Itch of Writing

Selling News On-Air

2009-01-19T12:55:00.015+05:30

Many people thought that television news channels behaved rather immaturely and irresponsibly during their ‘live’ and ‘exclusive’ coverage of the Mumbai terror attacks. Some of my friends were so enraged that they thought that these channels should be banned.

It was not for the first time when functioning of television news channels had attracted criticism. But the latest case was seen as a compromise on matters of national security and domestic harmony, and the channels appeared ready to go for this compromise in favor of TRPs. Reports suggested that the government was planning to put a leash on the media and authorize bureaucrats and policemen to determine what should a television news channel show on such occasions.

Expectedly, such reports met shrill and united opposition from the media, especially the television media, and the top editors of the news channels termed the proposed step similar to draconian laws during Emergency. They asked; Whatever happened to the idea of free press in the largest democracy of the world?

Press? But the government was talking about the cameras, not the pens. Are television cameras a part of press? Are television journalists really "journalists"?

TELEVISION AND JOURNALISM

This statement might look like another of those television journalism bashing statements, which have become kind of fashionable now. But it can’t be dismissed just for being fashionable. The truth is, many professionals working in the editorial/journalistic roles in today's television news channels, especially the Hindi news channels, ask this question to themselves and are asked the same by their friends.

Usually, the responses are of the following three types:

Of course we are journalists, what wrong are we doing? Is the so-called press, those page-3 newspapers journalists, doing any better?

There are some compulsions of television journalism. Reckless race to become number one has compromised on some aspects of pure journalism. It’s sad.

Give me a break. If we show anything wrong, why do people watch it and give us the TRPs? There is a "demand" for such style of journalism and content.

The first reaction is of a ‘television’ professional who is working as a journalist.

The second reaction is of a ‘journalist’ who is working as a television professional.

We will talk about the third reaction a little later.

When we criticize television news channels, unwittingly ‘television’ aspect gets emphasized, and such an emphasis evokes either of the first two responses. But let’s be fair and rational; journalism is more about the message than the medium, and a critique of journalism should involve analyzing the message as opposed to the medium.

In any communication process, message (the output) surely is a function of the medium, but the medium is constant. If we are uncomfortable with the output, it would be wiser to focus on the variables and the input, rather than finding fault with the constant.

So let’s for a moment criticize television news channels with this approach.

We are unhappy with their output – a television news report. Let’s find out the inputs and the variables. Input is surely the event or the ‘news’. What are the variables?

For ease of analysis, and since it’s not a PhD thesis, let’s keep the number of variables to as low as possible. I can think of the following three variables broadly:

The journalist/reporter’s perspective/prejudice (say, on issues like what constitutes or defines 'news')

The editorial guidelines of the channel

The business strategy of the channel

The first variable can be controlled by proper training and development of a journalist. There are very few quality journalism institutes in the country and there doesn’t seem to be a strict minimum qualification to become a journalist.

The second and third variables are determined by the ‘bosses’ of a television news channel. And some of these bosses (and their disciples) come up with the earlier mentioned ‘Give me a break’ reaction when confronted with the question ‘Are television journalists really journalists?’

TELEVISION JOURNALISTS

So do we blame the bosses or lack of trained journalists for the current mess in which television journalism finds itself today? I believe that enough talent is there in our country and one can always find people trained and suitable for the job of a journalist.

But television journalism doesn’t seem to be attracting the best brains today (with all due respect to all the current television journalists). Either the best brains don’t opt for television journalism or they are not actively solicited by the industry bosses. This hast to change.

There was a time when the best brains were supposed to opt for the civil services and then the trend changed in favor of MBAs from premier institutes. There are two factors common in civil services and MBA from premier institutes – compensation or the money making prospects and some minimum qualification standard (faring well at CAT and UPSC exams) making the group 'elite and restricted'.

Though not as lucrative as financial sector, television journalism surely has got attractive compensations and money making prospects. So if it is not attracting the best brains, is it because the group is not elite and restricted (or is it?)? Is it even desirable to have journalism or journalists as an elite and restricted group?

I would leave that upon journalism fraternity to think how they want to ‘brand’ journalists as a group and journalism as a profession. However, if not an elite and restricted group (which I guess goes against the ethos of journalism), journalism as a profession must have a minimum set of standards for including new professionals.

If these standards are missing today, or if they exist but are not being adhered to or respected, who is to be blamed? The mad TRP race to make a television news channel profitable, which doesn't require 'pure' and trained journalists?

In the above sentence, there seems to be two assumptions:

TRP race is the only force that drives the business of running a television channel

The ‘business’ of running a television news channel is incompatible with the ethics/mission of journalism

The first assumption is a bit tricky, and we’d come back to it later after analyzing some other aspects of television business and journalism.

The second assumption seems to suggest that the nature of the television channel ‘business’ is causing news channels to stray away from ‘pure’ journalism, or ‘journalism’ in itself is not a good ‘television business’.

So if not the 'television' business, what business is compatible with ethics of journalism?

BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

Historically news organizations have been running the business of ‘printing and publishing’. The modern journalism is supposed to have started with the Gutenberg press in the fifteenth century, when Bible was printed and made available to the common masses, liberating it from the clutches of the clergy.

The Bible printing press evolved into of a press that printed books, periodicals and finally Daily Newspapers by the seventeenth century. Soon, various newspapers were in business all over Europe and America. Journalism was a ‘mission’ as well as a ‘business’.

Many of these newspapers were ‘promoted’ or ‘owned’ by people on a mission – people committed to the ideals of democracy. Even in India, journalism students are taught that modern journalism started with some of the great freedom fighters, including Mahatma Gandhi, starting their own periodicals or newspapers.

So journalism started as a business of ‘selling ideals' of democracy.

These ideas sold. People, the common man as well as the rich and the famous, bought them and they didn’t mind paying a price. The business sustained.

By the end of nineteenth century, some businessmen in the USA could recognize that the massive reach of newspapers made them the most powerful tool of mass marketing and advertising. The term ‘yellow journalism’ came into being a few years after. Profits skyrocketed.

Journalism became a business of 'selling advertising spots’.

And it gave birth to page-3 journalism, it gave birth to sold out editorial spaces (by cleverly calling it advertorials), and it now allows the television news professionals to claim that even print journalism is not 'pure' journalism any more.

The problem with television news was even more complex. Unlike the printing and publishing business, television business didn’t start with any grand mission of propagating ideals of democracy, revolution or education.

Television had broadly two roles when it started – government controlled mass communication medium or an entertainment medium better known as the idiot box, which attracted eyeballs and sold advertising spots as part of business strategy.

When independent television news channels started, they had the challenge to not take on either of these roles – a government propaganda machinery or an idiot box. While they ‘seem’ to have saved themselves from becoming a propaganda machinery of the government, they are definitely struggling to save themselves from adoption the idiot box business strategy.

Therefore a statement that ‘television’ business is incompatible with the mission of journalism is actually the result of television business being primarily the business of selling advertising spots. And the business of selling advertising spots surely seems to be incompatible with the ideals of journalism, whether print or television.

BUSINESS OF TELEVISION NEWS

If not advertising spots, what should the television news channels sell then? This is a real interesting question. For that, we should find out what are the possible things a television news channel could sell? I guess they could be selling some of these:

‘Experience’ in form of watching news shows

‘Information’ in form of reporting and analysis

‘Products’ in form of television advertising spots

I guess most of us, and industry experts, would say that a television news channel broadly lies in the third category amongst the above three.

So that’s what is causing the trouble? Should the television news channels, and for that matter, other news organizations (print or online) change their strategy and adopt a business where they primarily sell an ‘experience’ or ‘information’ rather than a ‘product’?

Now, based on the above three options, a television news channel can be run as a movie production company (selling 'experience'), a consulting company (selling 'information'), or a manufacturing company (selling 'product'). Does that mean that the news channels are being run as manufacturing companies at present?

If you still think that television journalists are not producing ‘advertising spots’, think again. In the current TRP driven business strategy, the journalist is producing a news story to attract maximum attention i.e. maximum TRP i.e. maximum eyeballs i.e. best slot for a commercial break, and hence maximum revenues for the channel because high TRPs would push up the advertising rates.

Hence a TRP based television news channel or advertising rate based news channel seems to be working like a goods manufacturing company.

A television news channel being run as a goods manufacturing company throws up very ugly picture – a journalist as a shop floor worker, those very senior journalists, who hang out with promoters, as toothless or sold-out labor union leaders, and the promoters/owners as the greedy monsters out there to make huge profits by making these workers toil hard.

I don’t think a journalist would like to be equated with a shop floor worker. The idea is not so gratifying. And the current scenario is not so gratifying for a common person as well. He may not support the government to put a leash on television news channels, but he wants these channels to become ‘better’.

