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RIGHT AS WE WERE inching towards a spirited summer, NCR was soaked by a spate of rain and a spell of pleasantness. Not used to such off-season coolness plus a weekend, citizens headed out to the pretty parts of the capital (Lord knows we have plenty of those). I admit that I sneaked off a bit—every professional is entitled to a day out—and headed straight for a series of dance performances. My experience left me lamenting that I did not do so more often. And it left me nostalgic for the days when my sister and I would train under our gurus, Reba Vidhyarthi and Bhaswati Mishra. I consider myself fortunate for having trained under her at the Kathak Kendra where I was a scholarship-holder. I realise that some people are not big fans of normative structures, especially those which demand (or exhort) obedience. Since my sister and I have grown up in the classical guru-shikshya tradition, a part of me understands the merit of such expectations. It presupposes a certain humility that I increasingly miss among fellow citizens. Is touching a guru’s feet, a servile act? Or is it one that acknowledges a depth of character and humility that is endearing? I will leave you, my readers, to decide for yourself. Personally, I see the act as humble, not slavish. I would pay a pretty penny to hear what Pandit Birju Maharajji has to say on this issue. I am confident of an answer; after all he is a man of patience and passion—a great combination for a guru. And what a guru he has been and continues to be. At his age, Birju Maharajji continues to run from pillar-topost trying to set-up his dance academy, promoting Kathak, raising awareness regarding the form, and teaching tots to teens. What makes him a bigger man is the fact that he has democratised his gharana. What his legendary uncles and father taught him is now available in a book for global learners. He has made an exclusive form, inclusive. Art, whether performed on stage or painted on a canvas, helps us find trueness in our world, reach for the deeper meaning, and importantly, brings joy and inspiration. It should never be within a boundary. Naturally, we at DW, were tempted to take a closer look into the life of this charismatic artist, exponent and man. Read about him on page 14. Our columnists, Ashok Malik and Vivek Bhandari, are back in this issue. We are introducing a new section called Reel Life in which fire-brand documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan talks to us about inspiration, and more importantly, his films. Even if the uncharacteristic coolness discontinues, include a little colour, music or rhythm in your lives. Art is after all good for the soul.
Japan is more than simply sushis, gadgets and geishas A few days before Christmas, I landed in Tokyo. Winter had just set in and unlike north India, it meant that the days were sunny and the nights nippy. If you travel to Tokyo in January and do not happen to be a big fan of chill, pack extra woollies. I have been told that it gets cold. This was my second, longer trip to Japan to film a TV programme—yes, I do seem to have some lucky stars—called Vintage Traveller. With a host, a crew and yours truly, our team was on a quest for all things medieval; artefacts and antiques. Tokyo was the one city on our travel map that I was looking forward to the most. There are two aspects of Japan that I enjoy experiencing—its streets and people. On my first visit, I realised that Tokyo’s sense of pragmatism and functionality reverberates across its architecture. It did remind me of Nehru Place (Delhi) a bit. Those unfamiliar with Delhi’s super-busy electronic goods area, it is where the city shops for its latest gadgets. There is an aura of nononsense across Tokyo, both admirable and intimidating. A greater part of the city was bombed out during the Second World War. Newer structures stand testament to the country’s romance with functionality married in small spaces. As one would imagine, you can see every sort of automation in Japan. However, unlike Asian mega-cities, technology is not flaunted in your face. In Japan, my land of contradictions, there is a twist to every tale. For a nation so in love with functionality, there is a whole culture of the ‘cute’ (kawaii). From police mascots to shop and subway signs, Japan has made everything cuter. As some Japanese people pointed out, the culture of kawaii is often about making taboo items easier to process. As for my favourite bit—the people—Japan really offers the whole gamut. Its citizens are a polite bunch; helpful, bound by traditions, and sometimes quite conservative. Perhaps, it is this side to the civil society which leads to its more eclectic or outlandish ways—perfectly-professional adults walking the streets dressed up as their favourite Manga or Anime character. If you can keep the bizarre aside, there is a profound sense of discipline among the Japanese that Indians could learn a thing or two from. For example loud telephonic conversations are considered rude in subways. Even during rush, commuters manage to maintain a silence which India cannot dream of. It can be a fair challenge to