There is a TV advertisement that interests me. A hapless politician (who looks more like a lost housewife) is sitting in front of a group of crass and rustic heavyweight, probably kingmakers. She is mentally debating whether she should give in to their pressure of building a SEZ, somewhere in the rural belt. In comes her executive assistant, complete with stubble, safari suit and a pair of glasses, and suggests messaging the junta for opinion. The SMS flows; the junta opines “NO” and the happily-ever-after jingle says “This is what you call Democracy! What an Idea Sir Ji…!”
Just think how many of us would breathe in harmony, if this were to happen for real. Isn’t it like Archimedes’s “Eureka”? A simple solution to the complex framework called Liberty and Democracy; a brilliant way out of the critical issue called voter psyche. Imagine the millions of rupees that can be saved. All the Neta ji needs is to do is to procure a database (he/she can buy it from the credit card selling call-centers) of mobile numbers, bounce every decision off his/her constituency, and all of us can live in a signature John Lennon world – “Imagine all the people, living life in peace…” The first time I saw this ad, I was tempted to ask myself ‘why didn’t anyone think of this before?’
I know it is an alluring idea. But before we run to the record book to etch “an advertisement that changed Indian Democracy, forever”, let us hold on for ten minutes and think - has no one actually tried this idea before (with or without a mobile phone)? The answer might dim our zeal.
In the last quarter of century the USA has added $5 trillion to its gross domestic products, and yet every survey and measure suggests that Americans are no happier than they were, some twenty five years ago. Not only the country is richer, but it is in better shape (that was before the 08 meltdown), in every way. Most Americans barely remember how tattered their economy was, during the early 1970s, due to Vietnam insult, stagflation, oil crises, racial riots and crime. But over the next 20 years, their per capita rose by 50%, crime declined, relations improved and every component of the misery index dropped. Then again, Cold War was won, Communism was destroyed, socialism discredited, and America towered above all. Except that the Americans don’t see it that way.
Simply put, Americans have lost faith in their democracy. Founded as a republic that believed in a balance between the will of the majority and the rights of the minority, America is increasingly embracing the simple minded populism that values popularity and openness as the key index of legitimacy. This ideology has necessitated the destruction of old institutions, the undermining of traditional authority and the triumph of organized interest group, all in the name of “the people”. And the result is a deep imbalance in the system – more democracy, but less liberty. The results shows. Trust factor in government in Washington has come down from 70% in 1960s to 30% in 2000. Voting levels have dropped. Disenchantment with the government is puzzling and points out that something is seriously wrong with their democracy.
So what has made the system decline? Why has public attitude turned around during the middle of 60s and has kept sinking ever since? It is because one big change began during that time, and has continued unchecked – the democratization of politics. Since the 60s most levels of American politics – parties, legislatures, agencies, and courts – have opened themselves to greater public contact, scrutiny and influence, in an effort to become more democratic in spirit. The story there is that the politicians there hardly do anything else but listen to the people.
Washington today is organized around the pursuit of public opinion and sentiments. It employs hordes of people to continually check the pulse of the people in every imaginable manner. It hires others to determine the feelings’ intensity, still others to guess what people might think tomorrow – and all along everyone keeps praising the all-round greatness and wisdom of American people. The problem is, as the pandering has gone up, public opinion towards leadership has gone down. During WWII, Winston Churchill was advised by a colleague in the Parliament to “keep his ear to the ground”. The great man responded by pointing out that “the British nation will find it very hard to look up to leaders who are detected in this position.” Perhaps the American sense that. That is what reflects in common American’s way of voting, response to opinion polls, letters to editors, TV interviews… across all possible channels.
There are thousands of voices on the fact that the quality of political leadership has gone down since the good old days, and that occupies a powerful place in public imagination. Imagine the historic figures like Lincoln, Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower. Then think of George W Bush, Dick Cheney and Madeline Albright. Gives you an idea right? John Kennedy published a book Profiles in Courage in 1956, in which he praised American spokesmen for their principled embrace of unpopular positions:
“(Such) a view assumes that the people of Massachusetts sent me to Washington to serve merely as a seismograph to record shifts in public opinion… The voters selected us because they had confidence in our judgment and our ability to exercise judgment from a position where we could determine what were their own best interests, as a part of the nation’s interest. This may mean that we must on occasion lead, inform, correct, and sometimes even ignore public opinion for which we were elected.”