A common person may watch sensational news, but he doesn't 'pay' for it. He watches it as an entertainment program. But is he ready to pay for it? Go and find out! He is willing to pay for Bollywood movies, but will he pay for absurd news? Somebody must find out, and my gut feeling says that he won't. Sensational news doesn't sell, it is being distributed free (Free To Air channels)! If anything is being sold, it's the advertising spots created by those sensational news. Hence it's flawed to argue that there is a 'demand' for absurd news or content. Rather, there is a demand for TRPs (by advertisers, who pay big money, unlike the viewers). Let's not confuse the two.

Can a television news channel (or for that matter a newspaper or a website too) become better while still following the current business strategy of selling a ‘product’? Or does it call for a change in the business strategy?

NON-TRP BASED TELEVISION CHANNELS

If the television news channels shed the TRP-driven business strategy i.e. if they wanted to get rid of this character of being an advertising spots 'manufacturing company', what should they do? Should a television news channel be run like a consulting company or a movie production company, or something hybrid?

Perhaps most of us would desire to see the television news channels running as a consulting company as the real ‘business’ of journalism should be 'reporting and analysis'. In such a scenario, a television journalist would become akin to a consultant or an analyst of a consulting company. Sounds gratifying…

But consulting companies have government and corporate clients, from where they earn revenues. If news channels are run as consulting companies, how would they earn revenues? Who would be the ‘clients’ of a news channel?

The government or corporate houses can’t be the major clients as that would compromise the credibility (the biggest asset in the business of journalism) of the channel. That would also make the channel accountable to government or corporate houses, a situation that would be no better than what exists today.

A news channel should be accountable to the general public, and that means that the general public should become their clients. So are we willing to pay the consulting fees (higher subscription fee for a paid news channel) to see a change? Even if many of us are willing, it will require a radical change in the functioning of television distribution sector to achieve something of that sort.

So what could be changed in the existing scenario to change the business strategy of a television news channel from being that of a manufacturing company?

Since the television industry is not going to change overnight and is expected to remain advertisement rate driven for coming years, it’s not realistic for a news channel to completely shed the TRP based business strategy. But it must not remain solely TRP driven.

THE TRP RACE

I would now like to come back to our assumption “TRP race is the only force that drives business of running a television channel”. In the above sections, we have assumed that TRPs almost solely determine the advertisement rates of the television news channels. Higher the TRP values, higher the advertising rates, and hence higher the profits.

We have also assumed that it’s mostly non-serious and non-journalistic television content that attracts higher eyeballs and hence higher TRPs.

Both these assumptions are not completely unfounded. Television advertising rates depend heavily on TRPs (although not solely) and people tend to watch more of entertainment and non-serious content on television, because television remains a very important medium of entertainment.

Could these two factors be changed?

The first one (making television advertising rates a lot less dependent upon TRPs) would require a change in the market dynamics of the television advertising industry, while the second one (people start preferring serious television content) warrants a radical shift in social behavior, or mass arrival of a completely new and personal medium of entertainment making television an ‘intelligent box’.

Obviously the change in the market dynamics of the television advertising industry seems more feasible than hoping to radically change the society or creating a new entertainment medium.

Television advertising industry has three major players – the rating agencies (who calculate and release TRPs), the media planners (who interpret these TRPs to price advertising spots), and the advertisers (who spend money to buy these advertising spots).

All these will have to mutually agree to come up with a formula where some other factor is given equal importance alongside TRPs while pricing the television advertising spots. For example, the rating agencies could ask common television viewers to rate television news channels on some ‘credibility’, ‘neutrality’ and ‘objectivity’ index and media planners factor these ratings while pricing advertising spots.

Yes, I am proposing that television adverting spots should have ‘quality’ (public perception) too apart from ‘quantity’ (eyeballs and reach) to offer.

And it’s not an outlandish or too idealistic a proposition. In outdoor advertising, subconsciously or otherwise, advertising spots have surely a ‘quality’ attached to them. If you are driving on a highway, you won’t find a billboard at a spot that could be considered an eyesore by the passing people, even though the ‘eyeballs’ (traffic on the highway) remain constant all across.

Therefore the major players of the television advertising industry will need to be convinced that advertising on a news channel, which is considered to be frivolous or irresponsible by common people, is like putting up a billboard near a stinking heap of waste on a highway. So an advertiser is advised to look for a ‘better’ spot. It seems a bit difficult, but not impossible.

In fact recent researches have shown that an advertisement in a 'serious' newspaper turns out be more effective than the same advertisement appearing in a tabloid. Should the advertisers not care about 'effectiveness' of their ad-campaigns than 'reach'?

The first step towards the above solution warrants that there should be a public rating to calculate and evaluate parameters like sincerity, seriousness, credibility, neutrality and objectivity of different television news channels, just like there is currently the TRP scale to calculate and evaluate the channel's reach. Will it happen? Let’s see.

But what can be done in the current situation? Can the situation be not improved without waiting for the television advertising industry or the common television viewer to change their current ways? I don’t have a ready answer, but I have the following thoughts:

THE CHANGED CHANNEL

The current team responsible for the ‘output’ of a television news channel should be divided into two teams – the TRP team and the Journalism team. The TRP team should continue with what they are currently doing – producing attractive news stories to attract maximum attention and eyeballs, and hence advertisements. The Journalism team should indulge in what has been traditionally acknowledged as the ‘mission’ of journalism – safeguarding common man’s rights, keeping a check on government agencies, development journalism, etc.

The TRP team members should periodically meet and brainstorm over TRP ratings of their programs, and come up with ways to improve them. Since they would be driving the TRP based advertisement revenues, their compensation could include high variable component based on profits, enabling them to earn much more than the journalists. The TRP team could have swankier cars but not the ‘press’ sticker on them. And I don’t say it in any condescending manner.

Today, in most of the news channels, journalists meet periodically and discuss why their ‘stories’ could not fetch high TRPs. This must stop. TRPs, as a measure of productivity of journalists, must stop. An alternate measure or parameter has to be found out, which could vary from organization to organization, to measure productivity of the journalists. And they should meet periodically to brainstorm over those parameters and find ways to improve themselves.

The output of both the teams has to be spaced out evenly so that they retain their individual identities and even the viewer can identify, and appreciate, the difference.

We will have to leave it to the discretion of the ‘bosses’ to create a healthy combine of both the teams and not to mix them up or give unfair advantage or importance to one of them.

The TRP team could be roughly likened with the ‘sales desk’ of an investment bank, while the Journalism team with the ‘research desk’. Both these desks are vital for an investment bank.

In terms of accounting and business strategy, the TRP team should run as a ‘profit center’ while the Journalism team should run as a ‘cost center’.

I propose such a starting step because we must stop the term ‘television journalism’ from becoming an oxymoron. I have friends working with the editorial teams of news channels and they are not happy with the kind of sensationalism and TRP based stories that are seen on news channels today. They actually feel like shop floor workers and are getting increasingly detached from the mission of journalism, which they strongly identified with when they started as energetic young professionals.

A news channel would cease to be in the business of journalism if it runs out of journalists. The bosses have to save these journalists, and yet run the show successfully i.e. earn profits for the business. The status quo won’t achieve both.

The Hindu Mindset

2008-12-21T02:16:00.007+05:30

The great Indian spirit that was witnessed after Mumbai terror attacks has started evaporating. The fears that I had expressed in my last post seem to be turning true.

First it was a zealous part of intelligentsia that passionately argued that the attacks were termed as the greatest terror attack just because the ‘elite’ were targeted. The facts that it was panic on the streets (home of many non-elite Indian) of Mumbai and an ordinary Mumbaikar shuddered to venture out of his home (those who were elite enough to have one) on the night of 26th November were not strong enough a reason to believe that the panic, with an utter contempt for boundaries of class and creed, struck everyone.

And now the worst, thought not unexpected, fear has come true – the reactions have taken a communal color. And I am among the first victims. I write this post as a 'Hindu' today.

And the person who has helped me don this Hindu identity is a central minister, ironically (?) minorities’ welfare minister. The minister, the name is Antulay, A R Antulay, suspects a conspiracy behind killing of ATS chief Hemant Karkare, the person who was investigating the Malegaon blasts case, a proof of existence Hindu terrorism. He thinks Mr. Karkare was pushed into death by some people (what the hell, why can’t he clearly say ‘Hindus’) so that Malegaon investigation was derailed.

There is nothing wrong in thinking or having an opinion. But each thought or opinion has a place in the civil society based on its ‘merits’.

I guess the accepted norm is that when you have a differing opinion from the majority (and I don’t mean Hindus by majority in this case!) the onus is upon you to prove your opinion/assertion/theory. Galileo and Darwin had differing opinions from the majority and the onus was upon them to prove their theories, rather than upon the majority to disprove their theories. And I guess it was fair. What was unfair was the fact that on occasions they were not even allowed to prove their theories.

But in politics, especially in Indian politics, and specifically with Muslims involved, it seems that the onus is on the majority (and here I mean Hindus) to disprove the theories and opinions of the minority.

Otherwise why the political class, except the BJP, thinks that the Antulay’s conspiracy theory should be probed, WITHOUT asking the minister to provide some concrete evidence, say a suspect post-mortem report or any other tangible evidence, which hints towards his conspiracy theory holding some ground?

