Havana Cigars for the Americans!

Raju Korti

A file grab of Late Fidel Castro in his younger days

After glaring at their feisty and stubborn Communist nation for fifty long years, the Americans have finally blinked. US-Cuba relations have remained frozen since the early 1960s when the former severed diplomatic relations and clamped a trade embargo after Cuba's revolution.
It will be a little infantile at this stage to describe this unfolding as a thawing phase. Cuban President Raul Castro -- who took over from big brother Fidel Castro -- has conceded nothing and has in fact predicated that Havana would not change its political system. At the moment there are no clear indications from Washington on the diplomatic handle it might employ in bringing the Cubans around but a status quoist Castro has kept his countrymen's feet firmly on the ground asserting that unless the key issue of economic embargo was addressed, there was nothing more to read in the development than some symbolism.
In a calibrated response, Castro straddled his couched cynicism with a word of praise for President Obama for his deviant step in attempting to reverse decades of hostilities between the two countries. By confirming that he would attend the summit of the Americas in Panama, he potentially paved the way for a face-to-face meeting with the US President -- a prospect unimaginable until a year ago.
Having experimented with Socialism better than China and Russia, Castro will not compromise on Socialist principles. "In the same way that we have never demanded that the United States change its political system, we will demand respect for ours," Castro stated, even as he patted himself on the back for standing up to the "long and difficult struggle" brought about by the economic sanctions.
As an inimical neighbor, who understands America better than Castro? Through decades, the Cubans have watched American foreign policy chameleon though contradictions and convenience. Seen through that prism, the Cubans are going to take a lot of convincing that Obama has gone beyond political rhetoric that "Washington's approach towards its neighbor was outdated."
The moves by the White House to review the designation of Cuba as state sponsor of terrorism and promise to initiate efforts to life 54-year old embargo cannot be entirely dismissed as expedient politics, although one can surmise what brings about this sudden change of heart. The US couldn't care less whether Cuba reverts to Capitalism from Socialism. One suspects, and not without reason, that this meltdown is the pre-eminent concern about Putin angling to revive Russia-Cuba friendship that would render the American embargo redundant. Back home, demographics do not favor the perpetuation of a policy that young Americans feel has outlived its utility. The striking irony is the prospect of the Russian-Cuban proximity raises the same specter of Cold War that Obama quoted in the context of domestic compulsions.
According to a US Census Bureau data, there are 1.8 million Cuban Americans living in US and over 80% of them are potential voters. Demography also matters for understanding the timing of such a move from the Cuban perspective. For example, Cuban leadership will soon get younger. The Castros are octogenarians and President Raúl Castro had declared that he would step down when his term ends in 2018. The Castros therefore needed a plan to hand power off to a new generation.
In any case the ball is in Obama's court. He is sure to meet with some stiff opposition from own Congressmen, some of whom are already threatening to block the normalization of ties thanks to the  unpleasant history that loom large especially the fact that Fidel Castro and his guerilla army defeated the US-backed Cuban government of Fulgencio Batista and then rubbed salt on the injury by nationalizing US business without compensation.
There are of course many factors at play in US-Cuba relations, but for both countries demographic exigencies have thrown open incentives for a historic correction.

Killed in a "Gentleman's Game"

Phil Hughes collapsing after being hit by Abott bouncer

Raju Korti
The death of promising Aussie cricketer Phil Hughes after being felled by a short-pitched delivery from Sean Abbot in a domestic match should make all people who claim to have a passion for this game -- touted as Gentleman's Game -- sit up and take notice of the needlessly fierce competition completely smothering the fun in the sport.
There is every reason to believe that Phil, just 25 and in contention for a Test recall for the series against Indians now in Down Under, has fallen not to a bouncer but to this vicious facet of a game which has degenerated with the obscene amount of money rampaged on cricketers for whom nationalism is only an offshoot of their flourishing bank balances.
Presumably, my refrain will find several specious arguments, one being bouncers are part of the game and are a perfectly licit and accepted weapon in the armory of a fast bowler. That contention, however is not without a semantic riposte in where does one draw the line in gamesmanship when it comes to competition.
Way back in 1962, I vividly recall how Nari Contractor was knocked down by a vicious bouncer from Charlie Griffith, considered by many, including West Indians themselves, as more dangerous than his counterpart Wesley Hall. Of course, the Indians were warned and Contractor couldn't escape his share of culpability of misjudging it and taking the blow bang on his head. Even as a child who was fixated on the game like most at that age do, I had joked that Griffith didn't have to bowl at that destructive speed to get the Indians out since the Indians were never comfortable playing the fast stuff anyway. Contractor survived an emergency surgery and lived to tell the tale of how a penitent Griffith shed copious tears by his side till the time he was in hospital. That remorse was never seen in action though as Griffith butchered the Indians like he was in an abattoir.
Fourteen years later in 1976, the Indian batsmen of the likes of Sunil Gavaskar, Mohinder Amarnath, Gundappa Vishwanath and Anshuman Gaekwad touring the same West Indies were not exactly lambs to slaughter. If anything, these names were reverentially mentioned as the best players of fast bowling. But Gavaskar recalls in his book how in that Kingston Test, speedsters like Michael Holding and Wayne Daniel were egged on a by primitive spectators to the call of "Kill him maan" and "Tear off his head maan". Even the rival skipper Clive Lloyd, clearly rattled by the Indian response, was believed to have asked his bowlers to aim at the Indians instead of the stumps. A brave Anshuman Gaekwad had actually bared his black-and-blue chest to show how manfully he had taken on all that marauding stuff. It was not a game, it was hostility and bloodshed to put it mildly.
It was so Calypso in character when a sports magazine had put Holding, Roberts, Garner  and Croft on its cover and had described them as Dogs of War. Croft was later thrown out after he threatened an umpire with a stump. He was deadly anyway.
If you thought that the game had turned cruelly competitive in the days of Holding, Roberts and Lillee, Thomson, please go back in time to the late thirties when Douglas Jardine gave a new euphemism to gamesmanship by coining the word "Bodyline." The underlying message was clear. When you couldn't get run machines like Bradman out, you always had the superior option of aiming at his body -- stumps be damned -- because that would get him out for the whole of the series.
Not everybody is a Roy Fredericks. As was the won't in those days, the 1975-76 series between mighty West Indians and equally mighty Aussies was preceded by a war of words and just how ferocious the game had become, got clear from the word go. In a bluster and bravado so peculiar to most fast bowlers, Thomson had claimed that he would smash Fredericks' skull with the very first delivery that would be the fastest bouncer. Fredericks, amused by that braggadocio, said he would dispatch it for a six come what may. Both kept their promises but the series which West Indies lost 5-1, showed barbarity was becoming the name of the game -- all in the name of intense competition.
If this way of testing a batsman's skill could be rationalized for Fredericks, how does one do it for a tailender like Ewen Chatfield who was almost killed by a short-pitched delivery from Peter Lever? It is an irony of sorts that the Kiwi fast bowler, a hopeless Number 11 batsman by his own admission, feels for Abbot and hopes the guilt doesn't weigh on his mind in future. Implicit in this apparent sportsman's spirit is the acceptance of a dangerous attitude that has crept into the game. Fast bowlers the world over seem to believe that with a batsman wearing a helmet, he has every license to aim at his head. Hughes was not a tailender and was wearing a protective gear. Gavaskar is often commended for having played the best of fast bowling without ever wearing a helmet, and rightly so, but the Hughes incident should make us believe that he was lucky to have gotten away without being harmed because players with even the best technique can falter at times and that one mistake could be fatal.
The move by Cricket Australia to organize counseling -- whatever that involves or means --for its players is a proverbial case of putting the cart before the horse. It also raises a tricky question whether players will (care to) remember the counseling in the heat of the moment and if they do so, whether it will inhibit them from playing with their inbred attitude. There will be arguments for and against. I am inclined to believe that self counseling is always the best and if the game is played like a sport, it retains its old world charm.
During that epoch-making series against West Indies skippered by Sir Garfield Sobers in 1971, Captain Ajit Wadekar had said that "good batsmen are never afraid of good bowlers." The question, rhetorical though, is how good is good enough.
                

To whom it may concern!