Back home, and at 2009, whether Kennedy practiced what he preached is not important. Whether our leaders have that amount of political maturity or integrity is. As of today they do not have. So the idea emanating from the cell phone ad might seem appealing. But times are changing. With the likes of Milind Deora or Omar Abdullah emerging in the mainframe, we have plenty to look forward to. Interfacing with public to appear more democratic is tempting, but it can wait for a while. Looking at USA, this kind of an endeavor can prove to be a deceptive made-easy tool.
So? “What an Idea Sir ji”? To my mind, not quite.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Shalom Israel!...
Mr Indrajit Hazra’s article about Israel and Palestine touched a note across lot of places. I wrote a mail to the HT and him, among others. So did many others I am sure, a few of which found a place the on the edit page of HT, the next Sunday. One mail, by a Mr. Obaid Nasir was particularly emotional. It went on to the extent of linking Islam terrorism to the creation of Israel. While it doest need rocket science to understand that the majority of the followers of a JuD or HUJI or all other Pakistani outfits probably can not point out Israel-Palestine on a world map, it needs some element of understanding about Israel. There is a fat book called “O Jerusalem” that might enlighten those who are really keen to comment on this particular crisis. But for the rest of us all, who do not have the time or the resources to read a real fat book, here is a carry forward, a sort of a counter argument to Mr. Hazra’s column. (And a personal tribute to Indrajit Hazra - for being one of my most favorite observers of modern times)
So? Israel has been trying to raze Gaza to ground since a few weeks now, and this massive onslaught has been nearly unstoppable. Even UN intervention doesn’t seem to have managed to melt the ice. In hindsight, this seems like Israel’s distance-learning program-offer to India on how to handle terrorism.
I am not for once, saying that whatever is happening is right. As Mr Hazra says, Israel and Palestine are so deep rooted an affair, and endless intertwining of cause and effect, of history and religion, of so high quality international muck, that they have little or no parallel across the whole world; and at 2009, we are far removed from the rights and the wrongs. I agree to that. Even Kashmir doesn’t have depths that run back to thousands of years till the birth of Christ. Then what new am I trying to say?
I am amazed – that’s what.
For those who are not good with Middle East geography, please visualize that you live in a country that is probably the size of West Bengal (or a bit bigger). Down southwest you have Egypt, ruled by the descendants of a religion that uprooted the Copts (or the off springs of the famous Egyptian Civilization) many hundreds of years ago. Egypt is arguably the strongest Islamic nation, complete with rock-solid governance and (probable) nuclear power. On the other side you have Jordan. When this strip of a nation of yours came to existence in 1948, Jordan was ruled by one of the descendants of Prophet Muhammad’s family. You have Lebanon on your north that celebrates weekly holidays by shooting rockets on your borders – thus inflicting civilian casualties and economic damages. And you have Syria – and all these nations have one thing in common: they don’t like you one bit, because you have a different religion and you have settled in a piece of land that was theirs for hundreds of years. Oh yes, you face Islamic terrorist outfits like Hezbollah, that have been near-legitimized across your neighborhood nations – you wake up with them every morning in fact. Finally, across the open border on one side you have Mediterranean Sea, beyond which lies Europe, your thousand years old torture chamber cum burial ground. Hope you get the drift now. There is no place to hide.