Antulay did face resistance initially. But the moment he played the ‘Muslim’ card, everyone was willing to oblige rather than question his assertion.

Mr. Karkare was probing Malegaon case. He got killed. These two events happening one after another is strong enough a circumstantial evidence to suspect and probe the causes of his death?

Congress was under pressure over alleged fake encounter in Jamia Nagar. Arrests in Malegaon blasts case take place. Jamia Nagar outcry takes a backseat. These three events happening one after another is not strong enough a circumstantial evidence to suspect if ATS was acting under any political pressure?

For me, both of the above are conspiracy theories, a perverted post-hoc analysis of events by some propagandists. But why should the former merit probe and the later be rejected with disdain?

I can only see religion as the differentiating factor. And that’s my Hindu mindset thanks to Antulay.

A few good men (and women) among you might suggest that I should not take the political class seriously as they always play to the gallery. Vote bank politics, you see. But that is not completely true.

Even an educated Muslim and ‘secular’ Hindu has soft corner for conspiracy theories coined by Muslim groups. Some of the Urdu newspapers had carried out reports suspecting the whole Mumbai terror attacks as handiwork of Hindu Zionists (what on earth does that mean? A fake news report had suggested that Judaism and Hinduism were merged to created Hinjews to fight Islam, seems like our Urdu media and Muslim intelligentsia took that seriously).

The reports suggested that Hindu Zionists (well, they are actually trinity of supporters of BJP, some elements of Congress, and Hindu elements of the Army, backed by Mossad and CIA) had carried out ALL terrorist attacks in India to defame Muslims. The only exception to this conspiracy was 1993 Mumbai blasts, which were not carried out by the Hindu Zionists, the conspiracy theory argued. (In their school text books they must have learnt that each theory has an exception, so they allocated one.)

Among one of the important and tangible evidences that believers of this conspiracy theory provided in case of Mumbai terror attacks was the fact that terrorists wore Hindu saffron bands on their wrists (refer to the famous picture of Azmal Qasab). Hence Hindu Zionists were behind the attacks.

Such a tangible proof it was. Wait, I had seen in some Bollywood movies that Muslims tie such bands after visiting dargaah of Sufi saints. Ah, those movies might also be part of conspiracy by Hindu Zionists. That’s why they issue fatwa against Muslim Bollywood actors.

Anyway, the Mumbai attacks soon were proved to be an exception to the Hindu Zionist theory (the theory still holds true for millions, mind you) after Urdu media from Pakistan argued convincingly that Azmal Qasab was a Pakistani Muslim Jehadi, and not a Hindu Zionist.

If I have acquired a Hindu mindset today, it’s not because of people who coin such beautiful conspiracy theories, but because of those educated Muslims and secular Hindus who shift the onus of disproving such theories (either related with existence of Hindu Zionists or Karkare’s murder) on the Hindu masses.

The cushion of such conspiracy theories against the curse of communal discrimination has taken Indian Muslims into their shell and pushed them into a denial mode. They have got into a position that could make them blind to their own folly, a place where they could indulge in constant self pity and refuse self reform, and a ghetto that could help develop a Muslim mindset and induce a Hindu one upon people like me.

And when I say that Muslims have got into their shell and in a denial mode, it is due to the fact that for several years now educated Muslims have been busy defending and professing Islam instead of accepting that there could be some problems in their own house and trying to correct it. And secular Hindus are more than willing to let them be there.

They have got into their shell as even an innocuous idea such as protest against the terror attacks attracted resistance. Some Indian Muslims had opposed the move by some other Muslims to protest against the terror attacks. The Muslims who favored protesting against the attacks argued that such attacks were carried out in the name of Islam and hence they should clear the air by protesting.

But the other group, consisting of some members of Muslim intelligentsia, argued that protests against the attacks were tantamount to owning up that the attacks were by Muslims. And why should Muslims need to speak up in capacity of being a Muslim against the attacks? Muslims must protest as Indians and not as Muslims, they argued.

Sounds fair and logical enough, but it’s actually a manifestation of that denial mode. The same people used to find fault with media that ‘Muslim’ opinion against terrorism was never given proper coverage, and as a result terrorism was unwittingly linked with Islam. Now when some people, backed by media, want them to speak up and voice the ‘Muslim’ opinion against terrorism, they think it’s not fair. In fact now they claim that they are being targeted against for being Muslims when Media asks for their opinion as Muslims.

Anyway, an average Hindu didn’t ask them to speak up either. The common reaction after the Mumbai attacks was, ‘Pakistanis did it, and we Indians must all be united.’ People trying to blame Muslims and Islam were pushed back and told to shut up. ‘Enough is enough’ was the refrain. BJP couldn’t capitalize on ‘Hindu’ sentiments in the following state assembly elections, as there was none.

There were 'Indian' voices/noises all around. And then Mr. Antulay spoke up.

And he finds support from Muslim MPs cutting across party lines and from secular and broad minded Hindus. I see an analogy between what USA did with Muslim fundamentalists during 80’s and what the secular Hindus are doing now. USA supported Taliban and gave birth to Al Qaida to fight Soviet forces. Secular Hindus want to fight communal Hindus with the same strategy?

And don’t ask me which side I belong to. Don’t divide the Hindus in just two categories – secular and communal. What about Hindus who are proud of Hinduism but don’t want to be associated with rapists and murderers of Muslims, and at the same time are wary of rubbing shoulders with some so-called secular Hindus? Will they be allowed an opinion and independent identity? Or they would be told – either you are with us or you are with the communal forces?

There was time when such a Hindu was real and respectful like Swami Vivekananda. Then he became like Santa Claus; people liked to believe he was there but declared him fictitious. And now with this polarization, he has become like Yeti; undesirable, fictitious and extinct.

But he is still real. It’s a matter of choice for secular Hindus and educated Muslims to give him space, if not respect, by listening to the Hindu mindset. Or the other option is to brand him as a communal, reject his arguments, and go back happily into the shell.

And the Hindu mindset says – stop donning kid gloves when dealing with everything that has a Muslim element and taking a moral high ground when dealing with anything that has a Hindu element in it.

Enough is enough!

Quote

2008-12-17T12:56:00.006+05:30

"Some people don’t get support from either the rabbi or the rabble; they are either genius like Galileo or frivolous like Gigolo.”

yes, that's mine, and I hope to get international recognition for coming up with this wonderful quote! :p

END OF POST. NOTHING MORE TO READ!

Root causes of terrorism

2008-11-30T18:50:00.011+05:30

It would be a crime if I don’t blog on Mumbai terror attacks (even though I write a blog post far and few) while all through the last four days I’ve been following each development related to it forgetting everything else. Now when I write, post-mortem of the incidents and the innocents are going on, and perhaps this post is going to be a part of it.

The first reaction of most of the Indians to the terror attacks (apart from despair, dismay and disgust) was – it’s all due to our politicians. I don’t think it was a new reaction as surely most of us end up cursing the politicians, but this time intensity was really high, as measured by media reactions and blogs/comments on websites.

But it also troubled me, especially comments like “Where is Raj Thackeray? Why is he hiding now when Mumbai is under attack?” etc. My ‘love’ for Raj Thackeray and his policies is not a secret given that my last two blog posts have been about him only, and I’d hate that even here he takes center stage.

So when a fellow Bihari friend sent me the same message, I shouted back at him at how could he still think like a Bihari when it was time to think like an Indian? In his defense, he had to tell that it’s his frustration as an Indian only which was being reflected in such messages. Because he (a Bihari) was insulted and shooed away when he thought himself as an Indian and Mumbai as his home. He might be right in his conviction and contention, but I still argued that it’s not an ‘Indian’ reaction.

I also shouted back when a Citibank telemarketer called me up to inform me that I was eligible for a loan. I called the poor girl/woman an ‘idiot’ who was selling me a loan when Indians were getting killed. I later apologized to her and I hope she understood. She was just doing her job and I overreacted due to a possible sublime sentiment that she was not being ‘Indian’ enough.

Reactions of political parties are not even worth mentioning, they are hardly ‘Indian’ ever.

I encountered many reactions that were ‘Hindu’, ‘Dalit’, ‘Marathi’, ‘Middle Class’ (there are people who think that the only reason central Home Minister resigned and other heads could roll was because ameer or rich people were attacked at Taj and Oberoi), ‘Academic’, etc. while I kept looking for that elusive ‘Indian’ reaction.

The same ‘Indian’ reaction that we see when Sachin Tendulkar scores a century, the same ‘Indian’ reaction when… (help me find another regular non-cricketing instance…)

It’s not that there was no ‘Indian’ reaction at all. The common men gathering at Gateway of India wore that reaction. The people who greeted NSG commandos after the Nariman House operation were showing Indian reaction. Many other reactions on media were ‘Indian’, similar to what we had witnessed earlier when bomb blasts took place in different parts of the country.

But I fear these reactions would fade away, and worse, the other unfortunate reactions would overwhelm this feeling of being one as Indian. I pray my fears are proved wrong.