Pic representational

Raju Korti
For someone whose writing in recent times is born out of un-gainful unemployment, I can vouch for the fact that writing an "open letter" is the work of a super-unemployed mind. Utterly disengaged as I have been, it has never occurred to my idle senses to write one so far but being on the threshold of attaining the super-unemployed status (my own coinage, of course), I intend to do so soon. The targets of my affection or disaffection would not be the Obamas, Modis, Bhuttos or celebrity stars of the Sunny Leone kinds. They would be those who have the time, patience and the self-elevating mind to write "open letters."
There is a certain self-deceptive charm and accredited advantage about writing "open letters." They are read by all and sundry except those they are addressed to. The reason is not far to seek. The people at the receiving end of "open letters" don't live in the same world as lesser mortals do. So there is never any fear of reprisal, backlash or retaliation even if the piece goes viral on a social networking site. And the proverbial icing on the cake comes with the smug feeling that you wrote your piece of mind to a person in public domain.
My sudden interest in the issue stems out of the recent "open letters" written to Bilawal Bhutto who has understandably roused a section of super-patriotic Indians with his outburst that he would take all of Kashmir from India. He followed it up with a threat to hack the Facebook account of Mark Zuckerberg, no less. The second threat had me more worried since a threat to Facebook would mean a threat to my existence, or whatever silly little has remained of it since that is where I place my blog links.
My first brush with an "open letter" came thanks to literary critic William Hazlitt whose letter to his son was a chapter in school English. At the time, I didn't understand the head or tail of what he wrote, nor his provocation to write. All I could gather from the tone and tenor of that letter was the exaggerated sense of counseling in it that probably must have bounced off his son, presuming of course, he read it. Today, I must be almost as old as Hazlitt must have been then minus that highly embroidered and overstated wisdom.
Now that I am grappling with the temptation to shoot off "open letters" to all those who write them, I am also bracing up to be chewed out for the misdemeanor. Sample this first paragraph:

To All Open Letter Writers
First of all, a 'Hello'. I have never met you before, nor do I wish to bump into you in future, but I have been reading a lot of your "open letters" lately. I want you to know that I do understand, if not appreciate, why you write open letters and I sympathize with your motives. I'm saying that because all "open letters" begin with this false sense of intimacy and the bogus claim that the writer really wants the best for the person he or she is addressing.

This sample, if anything, will tell you that I can make a Chetan Bhagat look like an apprentice in blending speed and lack of substance. I am told all anonymous letters are despicable, but you just have to put some etiquette in them. They become "open letters."





    

From China with love

Pic courtesy pmindia.gov.in

Raju Korti
If there is one thing that you got to give it to the ruthlessly pushy Chinese, it is their clear perceptions in not mixing bilateral trade with security issues. So even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi carries forward his investment caravan by hosting the incumbent President Xi Jinping with Khaman Dhokla and Won Ton soup for the starters, there is a reasonable sense of optimism that the country's creaking infrastructure will get a much needed boost from this new-found engagement.
Naysayers will, of course, be quick to harp on China's past record in treachery as also its meager investments post-2000 but much water has flown under the bridge since the visits of President Jiang Zemin and President Hu Jintao where diplomacy had taken precedence over bilateral trade. One should not be surprised if Jinping has come with a baggage that aims at arresting the growing trade deficit against India. Modi actually deserves a pat for making it implicitly clear to Beijing that the only mutually beneficial option was trade investment rather than tariff concessions. While investment per se may not be a conduit for bringing down the trade deficit, it could help the country's manufacturing sector through imports from China.
I have few doubts that given his astute Gujarati business mind it is not beyond Modi's ken to put investment from Japan and China on a fast track mechanism while subtly impressing upon the Chinese leader the Gandhian ethos that flows off the tranquil Sabarmati.
To me, Modi's three summits with three of the world's most powerful leaders in Tokyo, New Delhi and Washington will provide some impetus to the dormant diplomacy in the Manmohan Singh's decade. Obviously, Modi is nursing a two-pronged approach. One, shoring up the economy to achieve an annual growth rate of 8% and two -- and also the more obvious -- that will see him firmly in the saddle. The investments from China, United States, Japan, Germany will be a concrete step in that direction but one needs to look beyond the apparent to realize that Modi's meetings with Xi and Barrack Obama within a fortnight's span have been smartly timed. If the feelers from Beijing are to be interpreted correctly, China is not investing in just India but also in the new Prime Minister by confabulating with him in the land of his roots.
Although both the countries have done well to keep contentious issues relating to the border and Tibet by the wayside, Modi will have some political balancing to do and his handling of the Xi and Obama visits are certain to come in for close scrutiny and comparison. Dealing with the Americans, I suspect, won't be as easier given the hiccups that accrue between the two countries besides Modi's battered ego in the wake of denial of a visa. Modi isn't a person who is likely to forget that kind of slight. But then it will also be a chastening experience of sorts for the American President to entertain a no-visa politician to a dinner-table-Prime Minister. Speaks volumes about what massive public mandate can do to the relationship between two countries. From all available indications, the past seems to have been buried and Modi might pass the US test with Washington acknowledging his innocence in the 2002 riots although there remains a sizeable number of critics who are not prepared to give him a clean chit.
Reports emanating from the American capital suggest that the Obama administration is all geared up to welcome Modi since the argument now is the denial of visa was more of an ethical issue than a political one. The winds have blown favorably with the Japanese and the Chinese. Xi, who also happens to be the General Secretary of the powerful Communist Party, is being accompanied by over 40 media persons. It is but some indication of the significance the Chinese attach to this visit when you take into account the state-controlled Media there.
There are friction points as well. Business back home is not going to take in kindly if the Prime Minister opens umbrella industries like retail and banking. That could open a Pandora's box that might injure some of the economic advantage that he seeks to garner. As for Amdavadis, they would not mind a few traffic restrictions as long as the China Development Bank offers loans at lower rates.
A point in passing. The business sense that I am trying to put forth over here is patently Gujarati. Modi happens to be incidental to that cause.

Morning sickness!

Raju Korti
I detect a voyeuristic streak in film journalists when they free-wheel their fertile imagination on whether an actress is in the family way. The latest to get caught in this speculative web is Rani Mukherji who is believed to be sporting a baby bump before or after her marriage with film-maker Aditya Chopra.
Pregnancy or the rumors about it are an integral part of most film stories. In the seventies you often saw the father informing the daughter of her pregnancy with the clichéd "Beti, tum ek bachche ki maa banne waali ho" and the daughter would look shocked beyond her wits because the motherhood was often the consequence of some misfired love affair. At the time, we thought it must be some miracle of Science that the father would know about his daughter's pregnancy while she herself did not. This inadvertent humor would be followed by a gut-wrenching song about her life of shame and ignominy ahead.
From Kajol to Shilpa Shetty and Aishwarya Rai to Rani, every actress has gone through this gestation period of chewing and conjecturing by the Media until the next round of intense guesstimates begin on what would be the probable name of the new arrival.
Shutterbugs, of course, have a field day trying to click the celebrity from different angles, trying to produce some photographic evidence of the pregnancy while the latter is supposed to hide it worse than a state-kept secret. Everyone partakes of this hypothesizing because its not their baby anyway.
Earlier, the celebrities would occasionally add grist to the rumour mills by making vague and ambiguous statements but now the Media does its own diagnosis. In Rani's case, the grapevine was fertilized by her request for help while climbing the stairs and her co-star Madhuri Dixit lending her a helping hand on the sets of Jhalak Dikhla Jaa.There is a strong reason to speculate (!) that Madhuri's gracious gesture was born out of similar predicament she went through in her years of pregnancy. I say years because the Media is known to spend a couple of years "expecting" the child and a year "confirming" the pregnancy before the new born actually descends on the scene. That's carrying the contemplation to its test-tube gestation!
Some embedded journalist also concluded that Rani arrived on the sets of the show late because she had an appointment with the doctor and she had a mild bout with Flu. So the next time a celebrity visits a doctor with Flu -- before or after marriage -- the signals are clear: The stork is about to visit.
Rani herself added to this pregnant pause by saying she "expects soon." When asked if she was looking to start a family, she said "that is why I and Aditya Chopra are married." That clarification -- unless it was a subtle barb -- makes sense in an age when even children understand the repercussions of a pregnancy before marriage but gossip mongers interpret it as her "grand confession." It absolves them from the charge of prying into her personal life.
A celebrity's pregnancy, real or purported, is an opportunity for the Media to "educate" us on the "afterglow and radiance" evidenced on her beautiful face. Wonder where all the feminists go into hiding when they read this; as "afterglow and radiance" are not known to have spared lesser mortals as well. I remember actress Jessica Simpson as saying that "People always say that pregnant women have a glow. And I say it’s because you’re sweating to death."
If you ask me, a woman doesn't get pregnant to give employment to doctors or media persons. Giving birth is an ecstatic jubilant experience not available to males. It is a woman's ultimate creative experience of a lifetime.


