Desicritics Author: Shantanu Dutta

The Voice of America & Other Voices

Shantanu Dutta — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 09:49:57 EDT

It was another day and age when the cold war was still raging and the world was still multipolar. Sitting in my Air Force base, I would twiddle my radio knobs in search of some entertainment. Sooner or later, the radio would settle into one of four stations, the BBC, the Voice of America, Radio Moscow and Radio Beijing. Leading the pack would be the venerable BBC with an eclectic mix of music, news, book readings, and even live concerts like the BBC’s Proms in the Park. Radio Moscow was strong on classical music and Radio Beijing on orchestral music and the Voice of America for talk shows.

Each of those stations had their niche and loyal fans and although except for the BBC, even though the other stations were unabashedly propagandistic, listening to two or more stations helped to form a some what more well rounded view of the world. Where else would you hear coverage of Cuba’s health care system? Or the land reforms in the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Laos? Not surely on CNN.

Over the years the world change the radio stations have changed and of course technology has changed. All these stations broadcast on short wave frequencies and listeners had to battle static, fluctuating signals depending on local weather conditions( political or meteorological weather, both ! and stations with more powerful signals broadcasting on a near by frequency.

Over the years, all the stations have changed their character and focus as the cold war ended and other broadcasting platforms became available. The BBC has adapted to the era of the cable television and the satellite radio but the others have not – not in their original avatars and one of them… the Voice of America died a silent death for India as VOA’s Hindi service comes to an end at the end of this month.

The Voice of America, more the Voice of the US Government than its people of course has in a review of its priories in the post 9/11 era decided to wind up the fairly popular Hindi service. I suppose that it has in ways outlived its strategic utility. In the cold war time, with the Indian government firmly tilted towards the Soviet Union, the VOA was a helpful tool for the American media to connect with the Indian public. I suppose that with no Soviet Union left today and both the major political formations in India today – the NDA or the UPA firmly looking to the USA for anchor, the VOA is no longer needed to whisper Uncle Sam’s sweet nothings to Indian ears.

While that may be so, the radio programs always have had loyal listeners’ clubs in the country and these will be devastated. Many of these clubs have been nurtured through the generations and indeed “VOA listeners clubs" have existed in small towns and villages across India, where radio is still a part of daily life. People there have no internet, cable television or even reliable electricity. But they have radio and the defining point for many is to on air for a brief while in the “Call In” programs. VOA pampers its listeners with pens, caps, diaries, T-shirts and key chains. Probably the most popular freebie is the colorful VOA calendar that adorns the mud walls of many homes.

Meanwhile the big daddy of broadcasting in India, the venerable BBC is extending its footfall by engaging further with radio in the FM Mode. BBC has a stake in one of the local stations Radio One and although the Indian government still does not allow the broadcast of news by private channels, the BBC is positioning itself to do just that hoping for the policy to change some day soon. Of course the BBC has always been a commercially run business house and is making its business decisions based on long term business goals and not political agendas. The Voice of America and many of the other voices have been muted because their political objectives have been met. And yet for all the propaganda and the blatantly one sided coverage of news – these voices will be missed; if only they taught you to recognize propaganda well when you heard it over the air waves.

Apathy, Activism, and The Line Between

Shantanu Dutta — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:14:12 EDT

The Christian community has typically been used to living a fairly sheltered and secluded life. The community has been largely till recently been spared the social ostracism that even elite and urbane Muslims have faced in times of communal violence and the poorer sections of the community have till recently been spared the violence that has so regularly lashed the Muslims. The result is a very obvious one: the Christian community has often lacked the institutional mechanism to deal with targeted attacks on the community it is still fumbling to press the right buttons, and apart from the response of human rights activists and bodies of clergy, the lay person’s response has been lukewarm. Indeed the Christian community is perhaps full of people guided by apathy.