My fears spring from a feeling that while most (or some?) of us are united today and showing that ‘Indian’ reaction, we might not stay together, as it has happened on earlier occasions. I guess this happens because after reactions, we want solutions, and as a civil society, we seem to be clueless about a solution to terrorism.

Take for example Jessica Lall or Nitish Katara murder case, the civil society (backed by media) could see a solution - punish the criminals. But in case of terrorist attacks, our society is divided. We don't have a clear solution. Why?

Because we keep discussing 'root' causes of terrorism – resentment among Muslims, Hindutva, et al. Come on, there were 'root' causes of those murders too (and for that matter, all crimes have ‘root’ causes), and those root causes were much more complex – a cocktail of problems of ethnicity, crime, corruption, class, among others. But our society didn’t waste time in analyzing those causes because the priority was to get justice, so that we can call ourselves a ‘civil’ society.

But in case of terrorist attacks, it seems priorities are different. The focus in not to get justice or to get the criminals punished, but to happily debate the ‘root’ causes of terrorism. In fact, there are people who are ever ready to block any attempt to get the terrorists punished. They want to 'discuss' the roots instead of 'decimating' them.

A crude analogy, but it almost seems like discussing morality when a rape has taken place when someone insists upon discussing root causes of terrorism.

Why so much debate over an anti-terror law? Why should communal riots not be treated as an act of terror? Why should there be no agency to crush terrorism of all kinds with iron hand?

We can again say that politics is responsible. No, it’s because our ‘Indian’ reactions fade away after such blasts, and worse, the other unfortunate reactions (‘Hindu’, ‘Dalit’, ‘Marathi’, ‘Middle Class’, ‘Academic’, and others) overwhelm this feeling of being one as Indian.

Remember, there can not be any homeland security as we just seem to have a ‘land’ called India, not a ‘home’ called India.

This is the ‘root’ cause of terrorism.

A Bihari thanks Raj Thackeray

2008-10-21T15:25:00.008+05:30

As a Bihari, I want to thank Raj Thackeray and team to have attacked Bihari students gone to take exams in Mumbai. They chased Bihari students away as stray dogs are chased by watchmen. They beat them up as donkeys are beaten up when they refuse to move. I loved it. I loved it as a Bihari.

No no, neither am I a demented soul nor am I attempting any Gandhigiri. But as a hopeless optimist, I see a silver line in the clouds.

As a Bihari, who studied in Bihar from kindergarten to my bachelor’s degree, I had tried several times to leave Bihar and go for higher studies or employment outside my home state. I ultimately succeeded in 2001 when I came to Delhi to study journalism. I never went back to Bihar since then.

So these attacks are inspiring me to go back to my home state and do something for ‘my own people’? Not yet, I have to get rid of my insensitivity a little more to do that. So I am thanking Raj because I believe it will inspire more sensitive Biharis to go back to Bihar and do something? Not really.

I thank Raj Thackeray as a Bihari who was/is sick of caste based feelings that ran/runs deep among Bihari students in particular and society in general.

(my feelings are based on what I felt and experienced when I was in Bihar i.e. more than seven years back, I’d be most surprised and happy to know that situation has changed, but I doubt, as I do keep visiting Bihar a few times in a year)

When I moved to a high school in Patna, I suddenly found out that my identity went beyond what kind of shoes I wore, what lunchbox I brought, or how many marks I scored in exams. I belonged to a particular caste as well. But fortunately, my identity was not completely hinging upon that aspect.

When I moved to college (in Bihar, higher secondary is taught in colleges by state education board), the caste aspect of identity grew stronger, one of the important factor being writing your ‘category’ when applying for admissions in top colleges (from Bihari standard), but mostly due to the psyche of Bihari society; I was growing up, caste feelings had to catch up.

All through the college days (both the higher secondary and bachelor’s degree), I encountered caste consciousness on a regular basis, on numerous occasions.

Students tended to have friends from the same caste as their own (not so rampant or crass trend as it may appear from my words, but still it was a trend). In hostels, I heard students were divided along caste lines on many occasions. And in some cases, students even chose private tutors from their own caste to prepare for engineering, medical, or IAS examinations (only three career options known to a common Bihari student at that time).

Of course, one can see that all the career options meant going outside the state as there were not many good engineering or medical colleges in Bihar (Jharkhand included then). So the benevolent MNS and Shiv Sena ideologues are not wrong in saying that Bihari leaders should be punished because they have created a mess in Bihar which leaves no option for Biharis but to go outside their state to look for jobs and studies. If they really believe so, I don’t know why there are punishing the victims in such a case, let them chase away or beat up the Bihari leaders, no one would complain.

Anyway, coming back to my college days, tea stall (nukkad) gossips by students were about politics and which leader/political party is good for the state. Most of the students would take a stance simply because they belonged to a particular caste. They also discussed about cricket, girls, smoking, wine, and studies. I don’t know if caste was a factor in those discussions as well.

Caste was (is?) a harsh reality among student community. After all they were also part of the society, the Bihari society, which was (is?) notorious for giving their beti (daughter) and peti (ballot box or vote) to people of their own caste. It seemed that the student community, who form the future of any society, had refused to come out of this caste rut and bring about any positive change.

This student community, which had got no facilities in the home state, seemed least bothered about it. They knew there were better institutes and jobs outside Bihar, but they never seemed to worry why Bihar didn’t have them. Instead, they ‘prepared’ themselves for the competition to get into those institutes and to get those jobs outside Bihar. They had every right to do so as they all thought it was their own country and any person was free to move to any other part of the country.

Preparing for ‘competitive’ exams was a ‘status’ factor. A typical Bihari student would take admission in some college in Bihar, which has no facility and system, and prepare for these competitive exams. These exams ranged from prestigious engineering, medical or IAS exams to bank-clerks, lower administrative jobs, and railways recruitment exams.

All these competitive exams would eventually take them out of the state. Most of the Bihari students even chose centers of these exams outside Bihar, even if they had an option of taking exam in Bihar itself. That’s a mystery; either it was wanderlust or a cynicism about the home state.

I also witnessed that while applying for those mushrooming engineering colleges in Maharashtra (wonder why MNS is not attacking those Bihari engineering students, or have Bihari students upgraded themselves?), there were students who would rank choice of their colleges for admission after consulting students from their own caste, perhaps to create a ground for making a coterie of their own castemen even outside Bihar.

When going out of state to take exams, students of the same caste even tended to book railway tickets together, given they were not so much in number to muster courage to travel ticketless (yes, railways have been their favorite mode of transport, much before Lalu Yadav became the minister).

I guess, and I hope and pray that I’m wrong, things have not changed much since then. The same set of events might have taken place in lives of most of those students who boarded trains and reached Mumbai on 19th October.

And as soon as they reached Mumbai, some of them were attacked and chased away. They were treated with utmost disgust, as if they were animals. Those who survived were beaten up in the examination halls, again as if they were unwanted scums. I am sure it was a dreadful, disgusting, and demoralizing experience for each of those Bihari students and Bihari society.

And I hope that the Bihari society has realized that when those students were beaten up, nobody asked them if they were Yavav, Bhumihar, Kurmi, Brahmin, or Paswan by caste.

Thank you Raj Thackeray for creating parity in the Bihari society, which our leaders could never bring about.

Thank you Raj Thackeray for making Biharis feel like one people.

May God bless you. Get well soon.

A Tale of Two Communities

2008-02-11T01:27:00.005+05:30

Recently some comments of Raj Thackeray over people hailing from UP and Bihar created a lot of noise and nuisance. Superstar Amitabh Bachchan’s house was attacked and some poor taxiwallas were beaten up and their taxis smashed on the roads of Mumbai, the financial capital of India.

Raj Thackeray is the nephew of Shiv Sena’s supremo Bal Thackeray, and heads his own political party Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, which means a party that is out to build a new Mahrashtra. And they are out on roads. Experts say that Raj Thackeray is apparently following the kind of politics that his uncle practiced in 1970’s and 80’s – Maharashtra for Maharashtrians.

He seems to suggest that most of the problems Maharashtra is facing are due to usurping of rights of Maharashtrians or Marathis by Non-Maharashtrians. He avers that Non-Maharashtrians, especially Bhaiyyas (people from UP and Bihar) are infesting their land and taking away their jobs. They are depositing Marathi money in Bihari banks. Not only that, these outsiders are polluting their culture (the sena parivar had maintained that the molesting of women on new year’s eve was handiwork of these outsiders).

Such accusations against Non-Mahrashtrians are not new. After Shiv Sena was defeated in the last assembly elections in 2004, Bal Thackeray had stated that tactical voting by Muslims and Non-Maharashtrians was responsible for it. Muslims and Non-Maharashtrians had ganged up, they invited gang war?

At that time, his statement was discounted as a grumpy grouse of a besieged leader who found his failure hard to digest, or was termed as just another ruse by the ageing lion to keep his flock from falling off. But some political pundits had predicted recrudescence of the politics of hate; the objects of aversion being Muslims and Biharis on most of the occasions. The rhetorics by Sena leaders in the past few years seem to corroborate this prediction.