get around on one’s own in Tokyo without knowing Japanese. Though there are more English signboards these days, a majority of the population does not speak English. However, most make an effort. That is Japan for you—cool people. Take Mr Saito for instance. During our hunt for everything vintage, we met this collector of nohintos (Samurai swords). An affable man, Mr Saito was nowhere as dangerous as the swords that he collected. My trip threw up a motley crew—a collector of Godzilla figures. The iconic status of Godzilla underlines the fact that Hiroshima and Nagasaki incidents still resonate in the nation’s psyche. For those rare few who are not familiar with the figure; Godzilla is a creature ‘burdened’ with extraordinary powers after getting exposed to a nuclear explosion. There are hundreds of Godzillas on sale at most shops. I may not have found them particularly attractive, but they do sell for a fortune. That’s Japan for you; obsessed with its cartooning tradition. Take Nakano Broadway for instance. It is a mall dedicated to Manga and Anime cartoons. If you believe that reading graphic novels or cartoons is silly and dressing up as them even more so; Japan would be a cultural shock. Look beyond the obvious, there are more layers. It is a land where the traditional co-habits with the postmodern; and Australian geishas walk the streets.
THE MONTH GONE BY has certainly had something for everyone. Apart from elections, people have had to come to grips with phenomena ranging from Board exams to the Budget session in Parliament. It was interesting to see Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee quote Shakespeare repeatedly during the session; admittedly, those bits were more interesting than the budget itself, which was too aam for the common admi. Budget 2012 did not sizzle at all (it sank like an arrowroot biscuit dipped in tea too much) but what did carry a spark was Whatever the Odds—a book launched last November and currently resting on my bedside table. A semi-autobiographical work co-written by Indian realty baron Kushal Pal Singh and journalists Ramesh Menon and Raman Swamy, Whatever the Odds is quite the page-turner. What impressed me the most about this book was its lack of superfluity—neither its subject nor its writers resorted to unnecessary words. It was a pragmatic narrative, much like its protagonist. But to put the spotlight on Singh, we will need to describe him a little better. A few more adjectives will be needed, and I will use the word ‘honest’ before all others. One does not expect a realty baron like Singh to admit to weaknesses, yet he does. With a humility that is rare, he recalls his father-in- law’s censure, his own initial lack of canny business sense and his struggles. Obviously, then, ‘courageous’ is another word that could be used to describe the man. Though the Millennium City in Gurgaon is every bit Singh’s baby, he is not blinkered about it. Like a parent he is quick to point out the shoddy condition of his “dream project”; slams its lack of infrastructure and potholed roads. We were fortunate to score a double scoop with our cover story this time—roping in both K.P. Singh and Ramesh Menon. A veteran journalist, Menon gladly revisited his days of extensive research with Singh for the DW cover. Perhaps it’s inevitable that everyone is talking about economic models, environmental impact and financial systems. Another observer to speak on similar issues is Chandran Nair, who has written in for our “Foreign Despatches” this month. An economist and environmentalist, Nair takes on and redefines the conventional ideas of capitalism. This month’s DW ends on a rather delicious note, with a conversation with everybody’s favourite chef, Sanjeev Kapoor. Kapoor entered our living rooms thanks to his immensely popular cooking show. Read on to find out about his father’s influence, cooking Indian khana and of course, kitchens. On that note, I leave you with a magazine that I hope gives you enough food for thought. As always, I look forward to your response, so do write in.
BUDGET\\ The Railway Budget 2012 presented by Former Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi hiked passenger fares for the first time in 10 years. Interestingly, before the masses could react to the hike, key coalition ally Trinamool Congress (TMC) decided to pull the chain and bring the Manmohan Singh’s budget express to a halt. As soon as Trivedi completed his speech, Trinamool Congress raised the red flag—both to the hike and the minister. In the third week of March, the hike in rail passenger fares for second-class suburban and non-suburban, sleeper, AC chair car and AC three-tier was rolled back, with the new Railway Minister Mukul Roy dubbing the hikes as a “huge drain” on the masses. He, however, did not touch the increase of 15 Paise per kilometre and 30 Paise per kilometre, respectively, in passenger fares in AC two-tier and AC-I announced by his predecessor Trivedi. TMC leader Mukul Roy also scrapped Trivedi’s proposal to expand the Railway Board and put on hold the proposal of setting up a committee to examine if there should be an independent tariff regulatory authority.