Internally your land is not half as productive as the fertile Ganges plain of West Bengal. It is a mix of wasteland, desert, rocky patches, and extreme temperatures – in short, copybook wilderness. But you have settled there as a part of your destiny, because your religious forefathers called it The Promised Land, and you have worked relentlessly to make it as productive as possible. To add to your emotions there is a spot on your map called Jerusalem - your holiest city, which incidentally is also deemed to be the holiest of shrines by both Muslims and Christians. They share it with you, and you don’t see eye to eye with them on anything at all. So when you were forced to leave Europe or Middle East or wherever you were being persecuted for centuries, and landed up on this patch of wilderness, you faced bloody opposition. You probably wouldn’t have faced such stiff an opposition, because Jews and Muslims peacefully co-existed in Palestine for centuries, but for the old British outlook of ‘divide and rule’. The Anglo Imperialist poured an incredible amount of venom in the minds of the local Arabs – belonging to both Islam and Christian sect. So, you had to fight even before your inception. You fought with literally no hardware because no government in the world supported your birth. You had high and mighty opponents – the outgoing British Kingdom politics, the combined wrath of seven or eight Islamic nations, the Arab-German coalition, and Bedouin mercenaries. The moment the British mandate on Palestine expired, all of them collapsed on you, from all possible sides. It’s a miracle that you survived! You lost your near and dear ones, maybe a wife or sons or daughters, but you emerged victorious - Time after time after time! You needed a place in this world you could call your own, the least of your birthright, as you have known from your Holy Book. And you had to wrestle it because other religions from your lineage did not want to give you even that bit – though they own more than three quarters of this wide world in terms of real estate. And your fight for survival is not over yet – you still fight, not in the metaphoric sense, but you fight with guns and tanks. To defend your territory. And that is what amazes my Indian mind.
Theoretically speaking, if it were so, could we have survived the Israel way till today? Three generations of guts, where every civilian is combat trained. A narrow strip of wasteland that has built one of the highest rated Army, Intelligence and Defense Hardware in modern world, in a little over sixty years. A contemporary nation, that rose from being fatal cocktail of Nazi concentration camp survivors, nomads and perfectly ignorant orthodox local Jews – to the defiant state that it is today. Surrounded by enemy states several times larger than itself across all sides but calling shots the way it wants. Mind boggling for starters isn’t it? Back home, think of Kargil, of Parliament attack, of Flight 814 hi-jack, of cross border infiltration in Kashmir and West Bengal, of Bombay attacks, of the blast affected cities… think of the unguarded coastline, of sleepy intelligence, of Mayawati and Amar Singh. Even we are of the same age as Israel.
Even theoretically, I wonder if we could survive.
So? Israel has been trying to raze Gaza to ground since a few weeks now, and this massive onslaught has been nearly unstoppable. Even UN intervention doesn’t seem to have managed to melt the ice. In hindsight, this seems like Israel’s distance-learning program-offer to India on how to handle terrorism.
I am not for once, saying that whatever is happening is right. As Mr Hazra says, Israel and Palestine are so deep rooted an affair, and endless intertwining of cause and effect, of history and religion, of so high quality international muck, that they have little or no parallel across the whole world; and at 2009, we are far removed from the rights and the wrongs. I agree to that. Even Kashmir doesn’t have depths that run back to thousands of years till the birth of Christ. Then what new am I trying to say?
I am amazed – that’s what.
For those who are not good with Middle East geography, please visualize that you live in a country that is probably the size of West Bengal (or a bit bigger). Down southwest you have Egypt, ruled by the descendants of a religion that uprooted the Copts (or the off springs of the famous Egyptian Civilization) many hundreds of years ago. Egypt is arguably the strongest Islamic nation, complete with rock-solid governance and (probable) nuclear power. On the other side you have Jordan. When this strip of a nation of yours came to existence in 1948, Jordan was ruled by one of the descendants of Prophet Muhammad’s family. You have Lebanon on your north that celebrates weekly holidays by shooting rockets on your borders – thus inflicting civilian casualties and economic damages. And you have Syria – and all these nations have one thing in common: they don’t like you one bit, because you have a different religion and you have settled in a piece of land that was theirs for hundreds of years. Oh yes, you face Islamic terrorist outfits like Hezbollah, that have been near-legitimized across your neighborhood nations – you wake up with them every morning in fact. Finally, across the open border on one side you have Mediterranean Sea, beyond which lies Europe, your thousand years old torture chamber cum burial ground. Hope you get the drift now. There is no place to hide.