 

Musharraf's new warfront

Raju Korti
Military dictatorships in Pakistan make for interesting and intriguing case studies. Starting from Gen Yahya Khan to Gen Pervez Musharraf, the evolution is punctuated with chicanery, machinations and collusions. Gen Yahya, the stocky Pashtun, who in many ways led the roadmap to the carving of the country into Bangladesh, was -- by the country's standards -- the fairest and therefore also the most naïve. He set the precedent of sacking democratically elected governments, ejecting his benefactor President Ayub Khan who had paved the way for his promotion to the country's highest army post. Gen Zia, the scheming Punjabi on the other hand, was wilier but he never made secret of his dislike for then President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Rationalizing his elevation as the President on the Doctrine of Necessity after what is believed to be a "judicial murder" of the rabble rouser Bhutto, Zia cleverly Islamised the country to remove any misgiving the world community had on the Two-nation Theory. (That in India it continues to spark an animated and fierce debate is another story). The Delhi-born Gen Musharraf seemed to have learnt his lessons from the experience of his predecessors. The feisty man turned out to be the most insidious and greasy. Even as he trampled democratic institutions, turned the judicial system into a kangaroo court, he brought a PR polish to his administration. While systematically getting his detractors out of the way, including the "reasonable" Nawaz Sharif, he made out a specious case of how his elevation and presence at the helm was fundamental(ist) to Pakistan's turbulent existence. Unlike, Yahya and Zia, Musharraf had an air of sophistication to him, what with his frequent claims of Kemal Ataturk of Turkey as his idol.
There is a, however, a common chord in this long story of  deviousness and subterfuge. The reign of most dictators eventually comes to an end with not-so-happy ending. Yahya and Zia didn't exactly die in very graceful circumstances and Musharraf, who is still fighting like the true blue army general, has now the mortification of seeing Sharif at the helm again while the courts that he once used as his dummies now hounding him out. Nemesis catches up and how.
When the tide turned against him, Musharraf "exiled" and fled to London only to return and profess his love for his motherland where detractors Zardari, Imran Khan and Benazir are sharpening their knives against him. By all accounts, Musharraf is a survivor if the balancing acts that he did at the domestic and international levels are any indication. The Sharif government seems to be a little soft on him and doesn't want to rush into his exit. Not surprisingly therefore, reports are emanating from the neighbouring country that he might get a safe passage but astute that he is, Musharraf wants to fight it out with the support of the outfit that he has floated and begin on a clean slate. For Sharif, it seems to be a case of once-bitten-twice-shy. One suspects a stage-managed farce being enacted to push Musharraf into leaving the country but the all powerful military establishment seems to have other ideas. Musharraf, the first military ruler in Pakistan's history to be tried in court, has expectedly rejected all the charges levelled against him, including treason and the pitch is queered by the fact that the country's civilian and army establishments stare at the prospects of being at loggerheads again.
In my blog dated April 11, 2013, I had written:
For his sheer propensity for the holier than thou, one needs to hand it to former president and general Pervez Musharraf. If you ignored the man's chameleonic character, Musharraf, who fled Pakistan to return after four years of "self imposed exile", has proclaimed with his usual bluster that "I am among those people who think of the country and the citizens." His precise timing to return to his troubled homeland shows just that, albeit in a contradictory manner.
Behind the army demeanor, there lurks a hard-core politician. Aware of the rebuffs that dot his path, he has already met with a few. His nomination papers were rejected for his acts of "reason and corruption", a clause Indian electoral system could well draw from. But howsoever Musharraf wants to propagandize his love for Pakistan, no one is hoodwinked into believing that and the man has landed back on his home soil because he hardly had any option. He is obviously trying to make a virtue of his compulsion.There are a string of cases lined up against him. Having trampled all institutions during his cleverly manipulative regime, he is everybody's burden. Elevating such a man at the helm again is fraught with the consequences Pakistani people may not try to experiment with.
Take it. This is a do-or-die battle for Musharraf. He will be consigned to the dustbin of history if his outfit fails to come to power.

LOL for this one!

Turkey's Dy PM Arinc. Doesn't he ever smile?

Raju Korti
Sometimes crying or laughing are the only options left, and laughing feels better right now. The immediate provocation of this rather profound quote coming from my unemployed mind is Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc who recently decreed that women should not laugh loudly in public.
That Arinc is a co-founder of the ruling Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party is less germane to this blog at this juncture. What strikes me in all earnestness is the man himself needs some mirth and laughter given the grimace he sports on his stony face all the time. His statement, a euphemism for an edict, attracted the kind of backlash that was fitting and well earned. Thousands of Turkish women chose to laugh their guts out on a social networking site in protest. I doubt history has heaped ridicule in such measures in a country which swears by its religious identity.
Arinc has since played the predictable tune all political leaders do when caught on the wrong foot, claiming his remarks were twisted out of context and that he was making a general comment on the decline of moral standards in Turkey.While he has been gifting us new theories in Sociology, it doesn't seem to have sunk into the minister that laughter has nothing to do with one's gender and that it is a reflex action of an individual.
Taking a moral high ground comes to all ultra-conservatives by default. So here was our quixotic minister again shooting off with his mouth: "There are women who leave on holiday without their husbands and others who don't have self control and can't stop themselves from climbing up a pole. Anyone can live like this. I can't be angry against you but I can just have pity for you." His new lesson in morality prompted the wife of a prominent Turkish footballer to post a picture of herself pole dancing on Instagram with the slogan "when I see a pole, I just can't resist". The repartee was brilliant for its heavily pregnant innuendo but our granite-faced minister probably only squirmed in his seat.
The heat generated by the minister's indiscrete utterances has a direct relevance to the elections the country is soon slated to go to. The incumbent Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is facing a lot of flak from his detractors who say the country's secular fabric is threatened (Now, isn't that a familiar refrain?). The government's warped ideas about morality and societal structure haven't gone down well in a country where its first president, reformist statesman Kemal Ataturk -- among other things -- gave women equal civil and political rights. General Musharraf who never hid his admiration for the once Turkish military officer, was never really in a position to replicate the latter's efforts in his perennially tumultuous nation.
Abolition of the Caliphate was an important dimension in Ataturk's drive to reform the political system and to promote the national sovereignty but the ruling dispensation has reverse-geared the heels. The Caliphate of the early centuries now seems to be the core concept of Sunni Islam.
Despite his radical secular reforms, Atatürk remained broadly popular in the Muslim world, a balancing act no other Muslim leader looks capable of in the present times.
That's no laughing matter.
 

Its the US definition of renegades!

Raju Korti

PM Modi: Sketch courtesy my DNA friend Bhagvan Das.

So the man whose office is routinely advertised as the "most prestigious and powerful in the world" was clueless about the storm over the visa ban on Narendra Modi until April this year.
It now transpires, if reports are to be believed, that President Barack Obama had "apparently" no inkling whatsoever that Modi, who expectedly strode to power, was at the center of a raging controversy.
The President "apparently" caught on to the riot act only after several United States lawmakers, on the urging of their Indian-American constituents, over the past few years were writing to then secretary of state Hillary Clinton and her successor John F Kerry, calling on the US State Department to lift the visa ban on the then Gujarat chief minister, while other groups like the Coalition against Genocide convinced yet another group of lawmakers to pressure the State Department not to acquiesce to this request.
If you understand the penchant of the American administration to sauté diplomacy with PR, you will also get the import (!) of its official communiques declaring "US and India as world's greatest democracies." The only hitch in such an unequivocal assertion is a reality check.
To begin with, its is absurd to believe that Obama didn't know or wasn't apprised about a leader who on either sides of the Indian spectrum was either hero-worshipped or rabidly vilified. Surely, the American administration with all its purported intelligence -- in its own country and elsewhere in the world -- knew that a certain Mr Modi was on the verge of tipping scales.
According to reports, some long-time Indian-American fundraisers and major contributors to Obama's presidential campaigns and the Democratic Party met with Obama at a small fundraiser of a select few well-heeled donors. When they brought up Modi's visa ban with Obama and told him that Modi was more than likely to be India's next prime minister and that the controversy would be anathema to a defining partnership with India as he had always professed, Obama had said he had no idea about this visa ban. Even at that juncture, there is  fair ground to believe that the American administration was probably playing the 'wait and watch' game, wanting to see how events unfolded after the Indian elections. The tide changed only after Modi was elected with a thumping margin and it became clear to Washington that despite the former's "tainted Godhra record" it just could not afford to blank him out.
Obama's ignorance of the issue is a classic case of right hand not knowing what the left was up to. That the State Department and the Presidential office were not plugged into each other is incredible and untenable given that the US is as much tuned in to events outside its country all the time. In fact, there is every reason to believe that Obama didn't want to ruffle feathers before Modi arrived on his big moment for the only plausible explanation that it would have been tantamount to interference in India's democratic process.
The stink raised by the visa ban turned out to be worse than what the Americans anticipated. All the right noises that the presidential office sought to make, including extending an invitation to Modi for a meeting in the White House reduced the angst that built up, but only just. To make matters worse, a Congressional hearing on the issue seemed bent on putting the blame in the State Department's basket. The problem had compounded more so because the same ruse had been handed out while denying visa to Modi sometime in 2006 when the man was confronted by "liberal and leftists" from his own country.
The angst was brushed under the carpet on the perceived understanding that if Modi had been denied permission to visit US, it was on the basis of what the situation obtained then and America's policy on the issue before the country's highest court gave him (Modi) a clean chit.
The most surprising dimension to the story is the Coalition against Genocide, a ragtag bunch of leftists and liberals from 40 outfits based in US and Canada. It is interesting to note that the only cause that this organization espouses is that of Godhra when human rights are being blatantly trampled elsewhere in the world. Even if one concedes its right to be wedded to a cause of their choice, it is befuddling that the State Department chose to be led on by the protest of an outfit whose own credentials were under cloud.
If diplomacy and make-shift compulsions demanded that peace had to be made with a dispensation dominated by extreme right-wingers, the American administration could have always exercised a more practical approach in being non committal right through rather than being made to run for cover the way it had to.
When good intentions are not backed up by suitable action, theatrics is all that happens. The face-saving tactics on the grant of visa to Modi is a PR disaster. In the past, Americans have not given a very exemplary account of themselves, shaking hands with despots like Pol Pot in Cambodia and Gen Pinochet in Chile whose record in human right violations makes Modi a pygmy in comparison, and when I say this, I do not hold any brief for Modi in case there is an attempt to perceive me as his sympathizer. To the Americans, South East Asia is a gainful employment and if you zeroed in on that, you understand their proclivities as well. Modi isn't the first and he won't be the last either.