Traditionally the Muslim response has been clergy driven and the over riding slogan has been that of “Islam in danger.” Whether Islam was in danger or not at these times, the power of the clergy probably was and that red flag provided certain shrillness to the protests that were driven by a sense of urgency. In contrast, the appropriate Christian response might have been that “Christianity is in danger” but mercifully, the resistance has not taken that route and it is good that it has been this way. The worst possible way to counter fundamentalism of one kind is to replace it with fundamentalism of another kind.

The Christian response to this kind of violence has thus far to be commended for not losing the moral high ground by also resorting to violence. This is especially so because in spite of the largely measured responses from the Christian clergy, in a volatile environment, there is always the danger of some lunatic fringe element shooting off some loose canon.

On the other hand, a better and more effective answer to rising tides of fundamentalism of any shade would be to try and enlarge the space of secular and liberal ideologies and by speaking up against all forms of communalism and sectarian and ethnic or region based violence – whether it affects one’s particular community or language group or not this time round. If it has, this time around… never mind this - there is always another time.

If one disagrees with this thesis, one need not look very far away for evidence. One will remember in that in the not too distant past, the Shiv Sena had as its target the Udipi restaurants dotting the Mumbai landscape. In fact, the Shiv Sena really came of age as a lumpen organization, out to vanquish the South Indians from the city’s landscape. Of course, once the Sena had carved out its identity, it promptly forgot the South Indians and more than a generation later, the Generation X Sena – has begun inventing itself by venting itself on the North Indians - the Biharis and the UP wallahs.

Martin Niemöller, the Nazi era, Christian theologian had it right, when he explained the dangers of looking out only for one’s own. His quote of war time Germany explaining the apathy of many in his generation concerned just with getting on with their lives… “First they came for the Jews…..” has become a lodestar for engagement with wider, liberal elements of civil society whose boundaries are wider than one’s own. Niemoller’s words were later elaborated ….

“When Hitler attacked the Jews I was not a Jew, therefore I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists, I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned. Then Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church — and there was nobody left to be concerned.”

In a multi-cultural, multi-lingual and multi-lingual country like India, this prophecy could be fulfilled faster than one thinks. Those who sit back today, unaffected by the plight of any one else’s but their own, comforted in their ghettos could find their security shattered very soon. At the end of the day, when all our identities are stripped down to the bone; there is only one question that remains to be asked ; one that remains to be answered… are you an inclusive person—embracing every one and their culture and belief or are you an exclusive person, with your world shrinking by the day.. as you leave out more and more and more people out of the fold because they are different …. Or are you just plain apathetic … that worst sin of all? For even an excluvist person can perhaps be won over by reasoning or argument …. but an apathetic person can pass through life unmoved by all things and every thing… till his own life is shattered by a glass pane.

Book Review: When We Were Orphans

Shantanu Dutta — Sun, 7 Sep 2008 11:43:49 EDT

“When we were orphans” is a book that oozes gloom and depression like many others by Kasuo Ishigro. The book, which is set in the third decade of the twentieth century hops between Shanghai and London. And is set in the inter war years between World War I and II. It captures the pomp of imperialism as well as the decline of the British Empire very well. The elite Europeans live in the international settlement – a plush, secluded neighborhood while the Chinese live in crowded ghettos and work in the factories so that the rich live their comfortable lives.

At one level, it is the story of a successful detective, Christopher Banks and his quest to discover his roots and solve a case from his own life. Banks had grown up in Shanghai where his father was an officer with a British company dealing with opium – importing it from India and selling it in China. Christopher’s mother is an avid anti opium campaigner who passionately believes that her husband’s company is involved in enslaving the Chinese people by abetting their addiction to the drug and they often have domestic arguments on the issue. In fact for those of us, who have read about the opium wars only in history books, the book offers some interesting insights and background. Christopher has a best friend – a Japanese boy growing up next door by the name of Akura.

One morning his father disappeared from home and never returned back. Shortly thereafter, his mother disappeared too. After the police enquiries turned up nothing, it was arranged for Christopher to return back to England to be brought up by a wealthy aunt. There he goes to a proper public school, trains to be a detective and becomes famous. But as his fame increases and he becomes one of the movers and shakers of London society, he is tormented by the guilt of the unresolved mystery of his parent’s disappearance.