INTERNATIONAL\\ The United Nations’s top human rights body—the Human Rights Council—called on Sri Lanka to ‘investigate alleged war crimes committed by both sides during the country’s 26-year conflict with Tamil Tiger rebels. The UN Human Rights Council approved a US-backed resolution that urged the South Asian nation to probe allegations of summary executions and kidnappings among other abuses, but stopped short of calling for an international investigation. A 47-nation council passed a resolution with 24 countries in favor, 15 against and eight abstentions. India voted in favour of the resolution. Sri Lanka and its allies had fiercely resisted the resolution, saying it unduly interfered in the country’s domestic affairs and could hinder its reconciliation process. The head of Sri Lanka’s delegation to the council, Cabinet Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe, insisted before the vote that his country had been a model for others in dealing with the aftermath of the conflict, which ended in 2009. He called the resolution “misconceived, unwarranted and ill-timed,” and directed much of his ire toward the US, which had tabled the draft before the Geneva-based council. But human rights groups and ethnic Tamils in exile welcomed the vote. The resolution asks the Sri Lankan government to commit to the international community that it would implement the recommendations of the Lessons Learned Reconciliation Commission established by President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The resolution does not seek the appointment of an independent international inquiry commission on the alleged war crimes nor the establishment of an international co-chairs unlike in 2002, to ensure a political solution to the ethnic problem of Sri Lanka. Meanwhile, India took a firm stand despite being in the spotlight over the resolution. Tamils in India, Sri Lankans, international human rights activists and those in diplomatic circles, are all interested to know the way India’s vote will swing. Since the end of the LTTE war, India has consistently thwarted attempts in the Security Council and the UN Human Rights Council by Western countries to investigate war crimes in Sri Lanka. It had supported the Sri Lankan state in its bid to eliminate the LTTE. It seems that India is dissatisfied over the Sri Lankan government’s accelerated militarisation of the Northeast, devolution of powers and the pace of rehabilitation and reconstruction of war-affected Tamils and Tamilian areas. The Prime Minister recently addressed the Parliament and inclined to vote in favour of the draft resolution. The stand goes against India’s conventional position as the government does not vote on a country-specific resolution. The government was also facing pressure from DMK and AIADMK to vote for the resolution.
ENTERTAINMENT// Balan goes on to prove that there is nothing dirty in portraying a woman’s plight in the oftenexploitative Indian film industry. The film with a female lead hit the jackpot at the box office, and swept up awards for commerical films.
Explosive revelations of a former CIA operativeINTERNATIONAL\\ Did Fidel Castro (above) know that the late US President John F Kennedy was to be assassinated? According to a new book—Castro’s Secrets; The CIA and Cuba’s Intelligence Machine—about the 1963 murder, he did. The book slated for April release was penned by Brian Latell, a retired CIA agent, who studied Cuban affairs as an analyst in the 1960s and later became the agency’s chief intelligence officer for Latin America. The author has claimed that Castro knew of a possible attack on the late President. Rumour about the Cuban dictator’s involvement in a plot to murder his fierce adversary has been around for almost half-acentury since communist sympathiser Lee Harvey Oswald shot the US president during a trip to Dallas. In his book, Latell claims that on the morning of November 22, 1963, Castro ordered a senior intelligence officer in Havana to stop listening for non-specific CIA radio communications and concentrate instead on “Any little detail, any small detail from Texas”. Latell also writes, “Fidel knew of Oswald’s intentions and did nothing to deter the act.” He also claims that Castro was aware that Oswald, who had been denied a visa to visit Cuba, told staff there that he was going to murder Kennedy to prove his allegiance to the communist cause.