The new American pasture

Obama and Putin: The new face-off

Raju Korti
At the height of strident criticism against the American administration for jumping its gun on Iraq, then president George W Bush (Junior) had famously remarked "I just want you to know that when we talk about war, we are actually talking about peace." If you discount the rhetoric in that twisted justification for what the Americans did in Iraq -- leaving behind a mess of outrageous proportions -- you still can't shut your eyes to their recent propensity to make the world their theatre.
Well aware that its military adventures were unmitigated fiascoes whenever it acted on its own, the world's self-appointed policeman has realized that it helps their cause to rope in its European allies while dealing with potentially war-like situations.
President Barack Obama has gone a step further. He seized on the shooting down of the Malaysian passenger jet to redouble international pressure on old foe Russia over its support for Ukrainian separatists, calling it a “wake-up call” for Europe.
Obama is not sure who was responsible but is convinced that a missile fired from within territory controlled by Russian separatists brought down the jet. “What we have confidence in saying right now was that a surface-to-air missile was fired and that's what brought the jet down,” he said. “We know that that shot was taken within territory controlled by the Russian separatists but it's very important we don't get out ahead of the facts and at this point.”
Somewhere in this area between truth and subterfuge, Obama decreed that the perpetrators should be brought to justice -- American phrase for legitimacy. Still, the US administration is wary of involving itself directly in the conflict. Although Obama claimed there would be no "military role beyond what we've already been doing," it cannot be taken on its face value. You don't have to delve deep into the doublespeak that the Americans have patented. The US president also claimed the incident coming less than 24 hours after the US announced a third wave of economic sanctions against Russia -- demonstrated the risks of supplying heavy weapons and support to the rebels and how the impact was “not going to be localized”. That begs the question what impact is the president talking about? You know the answer when you know the Pentagon has assured Ukraine military assistance although it would to stop short of providing weaponry. Figure out what that means.
Now there is a world of difference between the Americanspeak and Russianspeak. While Washington was couching its real intentions, Moscow minced no words. "The Americans shouldn't lecture us. There is a deep political aberration of Washington's perception of what is going on in Ukraine," it said, dismissing any culpability on their part.
The Russian deputy foreign minister was direct and scathing. "In the geopolitical frenzy and attempts to apply methods of social and political engineering everywhere, the United States acts like a bad surgeon: to cut deeper at first, and then stitch up sloppily so that it would hurt for a long time."
Just how quick the Americans are in cornering world attention was evident in the way the German chancellor, Angela Merkel reacted. According to her, the tragedy underscored, once again, that Russia should be held responsible for the instability in Ukraine, but at least she responded cautiously to suggestions that Europe should follow Washington’s lead by expanding sanctions. That should be construed as a small but perceptible sign that the world is not a sucker to the American methods of gathering circumstantial evidence any more, having been taken for a massive ride in the Allied operation in Iraq.
While speculations and theories on who and what brought the Malaysian jet down may die their natural death, the proxy war between the old enemies will continue in another dangerously disturbed part of the world.
That should bring us back to George Bush: "When we talk of war, we are actually talking of peace." Maybe he meant it the other way round.  

Gripping and unputdownable!

Dr Sumit Ghoshal. Picture from his Facebook wall.

Raju Korti
Writing a good novel is hard. If it were so easy, we’d all be writing best-selling, prize-winning fiction. There is no dearth of people out there who can tell you how to write a novel. There are many who will wax eloquent on what goes into the making of good fiction. The benchmarks are any but the best is the one that works for you.
Going by that yardstick, Dr Sumit Ghoshal has pieced together a brilliantly stitched story that, to me, has a heady blende of the pace of James Hadley Chase and Robin Cook's eye for intricate details. That's no mean task because easier reads than written. At a personal level I am not really taken by surprise since I have had the good fortune of working with Sumitbhai in The Indian Express and the DNA and have always marveled at his ability to pack so much sense while being frugal with words.
In my definition, a good writer who handles the kind of genre that Sumitbhai has done, blurs the line between fact and fiction. Or else, has this subtlety to fictionalize facts.
It is difficult to believe that "Unhealthy Practices" is his first attempt at fiction since the flow and the narrative are seasoned enough to give any veteran a run for his/her money. To use a trite phrase, the book is unputdownable from first word to last.
For all those who must wonder why I put my finger on Chase is for two reasons. The dexterity with which the characters have been painted carries the same stamp. There is another finespun with the situations -- anything but synthetic as is the won't with majority Indian writers -- that leave you with a poignant feeling. You almost end up sympathizing with the darker characters.
Although the title says a lot, I believe the book is actually a scathing indictment of the blatant commercialization of Medical Science which, among other things has severely compromised with professional ethics. The medical profession has long subscribed to a body of ethical statements developed primarily for the benefit of the patient. As a member of this profession, a physician must recognize responsibility to patients first and foremost, as well as to society, to other health professionals, and to self.
The story revolves round the affairs of a trustee hospital whose chairman Madhavji Shah is ready to subsidize scruples to jack up institution's dwindling revenue. As part of this mercenary exercise, Shah, who has connections in the ruling party and can pull strings, throws out senior doctors for not bringing in enough patients and therefore more money. A serious patient is taken off the Intensive Care Unit and shunted to another room/ward so high-end rooms can be allotted to those who can cough up more money.
Even as one senior doctor after another is asked to leave, Prashant Kadakia, the youngest member of the Board of Trustees -- whose father is a past chairman -- devolves upon himself to gain control of the institution. The incumbent chairman keeps plumbing newer depths in throwing ethics to winds and goes as far as kidnapping and murder of some NRI's who are ready to pump in money to extricate the hospital from its morass.
Kadakia takes the help of a reporter Yogesh Tripathi, whose has lost his father is the same hospital on what borders on negligence. Yogesh in turn finds a soul mate in Vineeta, a resident doctor who helps him on the sly with information on the happenings in the hospital. Dr Jagdish Choksi, the medical director wields the axe and does all the dirty work of getting rid of doctors who do not bring in revenue.
As the tussle for the control of the hospital intensifies, the story runs through a series of intrigues and manipulations that degenerate to criminal levels. The pitch here is queered by the presence of an adamant union which demands a hefty bonus from the hospital whose finances are on the brink. Unable to negotiate the turn of events, Choksi is forced to resign and is replaced by Dr Ashok Zaveri who handles pressure and sort of assists Kadakia to bring a semblance of sanity to the hospital's administration. Finally, Kadakia manages to overthrow the board of trustees responsible for its downfall and initiates a process to refurbish its image.
There is a Chase-ish twist towards the end when one of the character, Pratibha Jhala -- who loses her husband due to medical negligence and befriends another doctor from the hospital -- contracts HIV and succumbs to it. Turns out that Pratibha is the past wife of Prashant Kadakia.
The first thing that strikes a reader is the ability of the author to connect and relate events with a vivid description. The story unspools before his eyes like a motion film. That coupled with a lucid narrative gives the story a cutting edge. Perhaps, the only minor irritants are a few editing errors here and there which I am sure Sumitbhai would rectify in the next edition. Implicit in this observation is my fervent wish that all copies are briskly sold out.
As a reader, I have always been very exacting and trained to look for flaws but Sumitbhai doesn't give you any to pinpoint. The characterization and description have the deft touches of a seasoned artiste who can toy with a paint brush. Sumitbhai draws from his twin experience as a once-practicing doctor and as a been-there journalist.
Since this is a personal blog, I think apologies are also due in order for, this piece should have been written long back. On a lighter note, I would like to tell Sumitbhai "better late than never."
More power to his pen.