Most of the book is dominated by this over arching theme of Christopher returning to Shanghai, many years later in a world that is rapidly changing – British imperialism is already on its wane and in Shanghai, soldiers of the Japanese Army, the Kuomintang and the communist guerillas as the British and the French watch by nonchalantly from their cosy clubs and hutments in the tony “international settlement” which was parceled out between the various European powers with a base in China. The evening entertainment is punctuated by Japanese bombs falling over the city and imparting it with an other worldly luminescence even as the band plays and the elite waltz in the ballroom.

The concluding chapters of the book will haunt the reader for long. Christopher has for long believed that his father and mother’s disappearance has something to do with his mother’s long crusade against opium trade and his father eventual y beginning to take a stand about this. In fact, he as a detective has built his investigation around this very hypothesis. It therefore stings when it is revealed to him near the end of the film that the reason his father disappeared was that he ran off with his mistress and that his mother allowed herself to be sold as an concubine to a Chinese warlord who in turn paid for Christopher’s schooling expenses.

Kazuo Ishiguro, who has won the Booker and been awarded an OBE conveys the atmosphere of a brooding sense of foreboding right through the opening pages of the book and captures the atmosphere and mood of imperialism at its peak as well as in its decaying days. When we were Orphans” is in spite of the many melancholic themes it addresses through out its pages, still a page turner and that makes it an eminently readable book.

Affordable Health Care For the Poor

Shantanu Dutta — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 09:47:15 EDT

The other day there was a commotion in the office. An electrician having lunch suddenly collapsed and fell unconscious. He was rushed to a near by hospital where tests revealed that he had brain hemorrhage as well as blocks in his arteries. That hospital didn’t have the expertise to deal with this and after putting him on a ventilator rushed him to another hospital which had neuro surgeons and cardiac surgeons on staff.

Meanwhile, the office scrambled to arrange money for the lowly paid electrician which could be given to his family as a loan for this treatment. And the staff scrambled to take an offering which could be given to his family as a gift.

Another person's liver has failed and needs a transplant. His wife came forward to donate but the cost of the treatment is forbidden. He was forced to sell his house to pay a deposit to the hospital.

A third case I remember is that of a man in an Uttar Pradesh village, dismantling his house – literally brick by brick, so that he could then sell the bricks and settle his relatively modest hospital dues.

To put things in perspective, we need to know that “the poor have to increasingly resort to taking debt or selling assets to meet costs of hospital care. It is estimated that 20 million people each year fall below the poverty line because of indebtedness due to health care. This is worrisome given the fact that more than two-thirds of the country’s population is already either poor or living at subsistence levels.”

With the government virtually fading out of the health care sector under the guise of promoting public-private partnerships, finding alternate options has become imperative. With health insurance seemingly the only viable option to meet health costs in the future, it seems important that the penetration of health insurance be increased. And several variations be explored, including micro insurance.

This is never going to be easy in the unorganized sector. For instance, how do you provide health care to handloom weavers, who are among the poorest segments in this sector? There are 6.5 million of them scattered across the country and are not always fixed in their occupation or location. There is a scheme in operation for them, operated by the Union Textiles ministry. But progress in enrolling members is slow. And there are many more segments of the population that are far more unorganized than textile workers.

If the product is properly customized and the premium subsidized, the government will discover a huge market for health insurance. Currently the penetration of health insurance is estimated be 0.02 % or less of GDP.

Like any other nascent industry in the country, the insurance industry is having to cope with its teething troubles. One of the main ones being the inadequate regulatory norms within the industry. The unethical norms in hospitals which routinely over charge insured patients and the inability of the insurance companies to ensure rationalization of tariffs and fees charged by the hospitals are issues not yet resolved.

The variation in hospital bills and the variations in tariff between the metros and non metros are astounding and this disconnect raises the insurance premiums which are then recovered from the customer. In a nascent industry, this will further act as a disincentive to newly entering customers.

