and that strikes me
as very, very odd,” aviation expert Captain J.F. Joseph, who has 44
years flying of experience, told TIME on Saturday.
“It’s too early to say if there was a bomb or terrorist activity, but
it lost contact just as it began to level off at 35,000 ft. It would
give some indication that what occurred was catastrophic or somewhat
instantaneous.” 

regards

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has revealed that
late additional district and sessions judge Rafaqat Ahmed Khan Awan was
inadvertently killed by his own guard and not by the terrorists in a gun
and bomb attack that killed 11 others in Islamabad on Monday.

In
Islamabad district courts, 12 people were killed and 28 sustained
injuries according to the latest figures, he told the lawmakers in
National Assembly…..the deceased judge locked himself and staff in his retiring
room but unfortunately the security guard deployed with him
inadvertently shot the judge with three bullets in panic after the
suicide blast.

He said speculations must be avoided on the incident of Islamabad district courts. The
guard had already confessed his crime and the post-mortem report showed
that the judge had not been killed with Kalashnikov but with the
guard’s weapon.

regards

One interesting thing to keep a check on- as recounted in the anecdote below-  people may choose to vote differently depending on whether it is a national or a state election. If Congress implodes and BJP becomes the default national party then it can even win the votes of minorities. 

Thanjavur district is the home of
the Cauvery delta region and is the rice-bowl of Tamil Nadu. The river and the
fertile fields nourished Carnatic music, particularly in the 18th and 19th
centuries, when the celebrated trinity of Saint Thyagaraja (1767-1847) and his
contemporaries, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Shyama Sastri, held sway.…The district, more particularly, Tiruvaiyaru, 15
kms from Thanjavur city, still reverberates with the sounds of Carnatic music for
five days in a year, when it hosts the internationally-famous Sri Thyagaraja
Aradhana, to commemorate the death anniversary of Saint Thyagaraja.

regards

This is a Bangladeshi perspective on the photo campaign:

I’m not a prude, or a hater. My problem is not with this half-dressed
beautiful young woman. (Honestly, I probably wouldn’t mind having my
youth emblazoned in an iconic ad campaign if given the opportunity.)…Unless, of course, the words “Made in Bangladesh” were branded on my breasts.

Born in Dhaka, Maks left at the age of four and was brought up in
California in a religious Muslim household. She shed her religious
upbringing, to find her own path. This sentence—“She doesn’t feel
the need to identify herself as an American or a Bengali and is not
content to fit her life into anyone else’s conventional narrative”—is total BS.

American Apparel is playing on the sexuality of a young Bangladeshi
woman’s body, but that’s just a pretext. To me, this is a jab on
Bangladesh’s garment sector. Composed of young Bangladeshi female
workers, around the same age as Maks, disasters like the 2013 Rana Plaza
factory collapse and the 2012 Tazreen factory fire have made death and
exploitation synonymous with the industry. Fast fashion is big business,
and many U.S. and European retailers, like Walmart, Gap, Joe Fresh, and
Mango have huge stakes in the low-cost labor. Yet cutting corners has
been fatal.

In Bangladesh, 3.6
million workers make up the garment workforce, and their work makes up
$18 billion in annual readymade garment exports. These young women are
the backbone of Bangladesh’s growing economy. Workers who attempt to
unionize face intimidation and sexual harassment. There have been other
effects too. Young women are delaying marriage and childbirth to work.
While they are earning meager pay, they’re earning steady paychecks,
which they use to help support their family or their own education.

Maks is as Made in America as American Apparel. Her unabashed nudity
is a tacit reminder—this is what American Apparel looks like. This is
what our fantasy of what Made in Bangladesh looks like. Not a poor, underpaid, overworked young woman making you a $5 shirt
for 30 cents an hour. This ad has little to do with the woman in front
of us, and everything to do with the Bangladeshi female garment worker
who remains invisible.

American Apparel explains the logic behind the campaign

The stunt is meant to draw attention to the company’s fair labor practices. American Apparel says its
pays its employees “50 times more” than other companies who outsource
production to countries like Bangladesh. The “23 skilled American
workers” who made Maks’ jeans are “paid a fair wage and have access to
basic benefits such as health care,” according to the ad.

CEO Dov Charney has denounced his competitors for making clothes in
sweatshops where employees are paid low wages to work in unsafe
conditions. “In Bangladesh, the problem with these factories is that they’re only
given contracts on a seasonal or order-by-order basis,” Charney told the L.A. Times. “There’s
so much pressure to perform, some of the working conditions are
outrageous, almost unbelievable. It has completely stripped the human
element from the brands … It’s such a blind, desensitized way of making
clothing.”

It starts with a loud Punjabi wedding, and you enter the film, mildly
diverted by Rani’s loud Punjabi family, doing ‘giddha-shiddha’,
‘mehendi-shendi’, but not before you’ve had time to register that the
Rajouri Garden ‘mithai’-shop-owning middle-class-ness of the Mehras is
just right. And that Mummyji, Daddyji, the plump ‘chota bhai’, and
Dadiji are all pitch perfect.