[Unhealthy Practices, printed by notionpress.com, authored by Dr Sumit Ghoshal, pages 287, price Rs 299.] 

Sleep on the House!

Deve Gowda: Introspecting?

Raju Korti
Gaffes and bloopers apart, I must admit that I am developing a soft corner for Rahul Gandhi these days. Nothing seems to be going right for the young man who seems to have struck a lean patch.
After his party’s disastrous showing in the recent elections, he was caught (apparently) snoozing in the Lok Sabha during a fierce debate on price rise. The rival BJP was quick on the uptake to point out that this was perfectly in sync with what his party had been doing on the issue for the past few decades. Political sparring aside, I am prepared to give Rahul the much needed benefit of doubt for several reasons.
First, he is not the only elected representative to have been stealing those forty winks in the august House, although that is not an argument on which I will plead his case. But then, what is good for the goose is good for the gander as well.
I am also pliable to the view that at his impressionable age, Rahul was actually reflecting or introspecting – as is usually the line of defence -- on what was happening around him though he had nothing substantive to say on the issue. This is, of course, given that Rahul can actually reflect or introspect.
There is also considerable beef in the belief that Rahul’s diffidence could also stem from the basic fact that things like price rise don’t affect him at all. Price rise doesn’t hit the very rich or very poor. The country’s famed middle class is the sole claimant to that misfortune.
Those who poke fun at his penchant for foot-in-the-mouth, forget that they are actually belittling their own contention that it is better he keeps mum than make a laughing stock of himself. Rahul has regaled the countrymen for a long time and if it has occurred to his occasional good sense that he must give politics-weary people some respite, you cannot fault him there. If one is kind enough to give Devil his due, why deprive poor Rahul of that largesse?
I see an unassailable logic in the Congressmen’s cantilevered support of Rahul that a person of the integrity of Atal Behari Vajpayee – no less – was found catnapping often in the Parliament. “When Vajpayee does that, it is introspection, if Rahul does it, it is sleeping. How fair is that?” Somebody should have reminded the wailing partymen of Sohrab Modi’s evergreen dialogue from Dilip Kumar’s Yehudi “Tumhara khoon khoon, hamara khoon paani?”  (Your blood is blood and ours water?), a satirical way of protesting discrimination.
The man who actually institutionalized sleeping inside the Parliament and gave it a cult status was former Prime Minister Deve Gowda. In fact, so sleep-deprived did he look that you would find it hard to believe that the man could ever be awake. All those Raagi (millet) balls that he ate to keep himself fit and active seemed to add up to nothing though he mentioned this to reporters in his sleep- induced heavy voice in (then) Bangalore during his PM stint. The only time that one saw him very animated and charged was when he stood up to reply to the no-confidence motion against his poorly stitched coalition government. Gowda lost the debate and his government fell – the same way his head flopped and fell during the parliamentary sessions. Gowda will go down in the country’s history as probably the only leader who forty-winked his way through his tenure with the aplomb that he was known to.
From time to time elected representatives cutting across party lines have been caught by candid (and insensitive!) cameras sleeping their way through parliamentary debates. It has reached a stage where nobody gives a damn about it anymore. The issue was never a big deal before the sessions of the Parliament were televised since the only pictures that people got to see were of unruly members creating a ruckus inside or the Prime Minister or Speaker making a point. It didn’t occur to the lens men then that an elected representative caught napping made for a newsworthy picture.
It is hard to believe that elected representatives kept their eyes and ears open all through their tenure in the period between 1950 and1990. Remember the China war fiasco in 1962 when the entire government was caught napping and day-dreaming of Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai even as the Chinese almost trampled our territory in Arunachal. Perhaps the then Defence Minister VK Krishna Menon mistook it for Hindi-Chini Bye Bye.
All the hue and cry about the ministers in the Narendra Modi Cabinet looking bleary-eyed because of lack of sufficient sleep may be making headlines for right or wrong reasons but what happened during the earlier years when parliamentary reporting was straight-jacketed and never went beyond its accepted realms? Although I have cited just one but concrete example, one still needs to close eyes and reflect!    

Hallowed or Hollowed?

Raju Korti

Pune University: A grab from its website.

It is not hard to marginalize people when they've already done it all by themselves. The Government of Maharashtra has only lent its mite to the cause with a belated show of conscience whose timing is highly suspect.
With an existence teetering on the brink of almost oblivion in the present political situation, the incumbent coalition in Maharashtra now wants to stoop and conquer. Desperation has driven it to play a beaten rhetoric that makes it believe it will turn a new page in the history of Education. More than a century later after her pioneering efforts in fighting totalitarianism in caste and other social evils, it has decided to rename the University of Pune after social reformer Savitribai Phule.
For the moment, let us keep aside the quintessential Punekar, notorious for his exaggerated sense of edification and holier than thou approach to everything that is even remotely cultural. With due regards to them, I have many friends and relatives there who sincerely believe that the city they were privileged to be born in is the sole repository of quality education and exemplary culture. Some of that conviction, you need to grudgingly admit, is well placed though.
By all accounts, renaming the University of Pune after Savitribai Phule, apparently justifiable though, is meant to serve and subsidize the minds of certain classes that I need not name. That the move was supported by the likes of Chhagan Bhujbal, the self-proclaimed champion of the downtrodden, does not come as a surprise. As someone who owns a well known educational institution in the upscale western suburb of Bandra in Mumbai, he could have showed that Education, like Charity, begins at home.
The thumb rule is simple. For all populist schemes we have the Gandhis. The lesser ones can keep all the Ambedkars and Phules. Deprivation spawns a privilege of another kind!
Among India's greatest ironies is all those who have been lamenting ill-treatment because of their caste are now bending backwards in keeping casteism alive and throbbing. If someone believes that this is a social quid pro quo of sorts, there cannot be anything more counter-productive. While the Congress has crossed all limits of propriety on the issue of castes and reservation, other parties haven't given a great account of themselves, either choosing to be silent or accepting the fait accompli as political expediency. Who will want to rub a major constituency the wrong way? More so when it has the potential to be a game changer in electoral fortunes?
There is nothing wrong in naming institutions after great personalities but when it has political overtones and reeks of shady electoral motives, such moves only intensify the divide.
Recall the violence that preceded the renaming of Marathwada University after Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar. In the dirty game politicians played to nurture a vote bank, scores of people lost their lives fighting a cause that was of no tangible help to them anywhichways. The renaming served no purpose and has made no material difference to the university's status.
A friend who has done considerable research on the issue points out that this is a post 70s phenomenon. Something like this would have been unimaginable in the erstwhile (bilingual) Bombay State when Morarji Desai, an ardent advocate of Shivambu, was the chief minister. Times have changed but mindsets refuse to. Caste will remain a milch cow for self-seeking politicians in a country where photos of Ambedkar, Phule, Indira Gandhi and Mahatma Gandhi (not necessarily in that order) are an established norm in all government offices.
Mere renaming of the universities cannot bring about a change in the education system. What these institutions need are proper infrastructure, adequate finances and good faculties. Universities should ideally become the hub of academic research. Instead, we have vice chancellors who are political appointees.
Renaming may be the name of the game but it is like applying butter to a stale bread. Whether the new label head for Pune University works -- if it at all does -- is anybody's guess.

PS: An interesting link:
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/universities-ours-and-theirs/article3743238.ece




  

Close to self-destruction!

Pic for only representational purpose.