Growing Up With Enid Blyton

Shantanu Dutta — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 02:10:17 EDT

I remember the time I checked out four books out of our local public library and brought them home. My dad, who liked me to read and particularly read English books, was delighted and sad at the same time. He was thrilled to see me read but yet he wasn’t pleased to see who I was reading – the British author Enid Blyton. My dad, a literature student would have rather preferred that I read Shakespeare or Dickens but I preferred Enid Blyton. And today I find that though she has been dead since 1968, British voters have voted Enid Blyton at the top of a list of 50 all time favorite authors. And yes, she is ahead of Charles Dickens, Shakespeare and all those classic names.

Did Enid Blyton write classy literature that surpassed Shakespeare? Of course not. Shakespeare and the other authors are all masters of their genre and indeed if the entire world is a stage, then Shakespeare is one of its finest chroniclers. But what made her so timeless is that she journeys with you from childhood into adolescence – at least the choppy waters of turbulent adolescence if not the full course.

From the early childhood books of Noddy and Big Ears and onto the marvelously imaginative fairy tales, containing elves and fairies and gnomes and all manner of other characters- some good and some not so good, to the adventures of the five find outers, the secret sevens, the famous fives and others. It was a fascinating collection of racy adventure and fun and all anchored in sound family foundations and good food. Enid Blyton’s ability to describe a good English meal was particularly inspiring.

I suppose that part of the mystique of Enid Blyton is that there have not been that many writers of children’s’ books. In that list itself, there may not be more than four or five writers who were tremendously popular except for J.K.Rowlings, who did not write exclusively for children

Decades after I touched an Enid Blyton book, if I remember her with so much fondness, I suppose it is because her books taught my generation to live and enjoy life to the full and the skills for living she weaved in seamlessly in her books. In a value neutral world, her books could always be counted on to highlight the traditional or even old fashioned values of thrift, honesty, courage and integrity. Yet they also promoted the virtues of healthy curiosity, a sense of adventure and risk taking and problem solving, all good qualities to have as you entered into adolescence and subsequent adulthood.

Most of all the Blyton books celebrated camaraderie and friendship – between humans who worked together as teams bound together by love and genuine affection and equally importantly, she emphasized the bonding between humans and animals. Animals, particularly dogs were almost always a character in her books and the affection between animal pets and human masters was an abiding theme.

Close to forty years after her death Enid Blyton’s books continue to enthrall another generation today and that is good news for it reflects the enduring need for books that combine entertainment with education not in a pedagogical sense but in the sense of teaching people the art of living; not through any expensive course but simply through the pages of a book. But the British survey results are also bad news. For if a long dead author is still at the top of the charts, it goes to show that we are not producing enough Enid Blytons today…

Broadband on Batteries

Shantanu Dutta — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 01:35:47 EDT

While booking an air ticket online the other day, there was a power cut just at the point when the gateway was processing the payment from the credit card and the modem shut down. The resulting confusion led to stress as I tried to contact the travel portal, the bank and the airline to get a clear picture regarding ticketing, charging of payment and so on. Online travel portals are not your typical travel agent of old whom you knew by name and had done business with for years. The anonymity of the voice on the other side of the line, the peculiarity of the problem and their obvious inability to understand, let alone help only added to the confusion. This practically undid any advantages that doing transactions online might have provided.

In India, there is a lot of political backing from both the major political formations to increase internet penetration which is among the lowest in the Asia–Pacific region.

“India has the lowest Internet penetration rate at 3 percent in the region, according to a survey by U.S.-based digital research firm comScore Inc. According to the survey

- South Korea boasts of the greatest rate of Internet usage, with 65 percent of its population using the Internet in May.

- China clearly has the largest online population with 91.5 million people. The number of monthly unique Internet users in India is just a quarter of that figure at 22.8 million.”

- South Korea has the most active online population, using the Internet an average of 17.4 days per person in May, and dedicating 31.2 hours to viewing 4,546 pages during the month. Indians on the other hand got onto Cyberspace an average of only 11.4 days per person in May and viewed 1,400 pages over 14.7 hours.