The present round of trouble-mongering was started when Raj Thackeray declared that Biharis performed the drama of chhath puja (worship of sun god) to show their strength, and impose their own culture on Marathi land.

Come to think of it, this accusation against Biharis is very similar to Sena’s opposition to Friday prayers by Muslims, where it was insinuated that Muslims come out in large numbers on Fridays to show their populous strength and force an entry of their Arab culture into the Hindu land.

And that puts Muslims and Biharis in a similar situation for once. And incidentally, this is not the only time and place these two communities would find themselves in similar situations.

There are a lot of prejudices prevalent against both the communities, foremost among them being the presupposition that these people perform and are fit only for petty jobs; Biharis are all migrant labourers, vendors and taxiwallas, and Muslims are all tailors, butchers and bakriwalas (forgive me for calling these professions petty, I’m just restating an unfortunate preconception).

Talk about stereotypes, and both these communities stand painted in all shades of bias. When we talk about politics, Biharis become casteist and Muslims communal. When we talk about mannerisms, Biharis become vulgar and Muslims violent. When we talk about development, Biharis become burden and Muslims burglars.

On many occasions both the communities have to face mocking and derogatory comments in public places. And then there have been physical attacks on them, here Muslims being much more unfortunate than the Biharis.

So what makes Biharis and Muslims similar?

There are some obvious likenesses, such as both communities are comparatively poor and lacking in overall development e.g. education, infrastructural facilities and employment. Both the communities are politically active and arguably open to manipulation. People belonging to both the communities have a strong ‘sense of community’, either foisted upon them or naturally nurtured by themselves. And lastly but very importantly, they are easily identifiable, one by their names and the other by the way they pronounce their names!

Could these similarities be actually reasons why they find themselves in aforementioned situations? Surely the vilification and hate-campaign against both the communities are responsible for them to be pushed in to such situations. But why are these two communities pet-hate of some outfits? What makes them so dreadful for these ‘fascist forces’?

Yeah, they are deemed dreadful by their bête-noirs, for they pose some real and some imaginary threats to their adversaries – the fundamental fear that these communities are ‘coming in a big way’ to overwhelm them. And this fear is largely the outcome of some exaggerated extrapolation of the present trends into future.

Whereas Muslims are supposed to swamp the whole country by their burgeoning numbers, Biharis are supposed to mop up all the jobs.

There was a huge uproar after the last census report when a series of arguments and counter arguments were put forward on growth of Muslim population in India. The controversy depicted the perceived threat that the Muslims supposedly offered. They were growing fast.

Biharis have been fortunate not to have created a nationwide stir on any statistical data, but there are reports which had predicted that by 2015, out of every 500 odd districts of India, either the DM or SP, if not both, would be a Bihari. These reports were based on the number of Biharis succeeding UPSC examinations (an estimate puts the tally to over 25% in last ten years or so). Bihairs were getting all jobs.

These are statistics and are supposed to be sacrosanct and scientific, and so the threats are meant to be real and prejudices valid. And it called for action.

Bihari students were attacked and beaten up by Shiv Sena workers in Mumbai when they had gone to take railway recruitment exams in 2003. The same year, just before these attacks in Mumbai, around 30 Biharis were killed in Assam because they were earning in a foreign land.

And action against Muslims? Do I need to cite any specific incident? It would be unfair to point out just one or two.

But it also calls for action on the other side. Unfortunately, some people apply Newton’s third law everywhere. Hope they would graduate out of the high school soon.

Both the communities need to counter the ‘reality’ of the threats and ‘validity’ of the prejudices. It’s not that only Muslims are growing in population or only Biharis are getting the jobs in India. There has to be something else that breeds hostility towards these communities. It’s not just about debunking a statistical calculation; both the communities need to take a holistic look at the current state of affairs.

Let’s go back to the similarities between the communities and revisit the question – could those similarities actually be engendering some of the prejudices? We’ve to look at the similarities, because two rather disparate groups, in terms of practices and beliefs, find themselves in a similar situation. There has to be something common between them in order to make that happen.

There were four major similarities that we had identified – (i) lack of development, (ii) politically active, (iii) sense of community, and (iv) easily identifiable.

Are these good enough characteristics of a community to give rise to prejudices? If so, should a ‘cure’ be found for them by the two communities?

Let’s take the first characteristic – lack of development. I think without analyzing whether this aspect can give rise to prejudices against a community, we would all agree that a cure is needed. And relationship with prejudices? I guess there is a link; underdeveloped and poor communities are usually stereotyped about their mannerisms and mindset.

One of the major reasons, apart from corruption and mismanagement, why welfare programmes of government has been unable to show effect, has been due to presence of such stereotypes for underdeveloped and poor communities. Authorities deal with the whole situation with pre-conceived ideas about the problems and requirements of the communities.

But such stereotypes, of their own, normally don’t deteriorate into prejudices, almost hatred, against the underdeveloped and poor communities. There has to be some other reason that should explain the prejudices against Muslims and Biharis.

Let’s go to the second characteristic – politically active. Something that could engender prejudices or hatred? I believe it has such potentials. And I guess this characteristic is linked with the earlier one; since the communities lack development, they sometimes cling to politics as a potential tool of development, which often renders them vulnerable to political maneuvering.

It’s very difficult to tell apart if one is a pawn or a prey in a political plot. And once you assume, wittingly or unwittingly, either of these roles, you are bound to provoke prejudices against yourself. I personally believe that this has been happening with Biharis and Muslims.

So what’s the cure? The communities should become less politically active? In fact, I myself am confused on how do we measure the ‘level’ or ‘intensity’ of political activism, and how do we find the ‘cut-off’ level, above which one can get tricked and trapped into a political plot. Can we be active in politics and still be neither a pawn nor a prey? Somehow both the communities have to make sure that it happens.

What about the other two similarities – a sense of community and easily identifiable? As a social animal, it's not easy for human beings to shed the sense of community; arguably one of the weakest species, humans need a sense of community. Although I wonder why do we cling to it so strongly even now after all our technological and social innovations, which surely has made us rather one of the strongest species now. Old habits die hard!

How easily you are identifiable mostly depends upon you. In fact, it depends upon the 'sense' of community. The stronger it is, the more unique and different you want to appear, almost flaunting your identity. I think both these characteristics, sense of community and being identifiable, are common to many ethnic communities, and prompt jokes, bias or discrimination.

So is a cure needed? Yes, all of us need a cure for this; Raj Thackeray, Biharis, Muslims, and all of us need this cure – tolerance and respect for difference, and at the same time, irreverence for boundaries of traditional communities in deference to a modern universal one.

Science of Faith

2007-11-30T04:08:00.002+05:30

Just around when some people wanted Taslima Nasrin to leave India on ground of her actions (described as ‘behuda harkat’ i.e. indecent antics by one of the MPs) hurting the sentiments of people of India, I was engaged in a reading “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins, where Dawkins bats passionately and logically for atheism. My decision to read that book was not inspired by the ‘controversy’ around Taslima but out of a friendly, yet animated, discussion with a friend who is deeply religious.

My friend believed (as per my comprehension) that all things in this world, including our lives, are governed by God and it’s our duty to submit to him/her and act in deference to his/her wishes/teachings/ commands, even if our own good sense/convenience/desires tempt us to act the other way. I was not pretty sure.

Well, I must admit that this was not something very unique or strange that I had come across in my life, but maybe coming from a very close friend, it suddenly caused me to think deeper. And a few days after this discussion with my friend, this whole Taslima thing erupted. Earlier similar controversy had arisen around some comments questioning existence of Lord Rama, and some time back Christians were hurt by ‘The Da Vinci Code’. In fact, almost all religious groups have had their share of such ‘controversies’ in India.

The common accusation by these groups has been – someone trying on purpose to hurt the sentiments through unwarranted use of reason against matters of faith.

Doesn’t this accusation seem very plausible and in line with the spirit of democracy, civilized world and (Indian) secularism? Why should you hurt the sentiments of others on purpose by unnecessarily probing the matters of faith with science and reason?

It might appear at this point of time that the problem is not with ‘science and reason’, but when probing the matters of faith is ‘on purpose’ and ‘unnecessary’?

Let’s take the case of it being ‘on purpose’. Will it be acceptable to the religious groups if someone inadvertently hurt their sentiments by probing their matters of faith through science and reason?

The history is full of examples of scientists and philosophers facing persecution and blasphemy charges, even though they were engaged in ‘inadvertent’ pursuance of their scholarly interests. Inadvertent pursuance, for they were not pursuing their interests to ‘on purpose’ contradict the holy books. But whenever their findings were not in line with the holy books, they were accused of hurting the sentiments by carrying out unnecessary and unwarranted activities.

So could we say that the problem is not with activities being ‘on purpose’ but with them being ‘unnecessary and unwarranted’?

Now that takes us to an even more interesting and intriguing question. Will it be acceptable to the religious groups if it was necessary to hurt their sentiments by probing their matters of faith through science and reason?