Raju Korti
The increasing sectarian violence in Iraq, signaling the return of insurgency is a clear indication that the strife-torn country is headed to a point of no return -- with or without the US of A.
The embers of the post-Saddam regime refuse to die down looking to the vicious battle between the radicals, the ISIS and the Iraqi government. The ISIS is an offshoot of the global terror network of the al Qaeda that fought with the Syrian regime late last year. After the infighting, it reinvented itself as a splinter group called Levant ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria).
The imploding situation in Iraq is much more complex than the popular perception that a proxy war is being played out on the uneasy turf between the country's Sunni Muslim minority and the Shia majority. The pitch is queered by the presence of Sunnis on either side of the hostility, some preferring to be neutral. There are several insurgent groups that do not swear allegiance to the ISIS and the Kurds -- basically non-Arab Sunni Muslims -- who enjoy some kind of an autonomy in the north-eastern fringes. While Sunnis and Shias slug it out, it is the Kurds who might actually gain mileage from the ongoing conflict.
The Sunnis, as is the case elsewhere in the world, have different grievances some of which are genuine and some not so. The Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri-al-Maliki is being perceived as disproportionately unkind to the Sunnis -- to the extent that the latter are being persecuted and hounded. There is no transparency in the prosecution.
Reports emanating from the country say that to counter "rising insurgency", the government rode roughshod to arrest a large number of people. The trials, if at all they were held, were suspect and nobody knows what happened to the under-trials. Cases of Iraqis languishing in prisons for years without a trial are common. Sometimes they're tortured; sometimes people, especially Sunnis, have to pay ransoms to get their family members out of prisons even if they didn't do anything wrong. And all this at the cost of a Shia nexus.
The Sunnis haven't exactly helped the cause with their patently flawed perception that they are a demographic majority. They have carried forward this considered view which was popularized during the Saddam rule -- that Sunni Arabs are the plurality and Sunni Arabs plus Kurds are a majority.
The issue boils down to a lopsided balance between the "suffering" Sunnis and "persecuting" Shias an offshoot of which is the de-Baathification (read de-Saddamisation) of the government being taken too far.
Among the three major players -- the insurgents, those inclined to political process and those who propose political process but are aligned with the incumbent PM -- the majority Sunnis at the grassroots level believe in a political process. These are countered by those willing for the ballot but not opposed to insurgency either. The ISIS is the extreme radical while there is another group that swears by Saddam and is itching to install a Jihadist Caliphate run by a centralized Sunni dictatorship. Although not in majority, it is the battle-scarred ISIS, having spent years fighting in Iraq and Syria, that is muddying the waters.
The insurgents can hope to win only if they get the Shias to cede. The mainstream Sunnis are a divided house as against a motivated Shias but that still doesn't mean the latter can exterminate the rebellion. It is a checks and balances scene. Even if the Sunnis get to establish control in some regions by ousting the Shias, those won't be the ones to give them any advantage -- financially or geographically. Most of the oil is in the Kurdish controlled area.
The irony is a Sunni state, if it ever becomes a possibility, would only be looking at starvation with practically no economy. A win-lose situation! On the other hand, the present crisis is a godsend for the Kurds. They can extract their pound of flesh from Baghdad or alternately they could declare independence. A win-win situation!
While the Iraqi PM is himself on a uncertain pitch, the Shias, in all probability, will indulge in a massive exercise of sectarian cleansing and that's a bad augury for the Sunnis. The Kurds will benefit, Iran will benefit, and the Shias will suffer but not as much. The Sunnis have a Hobson's choice -- either get cleansed or survive and hurtle into socio-economic doom.
Strange bedfellows have emerged from this conflict. So desperate is the situation that old and arch enemies Washington and Tehran are mulling to deal with the violent sweep.

For AK, the purge begins at home

Raju Korti
It is tough to be Arvind Kejriwal these days. The man who stirred the conscience of the nation not long ago is now witnessing to his chagrin that the ground from under his feet has slipped so quickly and how. Looking at the shambles in which the Aam Aadmi Party finds itself in -- a situation of its own making --  it appears that the outfit needs to pull out a rabbit from its hat to undo the damage done in the wake of a series of rapidly unfolding events after AK quit as the chief minister of Delhi in a huff.
For major part, AK cannot shirk his responsibility as a leader. It is now obvious that he presided over a team of self-serving people who had no clue in hell what the party actually wanted to do or where it was headed. In the process, he frittered away the advantage with a chain of self-goals. In the kind of politics practiced in this country, a cavalier approach to leadership and governance is not particularly advisable. In the run up to the phenomenon he so painstakingly tried to create, it didn't occur to AK's wisdom that being a good bureaucrat is one thing and being a political leader is quite another. A good politician knows when to beat a tactical retreat, but AK kept compounding his errors with more errors. Take for instance his obdurate stand in seeking bail in the defamation case against Nitin Gadkari and then doing a somersault to bow to the dictates of the circumstances. A cursory look at the way AAP and its exuberant leadership has meandered in the recent months, is an eloquent commentary on the political inexperience which was sought to be made up with a peremptory outlook in dealing with party matters.
Internal bickering is a malady with all parties without exception. Like the proverbial goldfish, AK had no place to hide given that his every move was scanned and scrutinized. Although this may sound like a hindsight, AK messed up his chance with power. Thereafter, the party slid into a downhill so much so that it has a huge job on its hands to extricate itself from the morass. The sordid story was complete when rats started deserting the sinking ship, Shazia Ilmi and other disgruntled souls showing amply that they had stuck around only to extract their pound of flesh. AK himself seemed ill-equipped to stem the rot. The fall was as swift as the rise was meteoric.
To begin with, AK must learn to handle people and situations with restraint. Dharnas and campaigns cannot be the resorts of those in the saddle. You cannot fault people if their perception of AAP is that of a party that doesn't know whether it is in power or out of it. The electoral result is not just about one man capturing the imagination of the nation. If success is the Heads, failure is the Tails of the same coin. The AAP story begs the question: What went so terribly wrong for a party that seemed to be riding a crest a few months ago and is now threatened with the prospect of sinking without a trace? Lack of political acumen, inadequate man-management skills, one flip flop after another or sheer over-enthusiasm and over-confidence?
But all is not lost for AK. His attempts to reach out to dissidents and revamp the party apparatus in a doldrums, though late in the day, is a necessary step. If AK has indeed learnt from his lessons, the "Mission Vistaar" that he talks about to induct new faces post restructuring, should not be an exercise in political expediency. As he pointed out after the AAP convention, "differences in a democratic party was quite normal and I hope AAP will emerge stronger." The irony is all political leaders poke fun at the internal dissensions in rival parties but sanctimoniously proclaim that in their own party it is a healthy and democratic process where each individual can express his/her own views. It is this spirit that makes AK play down his rift with Yogendra Yadav and make an utterly stock statement like "He is my elder brother. He has the right to scold me. I take his suggestions seriously. I am a human and when I make mistakes, elder brothers like Yogendra Yadav point it out to me."
It is worth pondering if the banner of revolt raised by Yadav and Shazia would have been taken in so kindly to if the AAP were to replicate its Delhi success story demolished by a ham-handed approach. There is a familiar bluster in the allegation made by Yadav that AK was being consumed by "personality cult" and Shazia's claim that the "coterie that had surrounded him (AK) was running the party by proxy."
Instead of gloating about the four wins in a state fractionally divided between radical and so called moderate Akalis, in spite of a Modi Wave and drawing the people's attention to Congress' utter rout, he must expend his energies in putting his own house in order. That, in the circumstances that obtain, is a huge ask. He should not forget that the likes of Shazia quit for not being given the ticket of her choice and actually call their bluff. He should consider their exit as a natural purge in the party.
His time starts now!