Clearly though, the government is not pushing for internet penetration so that citizens can watch videos on Youtube. Rather the intent is to promote e-commerce and e-governance through the internet platform and thereby increase productivity and efficiency. While all that is a good thing, the commensurate development of an infrastructure backbone is missing.

For instance, look at energy and power generation. After all, my story started with the recounting of a power failure in the middle of a commercial transaction. Even as I write this, electricity in India’s national capital goes on and off several times a day.

Anybody who has ever experienced a power cut in India would know empirically that India simply does not produce enough electricity for its needs and will not do so in the foreseeable future although the national electricity policy envisages power for all by 2012 and per capita availability of power to be increased to more than 1,000 units by 2011-12. With the deadline barely four years away it is impossible that this goal would be ever met.

While industrialization is progressing at a rapid pace, the fact that power generation has not kept up has meant that even relatively less industrialized states like West Bengal which once were power surplus, have power cuts now. In fact, the more industrialized you are, the more is the demand. Maharashtra, for example, faces a deficit of more than 30 per cent In fact, the colloquial term for power cuts “load shedding” has now become part of the country’s rural folk lore.

As I complete typing this piece on a laptop and upload it from a speedy GPRS modem, I remind myself that having a increasingly high tale density of phones and laying strategies to wire up the country to the customer’s doorstep and using Wi Max to connect up the whole country won’t work if we don’t have a proper infra structural backbone. You can’t run a broadband service operating on batteries ! It just does not work !

The Human DNA

Shantanu Dutta — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:48:48 EDT

As the violence in Jammu and Kashmir escalates beyond what bounces of our television screens, the vibrations are also cascading across our borders. Pakistan has of course reacted harshly to the “excessive use of force” to control the civil unrest there and in a typical knee jerk response, the Indian government has condemned the comments from the Pakistani Foreign Minister as an interference in India’s internal affairs.

There is this much to be said in that all countries in the sub continent are from the same genetic make up very literally and all can be blackened with the same brush. A lot can be perhaps said about Pakistan or any other country around making pious statements about human rights considering the overall record of every one here. But still the question begs to be asked – when do political boundaries blur and our human identity begins asserting itself?

When do we feel free and are given the freedom to express a genuine agony and anguish at the violence, broken and bereaved families that every unplanned funeral brings in its wake? This is not about fishing in troubled waters or scoring political brownie points at all. But I wonder - does it become treason to mourn the loss and grief of another because they live across a border that is not even a century old when cultural and ethnic bonds go back a thousand years or more?

When a lament from a neighboring country at the violence that is prevailing here and is flashing globally across television channels and internet news sites is understood to be interference, then the question arises for Indians as to what should they do. People with ethnic backgrounds and languages spoken in India live in all countries that surround us – Bengalis – even Bengali Hindus (for those whom this distinction matters) in Bangladesh, Tamils in Sri Lanka being the most prominent but by no means the only ones.

It seems easier to reach out across borders when natural disasters strike – like tsunamis or earthquakes or cyclones; but some how there is an insurmountable barrier when it comes to even making statements of empathy and condolence when the tragedy is manmade. Even a word can impute a motive when at least at the level of the common man or woman, none is intended,

Most of us are it the political establishment or those who are part of civil society will find it well nigh difficult to look the other way in the guise of non interference in the internal affairs of another country. If Tamils were to be in the midst of widely publicized media footage be subjected to violence or the Bengalis were, it would be politically inexpedient to sit back and do nothing.

If non interference in the affairs of others is the norm, then nobody in the international community should be speaking into what is happening in Zimbabwe, or Sudan, and India itself should not have moved resolutions in the United Nations when South Africa was still practicing racism. But it is good at times, indeed necessary for people to speak up, take note and make a point in the international communities and forums so that what would otherwise have gone unnoticed and remained hidden in shadows

Of course there is such a thing as undue interest in the affairs of another country; as perhaps best exemplified by the US invasion of Iraq. But there is also such a thing as too little of an interest in the affairs of the world. After all, it is only those who live in glass houses who are scared of stones and so they do not throw any. The world’s largest democracy should not be fighting shy of facing criticism when there are plenty within the country’s own borders who are concerned. Let us own up to the fact there is a common human DNA that makes us all speak up.