CRICKET\\ On March 16, 2012, at Mirpur in Bangladesh, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar or the Little Master as he is called by his fans, scored a century of international centuries—51 in Tests and 49 in ODIs. As far as this record goes, Tendulkar’s closest rival remains the Australian cricketer Ricky Ponting, who has 68 centuries against his name. Born on April 24, 1973, Tendulkar made his Test debut in 1989. Since then, he has scripted numerous records. It seems that Tendulkar himself was equally worried about the record. His reaction after the hundreth ton was, “I seem to have lost 50 kgs,”. His 99th century was on March 12, 2011, and the countdown to the hundredth ton started from then on. The champion for now has ruled out immediate retirement plans. Since his international debut at 16 against Pakistan in 1989, Tendulkar has been compared to not only top batsmen like Brian Lara and Inzamam-ul-Haq, but also to Australian great Donald Bradman, as the best batsman ever.
POLL\\ The 2012 Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur, came as a mixed bag for national parties, especially the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with no clear winners emerging in any state. However, it was the verdict in Uttar Pradesh that came as the major disappointment and worry to both. Congress’s high pitched campaign led by scion Rahul Gandhi, and BJP’s attempt to bring in hardliner Uma Bharti, both failed to woo in voters. While Gandhi and Bharti sank, Samajwadi Party (SP) scion and son to party president Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav (in picture above), successfully spearheaded a campaign to bring his party back to power. SP won 224 seats out of the total 403, becoming the single-largest party and forming the government. The junior Yadav was given credit for the party’s rise from 97 seats in the 2007 Vidhan Sabha polls and was subsequently elected as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. Akhilesh Yadav is the youngest chief minister of Uttar Pradesh at the age of 38 years. On the same day, 19 Cabinet Ministers and 28 Ministers of State were also sworn in. The poll results was being viewed as a mini-General Elections, foreshadowing the 2014 mandate.
CHANDRAN NAIR: My parents were both migrants from Kerala. My father came as a young man in his twenties and my mother as a nine-year-old with her older brother. During my early years, the only things I knew of India were through the customs and practices at home in Malaysia; we had a strong Indian community there and we heard stories from the first generation who had migrated before the Second World War. However, a large chunk of the stories were of how poor India was, how everything was very tough there. It wasn’t that we were wealthy in Malaysia. In fact, in retrospect, it seems that we were not wealthy at all. But we saw ourselves vis-a-vis the people in India (of course the images we were presented were through newspapers and magazines. In those days we didn’t have television at all.) But all images were of the dire poverty, which clearly didn’t reflect India’s reality. And today that perception has changed considerably. When I try to explain my diverse and colourful upbringing, especially while addressing overseas audiences, I always tell a story. I was brought up in a Hindu household. At six in the morning, the lamps were lit and we prayed to gods in all forms—one with a head of an elephant. This was tradition. Then I went to a missionary school where priests, or brothers as we called them, were Caucasian men in cassocks who would tell us that God was blond and blueeyed and we learnt the Lord’s prayer. When school ended, the bus would drop us to a nearby mosque as the area had a majority of Malay Muslims, and we would go to the mosque. I lived in a neighbourhood where there were quite a few Muslim families and waking up to the azaan is a sweet childhood memory. In the evening, as a family, we would often have Chinese food for dinner. I learnt to use chopsticks at the age of three.
SO IN A single day, I was exposed to a variety of people and their cultures, which is a reality for the diaspora living in the colonies of the former empire. It didn’t create a conflict then. It doesn’t create a conflict now though there are a few who seek to divide us. Our multiculturalism, I hope, stood us in good faith. The Indian expats of Malaysia are thus usually not fearful people, wary of different cultures, habits and the way people look. We who have these experiences have an important task of teaching tolerance, which doesn’t come from studying abroad alone, despite what many of the elite happen to think.
WHAT LED TO the present book is partly the childhood I had and my later years working in Africa and consulting across Asia. I was chairperson and CEO of Asia’s largest environmental consultant firm for 15 years. At an intellectual level, I was drawn to the conclusion that much of the narrative of environmental protection comes from a western way of thinking about the need to control the impacts while maintaining a lifestyle almost based on entitlement. In the past 10 years, as China and India rapidly started to join the world, I realised that managing the impact was only one element in the rather futile attempt to manage and protect while striving to grow relentlessly. The real cause of the problem lay elsewhere. Population is one of the determining factors but it was not the only factor: the global population would perhaps peak to 15 billion people at the end of the century. Having said that, despite our best efforts, we will not be able to reduce human population any time soon.