Rani (Kangana Ranaut) is dumped just a day before her wedding by her
fiance Vijay (Rajkumar Rao). Devastated, she decides to flee, because
staying home to lick her wounds is not an option. So, she finds herself
in Paris, and the journey she embarks on makes ‘Queen’ the kind of
coming- of-age, discovery-of-self tale….She does make silly touristy mistakes, nearly
gets mugged but doesn’t let it get to her, and discovers she has a
spine after all. Lucking into a long-legged hotel maid Vijay Lakshmi
(Lisa Haydon) is the first departure from standard Bollywood practice:
this other Vijay takes Rani under her wing, drags her into a store with
lovely Parisian clothes (these Paris maids are not just drop dead sexy,
and enjoy their libido, they can afford all those designer threads?),
and generally hand-holds Rani for an enjoyable spell.

(Vikas) Bahl’s second directorial venture is a delight: his first, ‘Chillar
Party’, had some spark, but nothing prepared me for this. The story,
which could easily have slipped into mush, stays free of drippy
sentimentality, barring one or two raised-violin scenes….Kangana Ranaut revels in her solidly-written role, and delivers a
first rate, heart-felt performance.

regards

What is striking about Manju Bhatia’s profile is that she comes from a low profile background, is only 27 years young and running a 500 crore business. India needs more women like this to assume leadership in new areas understood as “mardon wala kaam”. Also it is not possible (neither practical) to dream of a class-free and caste-free sister-hood but these ladies can take a free-wheeling approach- derive their strength from traditional and modern society as well.

Enter Manju Bhatia, joint MD of Vasuli Recovery, an all-female loan recovery agency. “Women are given respect all across the country, we are not
discounted,” she said in a telephone interview. Really? Yes, she
countered, “Look at our banks, from ICICI Bank to Dena Bank to the State
Bank of India, they’re all led by women.”

No surprise if Bhatia identifies with the likes of Chanda Kochchar
and Arundhati Bhattacharya because they too, like her, have blazed their
trails in male bastions. Perhaps, it is this unprejudiced world view that made her entry into a male-dominated business–of loan recovery–easy.

At 27, Bhatia’s Vasuli handles recoveries valued at over Rs 500 crore
annually, with more than 250 staff in 26 locations across India. The
company has come a long way in the eight years since it first began
operations, with a monthly income of Rs 25,000, eight employees and one
client, the State Bank of India. It now boasts most of the country’s
publicly owned banks as clients.



As a 16-year-old growing up in Indore, Bhatia began working as a
receptionist at a pharmaceutical company the day after her last
twelfth standard board exam, in 2003. In no time, she was handling
accounts and trading in raw materials. Over the next two years she learnt the inner workings of the
business, including how to get export licenses and increasing the client
base, while getting her bachelors in law. It was then that her boss and
family friend Parag Shah asked her to help out with his loan recovery
company, Vasuli.“There was only one client then, State Bank of India, and they
provided a list of defaulters,” Bhatia said. One of the defaulters was a
high profile minister, whom Bhatia decided to tackle. “The bank said he
won’t be accessible at all but I just called and got an appointment,”
she said. It turned out the minister had no idea he’d missed his loan
payments and the matter was sorted out in no time.


She decided to get into the recovery business full time and started
populating her team with women of all ages and for all roles – from
revenue licensing to legal procedures to recovery agents and everything
in between. In 2007, Bhatia moved the company to Mumbai to be closer to
the major banks.



But, there have also been stray instances of violence that forced
Bhatia to now send recovery teams with police protection and
videographers. During a visit to a factory near Aurangabad to carry out
an inventory, the workers at the site locked Bhatia’s employees inside
the warehouse. Another time even the police weren’t of much help as the
defaulters rained down acid on the Vasuli employees and accompanying
police officials who had come to make collections.

But the dividends have made it all worth it. Bhatia’s success in
giving women purpose and putting their skills to constructive use pushes
her everyday. She had a real victory when talking to the Police
Commissioner of Kolkata about security protection last year. “I explained what we did and he was very interested,” she said, “and
then he asked if I could take on the widows of officers who had died in
duty so that they would have a revenue stream and come out of their
depression… I was very overwhelmed and said yes immediately.”

From smaller accounts and agricultural equipment, Vasuli has now
added property auctions to its retinue of services offered. Bhatia
continues to challenge herself by pursuing her PhD in law alongside
running the business.



On being asked what her advice would be to women entrepreneurs she
said, ”Belief is very important…if your mind can conceive it you can
achieve it.” She illustrated her point by describing how family members
mocked her during the early days of Vasuli and how her conviction helped
her carry on.

regards

Now we know why big brother was so worried, it is all for our own good. So relax, be happy, and enjoy the ride, knowing that when (in the hopefully far-off future) you die someone will know about it (and still not care).

Also, please cancel your auto-payments. Right now.

For years, the payments went out of the woman’s bank account. Nobody batted an eyelid. Bills were paid. And life went on as normal in the quiet neighborhood of Pontiac, Michigan. Neighbors didn’t notice
anything unusual. The woman traveled a lot, they said, and kept to
herself.