India - Winter in August

Shantanu Dutta — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:41:18 EDT

The loud euphoria that we experienced when Abhinav Bindra won the Gold medal made me wonder about what might be the level of excitement that one might expect in countries where winning medals is a little more common. Are they the same? How is it in China where at this time, they are leading the United States. Long considered the lead medal winner in the Olympics. When some in say the US or South Korea wins a model what would it be like? I am sure that victory is cherished every where but do things go berserk as they seemed to do in India?

Watching the television channels meant going through the usual inane experience of the breathless and overwhelmed anchors grabbing the parents of the shooter and discussing his status on being further elevated among the ranks of the eligible bachelors of India.

It probably reveals the levels of pain in the nation that we are happy and ready and willing the tiniest wisp of good news that comes around. After all every morning’s news just makes for escalating bad news. Every one seems to be holding on mere shreds of hope. Even the Olympics have been stained. Witness the upheaval for example when Monika Devi of Manipur was subjected to a dope test and implicated only to be told too late that the test was flawed. That agony has been drowned by the rapidly escalating violence in Jammu and Kashmir.

Ever since the early days of the New Year when first the stock market started crashing, it would seem that nothing has gone right for India. The rising crude oil prices, the accompanying inflation, the rising interest rates on loans, particularly housing loans, the continuing terrorist attacks, instability in the Central Government, numerous incidents have rocked the nation, literally leaving it battered and bruised.

This Independence Day that will be upon us in a couple of days will be the bleakest in years. Most parts of the country are disturbed and traumatized in one way or the other. The situation in Jammu and Kashmir looks to be so bad that the government is short of its weapon of last resort – the armed forces are in short supply and there is talk of shifting troops from the Line of Control into areas like Kishtwar in J&K.

The newspapers are running advertisements that trains are being “regulated” in Assam. Night running of trains is being halted and when they do run they will run with bullet proof coating as befits a country and a railway system in siege. Because this year likes many others, the ULFA is bleeding Assam to death. Any one else calling a bundh on Independence Day would have run the risk of being accused of sedition but not them.

In Jharkhand, Shibu Soren is proclaiming openly that he should be made the chief minister of Jharkhand replacing the present incumbent practically overnight or else like a petulant child, he would again withdraw support potentially plunging the beleaguered central government into yet another crisis and in the process reducing the already polluted market place politics to the haggling and bargaining that goes on in the village haat. In every place there is nothing but gloom except in that one gold medal that was our destiny this year. Even the silver medalist of the last Olympics, Lt.Col. Rathode failed to qualify for the finals in his particular shooting event. Meanwhile, in Delhi, the skies are often overcast in that broody way, that casts a pall of gloom every where. The rains have ensured that there is a slight nip in the air and the temperature is many degrees below the normal. May be it is time to get the sweaters out….. it looks like it might be winter in August…..

India's Laws - Out of Sync With Society

Shantanu Dutta — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:57:24 EDT

Those who have been following the travails of the baby born to a surrogate mother of Japanese nationality can only feel sympathy for the infant with three mothers but cared for by a grand mother. The father, Dr Yamada, got the baby conceived by one woman, had the baby born through a surrogate mother and then divorced his first wife and remarried. Along the way, he created a legal tangle which he still has not been able to disengage from.

Although India has become the favored destination for those who are looking for surrogate mothers for their yet to be born babies as more and more Indian women are prepared to go through surrogacy, the laws have not kept up adequately to cope up. Of course it is another matter that the reason that India’s laws being so lax and medical expenses being affordable and wombs being so readily available that has contributed to India’s rise as the favored destination for surrogate pregnancies.

On the odd occasion, having antiquated laws can be of help too. There is a story that the reason that the cable TV revolution and the mobile telephony revolution took off so well and so fast in India is because the laws governing these in the initial days was the 19th century Indian Telegraph Act. The law regulating cable television was enacted only in 1995 by which time cable television was firmly entrenched. Similar is the case with mobile telephony – by the time the relevant telephony was firmly entrenched and had proved itself to be a boon.