Doesn’t the question sound very abrupt? In fact, it throws up many other questions – Necessary for whom and why? And what exactly is the relationship between sentiments and matters of faith? Do matters of faith exist only in religion?

There are people who believe that any attempt to probe matters of faith with science and reason is always unnecessary and unwarranted. Why else do you think they are called matters of ‘faith’?

So what exactly is faith? Let’s try to understand it through one example. Somewhere I had read – Mother is reality, Father is faith. A cryptic statement that alludes to the grim reality that almost all of us nurture at least one ‘faith’ – that the person, who is the husband of our mother, is indeed our biological father. Hardly anyone ever reasoned with our parents, let alone asking for scientific proofs like DNA test reports, to probe this ‘matter of faith’.

[Well, at this point to time, I wonder, if this is the reason why God is imagined as male or as ‘father’ in most of the religions? Hmmm… food for thought, maybe some other blog entry some other day!]

A religious person may well ask – will it be acceptable to a rationalist if I asked him to prove scientifically and logically that the husband of his mother is indeed his biological father? Will it not hurt his sentiments? Will he not say that it is unnecessary and unwarranted to demand such a thing?

Let’s face it, although it’s very easy (faith putting this adjective ‘easy’ here?) to scientifically and logically answer the above question, would we really want such a question to be asked? Does it not hurt our sentiments? In my case, I would be incensed, and I guess most of us would be.

So should this be decent enough an analogy to refrain ourselves from probing matters of faith through science and reason? Because such an attempt hurts the sentiments and incenses people?

A rationalist would argue that a person’s faith in his or her father’s fatherhood is very different from religious beliefs. It’s a personal matter. Even if he or she is mistaken in her faith about his or her biological father, it doesn’t affect others in the society. So it’s none of your business to ask someone to prove who their biological father is. It is unnecessary and unwarranted.

Can religious people offer the same argument?

We’ve been listening from many that ‘religion is a personal matter’, but is it so? Rarely religion is confined to homes; it comes out open loud enough and shapes social values, public laws, political ideologies, economic systems, and even military warfares. In fact, the more aspects of social life a religion touches upon, the more fulfilled its adherents claim to be, well, most of the times.

So can we say that if a religion comes out loud enough in social life, it is no longer unnecessary and unwarranted to probe its matter of faith through science and reason?

Well, that’s what Richard Dawkins argues in “The God Delusion”. In fact, Dawkins sees religions offering the idea of a supernatural creator as a scientific hypothesis, which he calls “The God Hypothesis”. He rejects the view that Science and Religion operate in non-overlapping fields, referred as non-overlapping magisterial or NOMA. He avers that like any other hypothesis, the God hypothesis should also be tested, and he proceeds to test and falsify the god hypothesis. Okay, he almost falsifies the god hypothesis (Chapter 4 - Why there almost certainly is no God).

In many interviews Dawkins was asked if there was indeed any need for him to write such a book openly critical, rather acerbic, of religion. And he maintained that it was both necessary and warranted in present times.

But my friend says that those who presented the god hypothesis – the prophets, the saints, the incarnates, etc. – have already verified and proved it, that’s why so many people believe in God. I told the argument doesn’t cut ice. Human society is becoming more and more intelligent and things people earlier believed in have been known to be false. In fact, didn’t most of these religions came into being after overriding some pre-existing ones – falsifying the then-existing hypotheses? So why should they steer away from a new round of hypothesis testing now?

So my friend told thought for a while and told, “The idea of god is not a hypothesis, it’s an axiom. Believe in it and everything logically flows from there. Period.”

So while I google up, read Wikipedia entries on axiom, or maybe before I dust off some old mathematics books, I thought let me write something on my blog which has been almost dead for months.

P.S. - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2007

Well, just to put records straight, I did look up for definition and concept of axiom, and a working definition that I got from Wikipedia was – “An axiom is a sentence or proposition that is not proved or demonstrated and is considered as self-evident or as an initial necessary consensus for a theory building or acceptation. Therefore, it is taken for granted as true, and serves as a starting point for deducing other (theory dependent) truths.”

So an Axiom has to be either “self-evident truth” or an “initial necessary consensus”.

I still have my doubts if the concept of god and religion falls in either of these categories!!!

Founder of Civilization

2007-06-26T05:00:00.001+05:30

“The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization” – Sigmund Freud

Sometimes this man (Freud) doesn’t leave you with any option but to admire and agree with his assertions. And I couldn’t agree more with this one.

So basically what does this sentence signify? That transition between uncivilized world and the civilized world was brought by simply a change in tool – from stone to insult.

And for what was/is this tool used?

Uncivilized man (hmmm) hurled stones on fellow men to control territory, to gain upmanship, to win women, and to become the leader of the clan.

And a civilized man (HMMM) hurls insults on fellow men to control territory, to gain upmanship, to win women, and to become the leader of the clan.

[I stopped here for almost 10 minutes not knowing what to write next… I had come across that interesting quote and thought I’d write something… and I was clueless in which direction to proceed]

Well, well, well. I just realized that I have used ‘man’ whereas the quote of Freud has the word ‘human’. I must admit that I didn’t use the word ‘man’ as synonym of ‘human’ (for non-homosexuals, it should be pretty apparent as I also used the term ‘to win women’) but I actually envisioned a man (bearded, beefy, and bare bodied) hurling stones, whereas it seems that Freud believes that it could have been a woman as well who hurled insult and started civilization!

Great, so here we have an interesting topic, who started civilization? Man or woman?

If we go by definition of Freud, whoever is more vulnerable to hurling insults, started civilization! So what do you think? A man is more open to hurling an insult or a woman?

Well, our two epics – Ramayana and Mahabharata – depicts two great wars being fought after women threw insults and men answered in uncivilized manners!

In Ramayana, Surpanakha – Ravan’s sister – first tries to lure Rama and Laxman with her beauty, and when she fails to do so, she starts insulting both of them along with Sita. This results in Laxmana cutting off her nose and ears (most versions of Ramayana tell that Surpanakha had pounced upon to kill Sita after hurling insults following which Laxman acted). The act resulted in Sita being kidnapped by Ravan and ensuing war in Lanka Nagari.

In Mahabharata, Draupadi insults two men – Karna in her swayamwar and Duryodhana in the Indraprashta palace – the insult of Duryodhana sows the seed for the dice game and subsequently the Mahabharata war takes place.

So based on above two incidents, can we construe that women are more prone to hurling insults and men more prone to throwing stones? Seems unfair to womankind, isn’t it? And already liberals and feminists are against Hindu scriptures; let me not give them another reason to hate those texts. So we need a deeper analysis.

I think we might need a psychologist and sociologist to tell us what kind of person is more susceptible to throw insults rather than attacking physically. I am neither (psychologist nor sociologist) by training, but let me try.

Throwing an insult or stone, is a decision a person would take in extreme circumstances, when pushed to a corner.

I think it can be safely assumed that a person, when pushed to a corner, will try to use his best resources and skills to act or retort. How best and efficiently he or she uses the resources and skills, is a different matter. But when pushed to a corner, a person will try to give his or her best shot as he knows he might not get a second chance, or that he might be left repenting in future about not having been proactive enough at that crucial time, so better use your trump card now.

Women, on an average, have been found to be better than men in linguistic skills, and it doesn’t require an expert study to show that men are on an average physically stronger than women. So if you believe in equality of sexes on all other counts, women have linguistic skills as their best resource and men have physical strength when compared to each other.

Now to throw an insult you need linguistic skills, and to throw stone you need physical strength, isn’t it?

So I tend to believe that it was a woman who started civilization ;)

On a more serious note, one day one of my friends had argued that it was indeed a woman who started civilization. Of course, then she didn’t use the above logic.

She had argued that in uncivilized world men would kill fellow men, own territories and women, and roam around from place to place. He would not need a ‘home’. He was happier that way – untamed and uninhibited.

But for a woman, life was hell. She would live a life of being a sexual object and a second grade human being (unfortunately true in some sense even today in some parts of the world). She must have felt that if this wild man were to be tamed, her life can become a little better.

So it was a woman who convinced (brainwashed?) a man that he indeed ‘needed’ a home, where he can lead a better life, a more ‘civilized’ life. And thus she pushed through the concept of ‘home’ and ‘family’ in this world – institutions that would accord her better and safer status in the whole scheme of things.

It’s almost impossible to think of civilizations without ‘domesticated’ men. Wild men can’t give birth to civilizations. And wild men didn’t have any ‘natural’ need to become domesticated. So it was indeed a woman who created the need for men to become domesticated and subsequently gave birth of civilization, she argued.

Well, I agreed with her then, and I agree again!

New 7 Wonders - Emotional Scam or Master B-Plan?

2007-06-24T00:40:00.001+05:30

Around two weeks back, media reports informed us that Taj Mahal was ‘lagging behind’ in the race for New Seven Wonders of the world. It was a national shock for some people, which had potential of translating into a national shame.