Wake up call for Congress

Raju Korti
By all accounts the Congress, traditionally fed on lackeys and doormats, is refusing to learn lessons from its shattering electoral rout.
Even after being reduced to a hopeless situation, it not only continues to repose faith in Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi’s unimaginative leadership but is intent on quelling voices of dissent.
In the Congress culture, there are no democratic processes. It is institutionalized by the “First Family” and its trusted coterie. So it is with a sense of guilt that the nation must appreciate what Mahatma Gandhi had said after India attained independence – The Congress has served its purpose as a campaign. It should be dissolved now that the mission has been accomplished.
There is a world of difference between Indira and Sonia’s leadership. The former was a deft political player who effectively marginalized all opposition within and outside the party and it was only when she carried her autocratic ways into the dark hour of the Emergency that people gave her the boot. However, she was wily enough to realize her sins of commissions and omissions and bounced back thanks also to the then ruling Janata government thrown into a disarray because of its internal bickering. Sonia does not come from the same hardboiled school. Rahul has inherited the same political naïveté.
Little wonder then that rumblings are now being heard in the party that has thrived on sycophancy and the purported charisma of one family. Their labored response to the anger simmering in the party shows both Sonia and Rahul are ill-equipped to come out with any quick-fixes.
Regulation speak is another of Congress hallmarks, although other political parties too are no exception. It wasn’t surprising therefore that its parliamentary party (CPP) smugly accepted – in as much words – that the Gandhis remain its only rudders and those who question their authority should be shown their place.
But this time round, the party will not find it easy to brush dissent under the carpet. The disgruntlement is so deep-seated and widespread that even the fear of expulsion has not stopped the partymen from being vocal. Not that the sailing in the Congress used to be smooth before but the partymen not reconciled to be out of power, stuck around. Obviously, the notion that when Congress wins it is Gandhi charisma and when it loses it is collective failure, is taking a beating.
A day after the Congress suspended senior party leader from Kerala, T H Mustafa for calling Rahul a “joker,”  Rajasthan leader Bhanwar Lal Sharma trained his guns on the Gandhis. Sharma did which no other Congressmen dared to say before. He said time had come for the party to think beyond Rahul and Priyanka Vadra. He has since been suspended.
Discontent is palpable among the party cadres for what appears to be Sonia’s indiscretion in abdicating her authority to son Rahul who in turn delegated his authority to non-players – a case of remedy being worse than the disease.
There also appear to be strong reservations about Sonia’s credentials as a proactive leader. The fact that she ruled the country by proxy through an educated puppet hasn’t gone down well with party ranks who are clueless about how they should brace up to this unprecedented debacle.
One hopes earnestly that this clear division in the Congress over Sonia and Rahul’s future roles is a harbinger for more transparency. The semblance of conscience that Sonia and Rahul showed after the party’s loss should be effectively mobilized if they at all want to take the Modi challenge head on. The trouble is both find themselves on the crossroads. The party is still to recover from the shock. In fact, there is a deep-seated fear with the party down to its lowest tally, it will not be in any position to take advantage of the anti-incumbency against the Modi Government when it does set in.
The question is will the party heed to the wake up call.

Games psephologists play

Pic for representational purpose

Raju Korti
Now that a watershed election is over and just about everyone is going  to town with his "analysis" of the poll results, the question is should you believe every analysis reported by the Media?
Poll statistics are a dicey and misleading affair, or at best, a double-edged weapon. I rationalize this on my own definition of statistics. To me it is the specious arithmetic of producing unreliable facts from reliable figures. In layman's terms, statistics can establish non-truth with a logic that can be weird and bizarre.
As someone who is perpetually predisposed to diehard skepticism, I tend not to believe a lot of what I see until I can verify it for myself. Some people have agendas that they’d like to steer you and me towards, and I generally try to ensure that that doesn’t happen to me blindly. The other premise is a bit less conspiratorial in nature: Even though most polls are conducted properly, the results are often reported improperly. That usually has to do with not understanding the statistical nature of the poll on the part of the reporter. But, since you’ve learned how to calculate mean values and can answer the question what are the range and standard deviation, you now know everything you need to decipher poll results and to decide for yourself whether or not you believe them.
For most people glued to their seats trying to get a hold on self-proclaimed psephologists spouting a maze of numbers they would not otherwise hassle themselves with, it is a readymade post mortem minus the clinical precision. My reservation to poll statistics, leaving aside their academic interest, is it can unreasonably support or undercut any argument. It is one thing for the politicians to buttress their viewpoints with statistics and quite another for the Media and its psephologists to dissect those figures with a semblance of coherence and conventional wisdom. Statistics can be a substitute for mathematical inference but not judgment. I remember in one of the Test series tail-ender BS Chandrashekhar averaged better than Gavaskar since he remained not out on zero in all the innings he played.
My friend and fellow journalist Mayank Chhaya, however made a pertinent observation with a piece of statistic that paints the larger picture vividly. Said he a day before the polling: "We still do not know the overall voting percentage but let’s presume for the sake of argument that 60 percent of the 814 million eligible voters exercised their right. That makes it close to 490 million Indians voting in the election. This means that the destiny of 1.26 billion people was decided by 770 million out of them either not choosing to take part or not being eligible to take part because they are below the voting age. I know democracy is the best, albeit flawed, system that we have but the idea that nearly 65 percent of the country’s actual population has to live with the consequences of electoral preferences of the remaining 35% is rather disturbing."
According to the statistics issued by the Election Commission, an estimated -- and that's quite a staggering figure -- 50 lakh voters chose to press the NOTA (None Of The Above) button and play villain for many a contestant. Just how would it have affected the poll results? The answer is bread and butter for psephologists and politicians and play around with that figure.
Overall vote base is another statistic that is often thrown at people into believing the other side of the story. So you have a candidate who may have been returned with a thumping margin but the party may have suffered erosion in its vote base. You don't find anything absurd about it because according to statistical inference a man kept in scorching 500 degrees of heat for five hours and then kept in -500 degrees of cold for the same time has to be perfectly normal.
More often than not, stories based on poll statistics aren't even actually news. Not all statistics can  establish a sound correlation between facts and figures and all have a buffer within which their numbers should be viewed. For a Media whose credibility has chaffed considerably in the last decade or so, pliable statistics are far easier to seek than stubborn and inaccessible facts.
Pity the people! They have to put up with lies, damn lies and statistics.

Male Socialist!

Raju Korti
Before I launch into this harangue, let me clear this at the outset. I have never spoken to Samajwadi Party leader and former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav although I came face to face with him several times in my professional calling. Two reasons prominently deterred me from speaking to the man who claims to be the torch-bearer of Dr Ram Manohar Lohia's ideals. One, his utter predictability even while conceding the crooked politician that he is and his anhydrous face that looks carved out of some Cuddpah stone.
To write about the opportunistic and misogynist Samajwadi Party would be stating the obvious given its long history of male chauvinism but what seduces me is the sheer facetious side of Mulayam Singh which unfolds at the most awkward of times. For him that is!
In his sexist wisdom Mulayam feels that boys being boys, are prone to commit rapes more by aberration than design and therefore don't deserve punishment as harsh as death. Public furore and sensitivity mean little to him since statistics, if not anything else, says a lot about these "enthusiastic boys" who find rape such an abiding and compelling pastime. But a patronizing Mulayam will not risk reducing himself to a cipher by rubbing his "secular" vote bank the wrong way.
Since then, of course, he has tempered his overzealous comment with an assurance that "No one respects women more than Samajwadi Party." One does not have to rummage the archives to discover that the Samajwadi Party has steadfastly opposed the Women's Reservation Bill on several specious reasons, one -- no prizes for guessing -- being patently casteist. It is another story that having broken off with the rudderless Congress and flirting with the Bharatiya Janata Party whenever it suits him, he pulled out all stops in the like-minded company of Laloo Prasad Yadav who has over half a dozen daughters himself and a wife he shamelessly anointed as Bihar's chief minister when he was unceremoniously kicked out. The bill was tabled in the Parliament by the BJP.
Mulayam had reasoned out that "if the Women's Reservation Bill is passed, Parliament will be filled with women who will invite catcalls and whistles. Once the bill comes into force, not a single male would be elected to the Lok Sabha after 10 years as elected women would not leave their seats, nor the political parties would be in a position to replace them.". Who knows, if the bill is passed he and his cowland partner would have to bear the onerous burden of spending more time inside the Parliament, showcasing their talent at whistling and catcalls. Pity, the women who stormed his Lucknow house and whistled in chorus as protest all through the day, failed to see the humor behind his depraved logic.
A Facebook friend has appealed to me to label him as "pervert", but sample this concern of his for the womenfolk in the villages. "Rural women will not benefit from the Women's Reservation Bill because they are not as attractive as those from the affluent class. Bade bade gharon ki ladkiya aur mahilayan kewal upar ja sakti hain...yaad rakhna...apko mauka nahi milega..hamare gaon ki mahila me akarshan itna nahin...," (Only girls and women from affluent class can go forward...remember this..you (rural women) will not get a chance...Our rural women did not have that much attraction)," he had said at a rally in Barabanki in 2012.
For all his anti-feminist posturing, the Samajwadi Party has still managed to cobble up a women's wing called Samajwadi Mahila Sabha. I have no clue what this women's wing does, but I am more enthused at the prospect of meeting its rustic members than the poker-faced villain of this piece.

Wealth is wealth!