Internally your land is not half as productive as the fertile Ganges plain of West Bengal. It is a mix of wasteland, desert, rocky patches, and extreme temperatures – in short, copybook wilderness. But you have settled there as a part of your destiny, because your religious forefathers called it The Promised Land, and you have worked relentlessly to make it as productive as possible. To add to your emotions there is a spot on your map called Jerusalem - your holiest city, which incidentally is also deemed to be the holiest of shrines by both Muslims and Christians. They share it with you, and you don’t see eye to eye with them on anything at all. So when you were forced to leave Europe or Middle East or wherever you were being persecuted for centuries, and landed up on this patch of wilderness, you faced bloody opposition. You probably wouldn’t have faced such stiff an opposition, because Jews and Muslims peacefully co-existed in Palestine for centuries, but for the old British outlook of ‘divide and rule’. The Anglo Imperialist poured an incredible amount of venom in the minds of the local Arabs – belonging to both Islam and Christian sect. So, you had to fight even before your inception. You fought with literally no hardware because no government in the world supported your birth. You had high and mighty opponents – the outgoing British Kingdom politics, the combined wrath of seven or eight Islamic nations, the Arab-German coalition, and Bedouin mercenaries. The moment the British mandate on Palestine expired, all of them collapsed on you, from all possible sides. It’s a miracle that you survived! You lost your near and dear ones, maybe a wife or sons or daughters, but you emerged victorious - Time after time after time! You needed a place in this world you could call your own, the least of your birthright, as you have known from your Holy Book. And you had to wrestle it because other religions from your lineage did not want to give you even that bit – though they own more than three quarters of this wide world in terms of real estate. And your fight for survival is not over yet – you still fight, not in the metaphoric sense, but you fight with guns and tanks. To defend your territory. And that is what amazes my Indian mind.
Theoretically speaking, if it were so, could we have survived the Israel way till today? Three generations of guts, where every civilian is combat trained. A narrow strip of wasteland that has built one of the highest rated Army, Intelligence and Defense Hardware in modern world, in a little over sixty years. A contemporary nation, that rose from being fatal cocktail of Nazi concentration camp survivors, nomads and perfectly ignorant orthodox local Jews – to the defiant state that it is today. Surrounded by enemy states several times larger than itself across all sides but calling shots the way it wants. Mind boggling for starters isn’t it? Back home, think of Kargil, of Parliament attack, of Flight 814 hi-jack, of cross border infiltration in Kashmir and West Bengal, of Bombay attacks, of the blast affected cities… think of the unguarded coastline, of sleepy intelligence, of Mayawati and Amar Singh. Even we are of the same age as Israel.
Even theoretically, I wonder if we could survive.
Monday, January 12, 2009
All in the Name
Here is an attempt to alert people to a great injustice that is being perpetrated upon the sons of Bengal. So you thought they were wimpy to begin with. Far from it, my friend. Their current state is a result of years of conditioning by the oppressors - namely the women. By using a variety of psychological weapons, they have reduced these fine men to what you mostly see today. Today we focus on the first weapon in their hands - the nickname.
When a son is born into a Bengali household, he is gifted with a resonant, sonorous name. Bengali names are wonderful things. They convey majesty and power. A man with a name like Samrat, Samudro, Rudroprokash, Indrajeet, Surojeet, Prasenjeet, Bishwadeep,etc. is a man who will walk with his head held high, knowing that the world expects great deeds from him, which was why they bestowed the title, that is his name, upon him.
But it simply will not do for these men to get ahead of themselves. Their swelling confidence needs to be shattered. How can one go about it? This task is left to the mothers of these lads and is accomplished by the simple act of referring to the boy, not by his rather-great-sounding real name, but by a nickname which even Shakti Kapoor would feel ashamed to answer to. Here are some rules for creating nicknames, which need to be followed. They are:
1) Nicknames must have no connection to the real name. Arunabha cannot be called Arun. No, for that would be logical and such things are anathemas in the world of women. Instead he shall be called BHOMBOL. If possible, the nickname and real name must have no letters in common, but an ancient alphabet proves to be the constraining factor there.
2) Nicknames must be humiliating to the power infinity. If you are a tall rapping boy, with a flair for soccer, an easy charm and an endearing personality, then you shall be nicknamed - KHOKA. And every time, you have set your sights on a girl, and are on the verge of having the aforementioned lass eat out of your hand - your mother will arrive and pronounce loudly - "KHOKON, chalo". The ensuing sea of giggles will drown out whatever confidence you had earned from that last winning free-kick.