So suddenly patriotic fervor went up and some people decided to act. Our inboxes and websites like orkut got spammed with ‘Vote for Taj’ messages, we started receiving SMS to do the same, A R Rehman composed “India Unites for the Taj”, News Channels suddenly became aware of their social responsibilities and exhorted people to vote, small time leaders campaigned for support and criticized the government of not doing enough to protect the honor of India. Government didn’t respond.

Wow! We felt like Indians. We needed to. With India out of cricket world cup in first round itself, we needed something to drive us along as Indians; perhaps for many of us ‘New 7 Wonders’ provided that opportunity.

Around seven years back, Swiss businessman Mr. Bernard Weber also saw an opportunity. He launched this campaign to find ‘New 7 Wonders’ ostensibly ‘to protect humankind's heritage across the globe’, and now, with around two weeks to go when his project ends, he must be a happy man.

It’s really amazing to see how this campaign to find New Seven Wonders of the World has caught the imagination of the world. Almost no one questioned what mandate Mr. Weber had to launch such a campaign. Who authorized him to do this? And what validity, legal or otherwise, the results of the campaign would contain?

Well, it can be argued that there really hasn’t been any official organization with authority to prepare such a list. The list of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is supposed to have been prepared around 5th century BC by Greek historian Herodotus and chief librarian of the Alexandria Museum Callimachus of Cyrene. We don’t know what monuments they listed as the work was destroyed with the Alexandria Library. Nobody exactly knows who compiled the list of Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages. The earliest reference to the list is engravings by the Dutch artist Maerten van Heemskerck (1498-1574).

It seems that the lists of seven wonders have always had a vague history behind them, but we could have done away with another vague attempt in the modern age. Many people believed, and perhaps rightly so, that any genuine attempt to list modern seven wonder of the world should have been championed by UNESCO.

On 20th June 2007, barely three weeks before ‘New 7 Wonders’ is to announce the final list, UNESCO released a press note saying it is not involved in the campaign. The press note says, “Although UNESCO was invited to support this project on several occasions, the Organization decided not to collaborate with Mr. Weber.”

The press note further says, “The list of the ‘7 New Wonders of the World’ will be the result of a private undertaking, reflecting only the opinions of those with access to the internet and not the entire world. This initiative cannot, in any significant and sustainable manner, contribute to the preservation of sites elected by this public.”

UNESCO not only is suggesting that this is a campaign by ‘private undertaking’, but it is also making clear that the ‘winner’ sites or wonders would not get any ‘rewards’ from the organization e.g. increase in grants on preservation of that particular site, etc.

So it’s just another poll, no better than MTV’s ‘youth icon of the year’, or other umpteen SMS and online polls that television channels conduct, because the methodology for voting and counting is no better or more scientific in this case.

At least the ‘private undertaking’ of Mr. Weber could have afforded to be more scientific and democratic in the whole process. You can SMS and call as many times as you want and keep on voting for your preferred wonder (after all it will earn him revenue each time you do that). You can vote online for ‘free’ once, and the you can pay $2 and vote once more, and again $2 and once more, and so on. And yeah, you will get a ‘certificate’ each time you pay, I mean vote.

On 07-07-07, in Lisbon, there would be grand ceremony. Celebrities like Hilary Swank, Jennifer Lopez, Ben Kingsley, Bipasha Basu, and Cristiano Ronaldo would be there. It would be a great day, you shouldn’t miss it, you can win Ronaldo signed T-shirts. You can buy the tickets for 140 Euros excluding booking charges for the mega-event, but you must vote before that. And finally on 07-07-07, seven certificates to new wonders will be issued. Will our dear Taj Mahal be there? I don’t know.

If it’s there, we will celebrate, if not, we will blame the sagging patriotic spirit in ourselves and our leaders? Brazil's President Lula de Silva addressed his people on radio telling them how to vote for Rio's statue of Christ the Redeemer. The government of Peru opened computer terminals in public places and exhorted people to vote for the ancient city of Machu Pichu. What was Manmohan Singh doing?

Whatever is the new list, Mr. Bernard Weber surely made a successful business-plan for his ‘for-profit’ organization, and wonderfully executed it. An attempt to generate a modern list of wonders of the world is not new. Media companies like CNN and USA Today had released their list of modern seven wonders earlier, websites like hillmanwonders.com and wonderclub.com too had done the same, and organizations like American Society of Civil Engineers had finalized a list of modern seven wonders. All these attempts had expert opinion as well as public opinion factored in. Mr. Weber had a real challenge to do something different.

And he did it. Weber launched his campaign on 15th September 2000 with an event where his amphibian aircraft (he is a filmmaker, museum curator, aviator, and explorer as per the official site) landed in a spectacular fashion in Sydney Harbour. Weber also announced the selection of the Sydney Opera House as one of the candidates for the ‘New 7 Wonders of the World’. It made news. It appealed to the emotions of local people.

This was just a week before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. This event was aired by television stations in US, Eurpoe and Australia. He must have anticipated it, after all news channels around the world need to file stories that build up the mood to some important event. People became aware of the website and the campaign.

The next year in 2001, Taliban destroyed Buddhas of Bamiyan, and Weber added “The Bamiyan Buddha Reconstruction Project” as a part of “New 7 Wonders” foundation. He declared that 50% of the ‘net’ revenues would be used to fund restoration efforts worldwide e.g. Bamiyan Buddha and heritage sites in Africa. It made news. It appealed to the emotions of people. Donations also were to be pledged later.

Over next couple of years, releases from Mr. Weber’s organization would tell how Turkey has overtaken USA in voting or how Peru would soon overtake Mexico. Some people thought, ‘our country is lagging behind, let’s vote’. It made news. It appealed to their emotions.

August 2004, Athens Olympics game was going on. Mr. Weber flew in a hot air balloon over The Acropolis, and repeated what he did four years back. The Acropolis was included in the official list of ‘candidates’ for the New Seven Wonders. Mr. Weber also opined that since ancient list of seven wonders was chosen by a Greek historian, he was modest not to put The Acropolis in the list, so people now have a chance to accord the coveted status to their city. It made news. It appealed to the emotions of local people.

By now, the campaign was well known in western world, but market existed outside the western world too. So in December 2004, Mr. Weber visited Taj Mahal in the company of Aishwarya Rai. Taj and Aishwarya – it made news – where Aishwarya made her famous statement, “Taj is more beautiful than me”. Shahjahaan was happy. Taj Mahal was also a candidate now, and there were 250,000 registered votes from India in the following week. It appealed to our emotions.

People were talking about it now. It appealed to their emotions. But it should appeal to their reason also. So Mr. Weber got a panel of experts with six architects from different parts of the world and a former UNESCO director-general as the president of the panel. Three years later, now UNESCO’s press release makes it clear that the former director-general is there in his personal capacity. It didn’t make such a big news.

Mr. Weber must be congratulated for his patience and preparation he put in for his business plan. After initial investment of time and money, he didn’t need to do much. Slowly and steadily, his business-plan was marketed almost free by mass media, patriots, spammers and even governments. He could get sponsors for everything he was doing – webhosting, SMS and telephone traffic, world tours, merchandise selling, competitions, and event management.

It all happened because with each passing year and day, customers were rushing in. It appealed to their emotions. Weber’s plan was a success.

On 07-07-07, we would see the climax of the campaign, but Weber’s plan doesn’t end there. ‘The New 7 Wonders will further be documented on breathtaking IMAX large format film, for which Weber's extensive film background should prove useful’ – the official website informs.

References:
http://www.new7wonders.com/
http://ce.eng.usf.edu/pharos/wonders/
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=38482&URL_DO=DO_PRINTPAGE&URL_SECTION=201.html

(non)Sense of Belonging

2006-07-21T10:20:00.002+05:30

Why could Buddhism not stay as the popular religion of India for long? Not because Brahmins ganged up to smother it, because it was a philosophy that was not perfectly appealing to the Indian psyche.

Buddha told, "app dipo bhava" i.e. be a lamp unto yourselves - be your own light, your own authority, your own Buddha.

Buddha was perhaps the first one who preached 'individualism', much before the French political commentators and socialists coined the word in 19th century.

But individualism is not the cup of tea for Indians, or for that matter, for most of the traditional societies of the world. We like to live in herds, in groups, in colonies, in castes. We need a sense of belonging.

That's why Khushwant Singh, who claims to be an atheist, doesn't shave off his beard and removes his turban (I'm not asking him to do that either). That's why Shabana Azmi, whose ideas would be more respected in a religion-less society, assertively calls herself a Muslim. That's why many Hindu middle classes, who don't hate Muslims, vote for Narendra Modi. Because they are bound by a sense of belonging.

And that's why the idea of reservations works in India and appeals to most of the Indians. It's not about some individuals benefiting from it, but communities benefiting from it. A yadav selling milk in Lucknow feels proud that there is an IAS officer sharing the same surname with him.

Reservations have really helped some communities feel that they can also achieve something. It has not helped the neediest of the needy, but it has helped some communities as a whole. It has given them the placebo effect, and they seem to be happy.