Raju Korti

Pic for only representation

In the rough and tumble of an insane mess called elections in India, there is something voyeuristically delightful for even a diehard cynic like me. I mean it sounds so lasciviously rib-tickling when headlines suggestively say "Rakhi Sawant declares her assets." But it is the larger picture beyond the innuendo and double entendre that seeks my serious attention.
The irrepressible drama queen contesting the election from Mumbai North West declared, as is required by the law, the details of the property she owns while filing her nomination papers. Forget that she is a self-proclaimed "illiterate". Also ignore she is contesting for a party called Rashtriya Aam Party -- a name that probably didn't occur to Arvind Kejriwal because the cap on his head didn't make him scratch his head enough. But she certainly earns my eyebrows for the Rs 15 crore assets she owns at 36. According to the declaration, she has cash of Rs.96,427 in hand, and Rs.39.13 lakh in fixed deposits. Apart from an investment of Rs.61.26 lakh in bonds and shares and Rs.2.12 crore in insurance and postal savings, she also owns a Ford Endeavour worth Rs.21 lakh and jewelry worth Rs.7.55 lakh.
It is not my case here how she will confront seasoned crooks on the political stage. Nor is it of any concern to me that given her penchant to create entertainment where none exists, she has the potential to ruffle feathers and raise a hornet's nest. Hapless voters desperately need some fun in times where newspapers columns and TV talk time become dreadfully boring.
To me there is something earnestly arresting about candidates declaring their assets. The feeling of deriving a vicarious, proxy pleasure of knowing people's (known and unknown) wealth charms me no end. This charm is peppered with intrigue when you seriously start wondering how most candidates may have acquired their ever-sprouting crores when their means and qualification are woefully ill-equipped. The irony is people who are generous have no money and those with money are not generous.
Sample this supreme irony. While Congress President Sonia Gandhi declared Rs 9 crore as her assets, it is a no brainer that an outlandish Rakhi Sawant is twice as loaded. You have to read between the lines to draw your own conclusions. Politics is a known conduit in rags-to-riches stories, yet it never fails to daze me when candidates reel out details of their riches -- real estate, cash, bank deposits, jewelry, fleet of vehicles, stocks, bonds and what have you. Fortune grows in the lap of luxury!
Fed on the racy pulp fiction of the likes of James Hadley Chase and Raymond Chandler -- occasionally sautéed with the literary finesse of Graham Greene -- in my impressionable days, I have often wondered and toyed with the idea of writing a Capital Chalisa , my own coinage, of course.
Preposterous as it may sound, I honestly believe that as a have-not, I am better qualified to understand and appreciate the worth of money. The fact that the Goddess of Wealth has been more than fickle with me than many others has made little difference to my philosophy. So righteous indignation takes over when people are sometimes referred to --rather uncharitably -- as "filthy rich" or "rolling in money". As a child, senior relatives often told me legendary stories of my great grand uncle who was so rich that he used to roll out cigarettes from notes and smoke them. I heard those stories with awe not because my ancestor was "stinking rich" but for the incredulousness of his riches.
Man does not possess wealth, wealth possesses a man. That will tell you why I am a man of modest means.


 

She came like a breeze...

Raju Korti

It is seldom that celebrities, especially those from the tinsel town, land at your doorstep. So I was completely unprepared one afternoon as I reclined against my chair, lost in those forty winks. A very feminine, delicate voice, sounding almost like a musical chime said "Excuse me", shaking me out of my reverie. I woke with a start, thinking my editor had caught me yet again sleeping in the office.
Instead, I was looking at a tall, handsome man accompanied by a pretty and petite woman. The man drew a blank but there was something familiar about the lady who looked extremely elegant draped in a chiffon sari.
Quickly getting into the niceties, I offered them both a chair, racking my brains hard on where I had seen her before. And then the nickel dropped. "Baby Nanda", I exclaimed, hardly trying to control my excitement, which was more out of pleasure than surprise. "You are right minus the Baby part', she riposted with the infectious smile that often lit up the  screen.
As professional journalist, I have had enough brush-ins with most celebrities and dignitaries but I guess professional objectivity goes for a toss when you meet someone for whom your affectations are specially reserved. It therefore took some time to sink in that one of my favorite actresses was in front of me -- in flesh and blood.
Apparently, she had accompanied brother Jayprakash who wanted to meet me in connection with a film he was planning to make. As it turned out, he remained a bystander for most part of that interaction as I diverted all my focus on the lady who with her hour-glass figure looked every inch sensuous without being in-the-face. For that matter, Nanda herself watched my flustered demeanor, that dazzling smile never leaving her face. Probably, she was as elated. Or so I believed.
After the small formal talk with Jayprakash, who remained in touch until early nineties, I broached an informal conversation with her and she listened to my bluster, her responses mostly in appreciative nods and smiles. Her smile that reached right up to her eyes got to me.
At the mention of the 1957 AVM family entertainer Bhabhi, she lapsed into nostalgia. "Yes I was called Baby Nanda then because I was barely in my teens. And my hero was Jagdeep who later specialized in playing bumpkin-buffoon kind of roles," as I remembered how she brought out the diametrically opposite nuances -- first a bubbly young girl and later as a young widow --of her character.
Beautiful without having the trappings of a conventional female lead, Nanda somehow seemed to be tailor-made to play the role of a sister. Chhoti Behen (1959) earned her a permanent place in the people's psyche but it was the supporting role that she excelled in. Recall Kala Bazaar (1960), Hum Dono (1961) and Dhool Ka Phool (1962) where she left her own mark though pitted against Waheeda Rehman and Mala Sinha. There was something about her personality that made her character stand out no matter who else was in the film.
"My best period was from 1956 to 1966" Nanda expectedly told me, "when I was customarily paired with baby-faced Shashi Kapoor and the ever so handsome Dev Anand." And then she went on to tell me how Dev Anand was convinced that he wouldn't settle for anyone else than her as his conscience-stricken sister in Kala Bazaar. It was a measure of her self-confidence that she didn't hesitate in the least serenading him in an out and out flirtatious Teen Deviyaan where a sobered Dev Anand sings to her in the voice of Kishore "Yahaan wahaan fizaa mein awaara, abhi talak ye dil hai bechaara."
Her films were an invariable musical delight. Usne Kahaa Tha, Aaj Aur Kal, Nartaki, Mera Qasoor Kya Hai, Kaise Kahoon, Jab Jab Phool Khile, Gumnaam, Bedaag, Akashdeep, Neend Hamari Khaab Tumhare, Mohobbat Isko Kehte Hain were a veritable treat to the ear.
"I got to lip-synch some of the best songs in the films but to this day, my most exhilarating experience remains sharing the recording room mike with the legendary Mohammed Rafi. We were recording Ek tha Gul Aur Ek thi Bulbul and so endearing and silken was Rafisaab that I almost fell in love with the man. So enamored I was of his voice that I fervently wished the rehearsals would never end," said Nanda, adding "it was an experience of a lifetime to be with the great man." When I told her that Lata Mangeshkar had once said to me that Nanda along with Sadhana, Saira Banu, Waheeda Rehman, Mala Sinha and Asha Parekh did full justice to her voice, she was thrilled to bits. "Is it," she asked incredulously, not hiding her glee at all.
Though with Shashi Kapoor she made among the most popular pairs in Hindi cinema, she was perfectly at ease with bigwigs like Rajendra Kumar, Dev Anand, Dharmendra, Sunil Dutt and second-line rung like Vishwajit and Manoj Kumar.
Daughter of successful Marathi actor-director Vinayak Karnataki, Nanda had to struggle after his death and grew up from a child artiste to a polished heroine, but very few know that it was this metamorphosis in real life that made her the peerless but rather under-rated performer who could essay a sister and lady love with the same aplomb.
I never met Nanda thereafter but spoke to her brother a couple of times, one when the Perry Cross Road in Bandra was renamed after father as Master Vinayak Cross Road. An unsavory row followed the renaming as residents were staunchly opposed to renaming the road which was address to another legendary singer Talat Mehmood.
Jayprakash, who lived with his sister on Perry Cross Road until 1992, before moving to Santa Cruz, pointed out that he had  been correcting people on the official name of the road for a long time. He even claimed to have met Sachin Tendulkar at a function organised by the Mumbai Police. Tendulkar had recently moved into a bungalow in that locality. “I introduced myself to him and he recognized my father and sister. So I told him, ‘You don’t live on Perry Cross Road. You live on Master Vinayak Road. Please, use your postal address accordingly’.” The cricketer apparently said he would correct his error.
After the death of Director Manmohan Desai to whom she got engaged in the latter half of her life, Nanda became a sort of recluse, moving out only occasionally with close friend Waheeda Rehman and Asha Parekh. In an intense recall of those moments spent with her and as a tribute to this wonderful actress, I write the first two lines of the haunting Suman Kalyanpur song that could have been composed only for her dignified visage:
Jo hum pe guzarti hai tanhaa kisey samjhayein
Tum bhi to nahi milte, jaaye to kidhar jaayen...