3) A nickname must refer in some way to a suitably embarrassing incident in your childhood that you would give your arm and leg to forget. If it took you a little too long to shed your baby fat, then years of gymming will not rid you of the nomenclature - MOTA. If your face turned crimson when you cried as a toddler, you will be called LALU. When you turn 40, your friends' children will call you LALU kaku. Even age will not earn you the right to be taken seriously thereafter.
4) Different members of the family will make up different nicknames each more embarrassing than the preceding one. If one member of the family calls you GHNOTON, then another will call you POCHA, and another will call you GHNOCHA. The humiliation multiplies.
5) You will always be introduced by your nickname until people forget you had a real name. Ranajoy might have taken on a gang of armed men single-handedly, but HABLA really didn't have a chance. After a point, HABLA will completely take over the beaten body of Ranajoy, weighed down by the pressure of a thousand taunts.
This strategy is surprisingly effective. Ask yourself - would you take Professor POKON seriously? Or put much weight by the opinion of Dr. BHONTU? Or march into battle under the command of General TOPA?
The power of the nickname has scarred the psyche of Bengali men everywhere. It follows them like a monkey on their back. That too, a monkey with a flair for slapstick, that was gifted to them by their own mothers, aunts, grandmas.
When a son is born into a Bengali household, he is gifted with a resonant, sonorous name. Bengali names are wonderful things. They convey majesty and power. A man with a name like Samrat, Samudro, Rudroprokash, Indrajeet, Surojeet, Prasenjeet, Bishwadeep,etc. is a man who will walk with his head held high, knowing that the world expects great deeds from him, which was why they bestowed the title, that is his name, upon him.
But it simply will not do for these men to get ahead of themselves. Their swelling confidence needs to be shattered. How can one go about it? This task is left to the mothers of these lads and is accomplished by the simple act of referring to the boy, not by his rather-great-sounding real name, but by a nickname which even Shakti Kapoor would feel ashamed to answer to. Here are some rules for creating nicknames, which need to be followed. They are:
1) Nicknames must have no connection to the real name. Arunabha cannot be called Arun. No, for that would be logical and such things are anathemas in the world of women. Instead he shall be called BHOMBOL. If possible, the nickname and real name must have no letters in common, but an ancient alphabet proves to be the constraining factor there.
2) Nicknames must be humiliating to the power infinity. If you are a tall rapping boy, with a flair for soccer, an easy charm and an endearing personality, then you shall be nicknamed - KHOKA. And every time, you have set your sights on a girl, and are on the verge of having the aforementioned lass eat out of your hand - your mother will arrive and pronounce loudly - "KHOKON, chalo". The ensuing sea of giggles will drown out whatever confidence you had earned from that last winning free-kick.
3) A nickname must refer in some way to a suitably embarrassing incident in your childhood that you would give your arm and leg to forget. If it took you a little too long to shed your baby fat, then years of gymming will not rid you of the nomenclature - MOTA. If your face turned crimson when you cried as a toddler, you will be called LALU. When you turn 40, your friends' children will call you LALU kaku. Even age will not earn you the right to be taken seriously thereafter.
4) Different members of the family will make up different nicknames each more embarrassing than the preceding one. If one member of the family calls you GHNOTON, then another will call you POCHA, and another will call you GHNOCHA. The humiliation multiplies.
5) You will always be introduced by your nickname until people forget you had a real name. Ranajoy might have taken on a gang of armed men single-handedly, but HABLA really didn't have a chance. After a point, HABLA will completely take over the beaten body of Ranajoy, weighed down by the pressure of a thousand taunts.
This strategy is surprisingly effective. Ask yourself - would you take Professor POKON seriously? Or put much weight by the opinion of Dr. BHONTU? Or march into battle under the command of General TOPA?
The power of the nickname has scarred the psyche of Bengali men everywhere. It follows them like a monkey on their back. That too, a monkey with a flair for slapstick, that was gifted to them by their own mothers, aunts, grandmas.
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