We don't hear any loud complaints from lower income groups among the reserved categories that their 'rights' are being usurped by well-off people in their own communities. Because they are strongly bound by that sense of belonging.

The latest decision by government is, in all probabilities, not going to help son of that yadav selling milk in Lucknow to get into IIM Ahmedabad. It will perhaps help some son of a yadav professor in Lucknow University. In fact even the milkman knows that his son is not going to get the benefits, but he would join a pro-reservation rally by SP, shout slogans, even face lathis and bullets, because he is too bound by that sense of belonging.

And this sense of belonging is going to stay till caste system exists, or unless most of us suddenly became individualistic. And if this sense of belonging is going to stay, reservation policy will continue to get its support from the bulk of the masses. And yeah, if today, you carry out a referendum, majority of Indians will support this reservation policy, even its latest avatar in IITs and IIMs.

So what is the road ahead? Can we aim to break this sense of belonging by finishing caste system or by turning most of the Indians individualistic? Both of these are colossal tasks.

But if we can't achieve these tasks in foreseeable future, let's be extra careful not to do something that is retrogressive in nature i.e. which strengthens caste as a system or makes Indians even less individualistic.

And there you are - trapped in a vicious circle. Reservations, in the way they are presently working, do exactly that - strengthens the caste as a system and keeps alive this sense of belonging.

So the real challenge is to break this vicious circle. We either hit at the caste system or at reservation policy.

Most of the times we choose to do the latter.

But while attacking the reservation policy, we make errors that strengthen the sense of belonging based on castes. We equate reservation with crutches, and in the process, knowingly or unknowingly, appear to be looking down upon the beneficiaries of reservations with a condescending attitude.

Before we speak a word, we should place ourselves on the other side, and think what the words may mean to them. If it hurts them because of them belonging to a certain caste, you are strengthening the sense of belonging, and weakening your cause.

Apart from carefully chosen words, what means do we adopt to attack the reservation policy? Parliament has unanimously passed the amendment and it is going to become a law, and government is free to enforce this law anytime, most probably it will be enforced from the next academic year.

We can't protest against a law unless we prove that it violates some basic features of the Indian constitution. Many PILs argued that reservations violates article 14 (right to equality before law) but SC has turned them down. So can we argue better in the court of law? That's one way.

And the second way, as most of us have been discussing, is to look for alternatives to reservations and suggest them to government. This is a big task, and let me come back to my motif; can we find an alternative that pleases the sense of belonging of people in the same way as the reservation policy does?

I don't know what kind of solution we might come up with, but unless caste as a system goes, I find it very difficult to see reservations going away. We must attack caste system itself.

Leading Indian sociologist M N Srinivas once argued that if India is able to develop 'mobile' middle classes, caste as a system will go.

His main emphasis was on the word mobile. He argued that if middle classes develop, but they don't move around, caste as a system will not go away. There would be ghetto colonies of middle classes based on caste.

And if you go to smaller cities, it is actually happening. Economy is bringing money, and a strong middle class is developing. But you find new colonies of cement houses, bordering on caste lines. No different from caste based tolas in villages.

Attacking the caste system is really a big challenge. So called dalit thinker Kancha Ilaiah, whose write-up was included in CAT's RC section (in CAT 2003 perhaps) believes that Hinduism has to go if caste system has to go. And I heard him arguing on NDTV that if the present reservation policy (in IITs and IIMs) is stymied by brahminical forces, there should be a civil war in India!

Of course both ideas of Mr. Ilaiah can be contested. People have left Hinduism but they could not leave caste system. And about the civil war, well one can only pity that statement. But this sense of belonging based on caste is so strong, that people actually make such kind of statements and are still rated as thinkers.

I really don't see a clear solution or direction towards which we might be heading. The continuation of reservation policy in present manner will maintain the status quo. People supporting reservations (because of it being an affirmative action) as well as those opposing reservations (because of it being a sub-optimal solution) have to rethink their stances. Their common enemy has to be the vertical division on the basis of castes with parallel running boundaries - with some castes higher in the hierarchal ladder and some lying lower down.

If the division has to go, the boundaries have to blur. Boundaries won't blur until this sense of belonging based on castes is strong and alive.

First Days in Gujarat

2005-06-17T11:22:00.001+05:30

Coming to study at IIM Ahmedabad meant setting a foot on Gujarat's soil - a state that has been in news for most of the times in the last three years or so, and on most of the times, for the same reason again and again. Of course I'm talking about the riots - a subject that attracted dozens of documentaries, hundreds of editorials, thousands of news articles and millions of murmurings.

And so when I arrived at Ahmedabad airport, a mix of excitement and curiosity grabbed me. Excitement that I was going to be a part of an institution that was inarguably the best in India, and curiosity to find out how much "ground reality" was there to all the documentaries, articles and murmurings.

Well, in the last 20 days that I have spent here, I have not been able to find out much. In fact, I've hardly made a conscious effort to find out or talk about the riots that took place in February-March 2002. I've moved out of IIM campus either to buy something for my personal consumption or to watch movie and hang out with friends. But that doesn't mean that my curiosity at arrival had died down. In fact that curiosity takes bizarre forms on many occasions.

If I happen to see an uncouth galoot on street, I conjure up images of him taking part in the arsons, murders and rapes that rocked this beautiful state. In fact when I recall those articles where it was reported that even the educated middle class actively took part in the riots, my apparitions become really absurd. Each normal person on street or in the shop appears as someone who might have murdered or raped a Muslim.

And this thing disturbs me. I ask myself if I am over obsessed with the idea, or is it an effect of those documentaries, articles and murmurings. I won't completely absolve myself of my obsession, but I would insist that this obsession is not simply a making of my own. All those documentaries, articles and murmurings have got a role to play.

I feel that in their zeal to combat communalism and bring the culprits to book, the vanguards of civility and secularism have overused the "Gujarat" motif. Their oath that they won't allow another "Gujarat" to happen anywhere, their accusation that "Gujarat" is the laboratory of Sangh Parivar, and their belief that "Gujarat" needs detoxification as prescribed by them - all these things assigned "Gujarat" different connotations as a word. It ceased to be just a name of a state in India. When we talk about "Gujarat Riots", both the words almost become synonyms of each other. Would secularists (I'm not using this term to mock at those who tried their best to bring some sanity to the state of Gujarat) accept that perhaps they might have done a little disservice to their own goal?

What happened in Delhi in 1984 was in no way different from what happened in Gujarat in 2002. On both the occasions, people belonging to minority communities were massacred with unholy connivance of those in power. Delhi was not chastised for the sins Delhi'ites committed, then why had Gujarat the albatross hanged around its neck? Why do we forget that places outlive its inhabitants? They have a soul of their own, and deeds of one generation can't change the whole spirit of a place.

But the secularists seemed to punish "Gujarat" for what happened on her soil. Surely Gujarat also regretted the loss of her sons and daughters, and imagine how she might have felt after being asked to carry the shame with herself. Would you defrock a mother for the crimes her sons committed?

One may say that I'm ascribing my eccentricities to people who need not be blamed for what they have done. Well, I'm not blaming anyone on purpose. But I need an explanation for my peculiar experiences. I'm diagnosing myself, and I might be wrong. But I feel that this might be one of the reasons for the images that I conjure up. I will try to find it out as I spend more and more time here, interacting with the locals, seeking to make those ghoulish images vanish.

The only time a local talked about riots was yesterday, when the housekeeping boy here at IIM chatted with me. He told me that Ahmedabad was a very good place with good people; the only problem is heat and dust. And then as a second thought he added that there were these problems created by Pakistanis who want to ruin the city. He then suggested me not to venture towards a place in the city (I couldn't exactly get the name of the place the way he pronounced) because that place was inhabited by Muslims. He informed me that that particular place was called Mini-Pakistan by them.

He added that Muslims living in that area were "dangerous". And then he talked about riots. He told that Muslims had made a large pool of acid in that area during the riots and used to throw Hindus into that if a Hindu strayed in that area. And so he suggested me again to keep off that area in Ahmedabad.

After hearing such stories, I almost concur with those people whom I just blamed for my apparitions. True, Gujarat shouldn't be allowed to happen again and Gujarat needs to be detoxified. But this is surely not a problem that is unique with Gujarat. Such prejudices between communities are to be found in most of the cities where Hindus and Muslims are in competing proportions. And this is the sorrow of our days.

Not only from Gujarat, we have to get rid of this disease from every part of the country. And this can be done without making the name of a place synonymous with hatred. We need to take an objective view of the problem. And many a times an objective view can be found with a person like that housekeeping boy. His statements reflect the root cause of the disease - lack of trust between communities with real and imagined threats from each other. We need to counter this threat, but maybe we need to be a little circumspect not to make something a symbol of hate, least, the name of a city or state.

Let Gujarat be known for its culture, culinary, Navaratras and Irfan Pathans. Let's celebrate Gujarat, regain its glory stained by riots. And to regain Gujarat from communalists, we needn't throw it into their lap by declaring it their laboratory. Gujarat is a beautiful garden and let us declare it ours - of Indians.