I REALISED THAT the fundamental flaw was the economic model that seeks to promote a relentless consumption pattern: buy one and get one free. It’s a model that deliberately seeks to under-price resources and also promotes consumption through cheap credit. This model, therefore, has a huge consequence in terms of human equity and development and deprives people at the so-called bottom of the pile and limits their access to resources; it thereby undermines their right to the most basic of needs. This economic model, I believe, seeks to fight all manners of regulation and to some degree usurp the state. That is the logical conclusion that I could draw as I thought about the problem more and more. I discovered that this was a taboo subject that many people, and dare I say many Asians, including Indians, who are somewhat subservient to the western narrative because of the colonial heritage, are not willing to look at the problem in a new light. AS I HAVE suggested in my book, Consumptionomics: Asia’s Role in Reshaping Capitalism and Saving the Planet, we need to reject our present pattern of consumption growth. Continuing in the same manner as the West would prove to be catastrophic. The science is clear about that much. We need to question the fundamentals of capitalism as defined by the West, especially the US, that the holy grail of free markets and capitalism are intertwined with democracy. We in this part of the world will need to ask some very hard questions: fundamentally it all boils down to access to resources. In the Indian contest, if you look at the biggest socio-political dilemma in the country it is the Naxalite Movement. Some people say that the movement occupies some 25 to 30 per cent of the country in terms of the landmass at present. Who are the Naxalites? They are basically tribal citizens who are disenfranchised and angry, fighting for their right to their land. What is the land? It is a resource. Then why is the land under threat? Apparently because it is being seized (shared if you are kind) in an economic model which seeks to relentlessly extract from it without proper compensation. And it is not just about compensation. It is also about understanding the full implication of how the resource has a direct link to how millions will live. This sort of narrative is not being discussed.
WE TALK OF the environmental issues divorcing it from the mainstream political debate about the future of human societies. It is not about some green movement but what I have called ‘Constrained Capitalism’. I am saying that essentially the basis of constrained capitalism should be the understanding that resources are limited. There are some people, who I would call ‘fundamentalists’, who are unwilling to accept this reality. I must make it clear here that I am not calling capitalism evil or talking of the destruction of this system. But I am calling for it to be restrained—especially here. Restraining it is essentially a political objective about how resources should be shared. Capitalism thrives on relentless promotion of consumption and the under-pricing of resources. The truth then is that the ‘trickle down economics’ will not work as the gravy is way too thick at the top to trickle down. If you are trying to create a more stable society—which is essential in India—then we need to decide how that economic model of capitalism with its mindless consumption, under-pricing resources and externalising of true cost, can be shaped. To do that, India needs a strong state. And for that to be the case, there has to be complete rejection of the western narrative that promotes the idea that capitalism thrives when the state moves out of the way and allows private enterprise to deliver goods and services. That simple argument, which has sadly taken hold even in Asia, is a complete fallacy and a lie, which business schools are busy promoting. These sorts of forced assumptions are the luxury of nations built on vast resources and few people. We could argue that empires were built around colonisation—a good business model. Those ideologies were shaped during a period when a small minority of people dominated the world through a range of technologies— and dare I say guns. I don’t wish to start a rant about the colonial past, but the economic model that we are living today has its roots in a western historical perspective of the world through colonialism and thus privilege. Why on earth are we following this model? There is no better wake up call to the limits of extreme capitalism than what is happening in the US and Europe today: I call it an end to the 300 years of extractive, exploitative growth and over leverage. That’s over and now the world has to adjust. In my book I argue that in a way the West is now irrelevant, not because of anything other than the fact that their numbers are too small. Asia must now lead, not because of any superior values, but sheer numbers. Talk of Asia as the new economic power is ringing out loud, however, we should be cautious and resist the temptation to be triumphant because Asia will face significant problems and the answers to those will lie in how China and India respond, and ultimately via its political systems. Rules need to be set and for rules we need to have a strong state.