But when it comes to personal laws and laws governing family life, such a delay can lead to numerous heart aches. For instance in the case of little Manji, there are several cards stacked against the baby. For instance, though India is the land of the great surrogacy bazaar, there are no laws governing surrogacy in the country and the surrogacy bill meant to regulate it is pending in Parliament. In its absence, the laws that apply quite mirroring the situations cited earlier- are the laws governing adoption- and principally when it comes to foreigners ,it would be another 19th century legislation – the Guardians and Wards Act of 1890

Laws in India are paradoxical because they seldom seem to be in sync with society. On hand we have laws which society has not fully accepted like the laws banning child marriage which are flouted with impunity on occasions like akshya tritiya. Look at the data: According to UNICEF, 82 percent of girls in Rajasthan, where the practice is particularly widespread, are married by 18; 15 percent of girls in rural areas across the country are married before 13; and 52 percent of girls have their first pregnancy between 15 and 19.

Or look at Sati an act whose practice and glorification has been banned on many occasions. Historically, efforts to prevent Sati by formal means were extent even before the Moghul rulers came to power. Yet as we all know and read about, sati still happens clandestinely in the country in conservative communities from time to time.

On the other hand, in matters of adoption, succession, divorce and many others including surrogacy society has moved far ahead but laws have not. The adoption laws for all but Hindus are antiquated; The Supreme Court of India, has only in 2007 accepted a petition to make provision for Christians to be able to adopt children legally and the journey ahead is long for Muslims who have not yet even begun. Similarly the divorce provisions for Christians which was codified in 1869 were modified only in 2003 to reflect modern social realities and again the journey has not even begun for Muslims. And then of course we have not even begun thinking properly about emerging areas like surrogate parenting and all that.

Some times I wish that the Uniform Civil Code hadn’t got bogged down in religion based politics and got buried for ever. While the men go and fight out petty battles to score petty points and bills keep pending in parliament, women and children suffer… like Manji, the daughter of Dr Yamada.

Persevere - And Change Your World

Shantanu Dutta — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 13:33:12 EDT

The Dainik Bhaskar group of newspapers is running an interesting advertising campaign titled “zid karo –duniya badlo" - persist and change the world. The campaign provides illustrations about how Indians have typically taken the path of least resistance in life – if you encounter a road that has been dug up, you take a different road… if eve teasing is prevalent, and you simply tell your daughter, sister, wife - whoever - to simply stay at home. Instead of trying to deal with the issue at hand…. The simpler thing of course is to simply evade the problem and seek out a short term solution.

Most of us I guess are busy getting on with our lives…. We are busy doing so many things that we have no time to get involved … and that is the honest truth. But equally true is the fact that in any society there are several competing voices clamoring for attention and each voice has its logic and rationale trying to justify why they alone should be heard and none other.

Change is only going to happen only when sufficient numbers of people join hands to draw attention to a mistake or an injustice or indifference on part of the state or authors in authority. Some people may call it advocacy, some may call it lobbying. Further, some may be professionals whose job it is to draw attention to matters which are hitherto invisible like the media or it could be the ordinary citizen.

Because social change is slow in coming, most of us give up along the way. We live in a world where most of us are taught to expect rapid results or examine our methods. Persistence nor patience is not in our vocabulary. But as the Dainik Bhaskar campaign reminds us, perseverance is the key. Zid karo aur karte raho ta key ek din duniya sunne ke liye majboor ho jaye” advises the narrator very wisely.

“Will I make a difference” is one question that we often ask as we mentally prioritize our day and push any thing that will not contribute to our career and the pursuit of creature comforts and carry on with life leaving the space of vocalizing demand and expressing concerns to fanatics of various shades- religious and other.

“Will I get the credit” is the other question that we ask and because most often the answer is no, we give up and get on with our life. Persistence is not an easy option at the best of times and the fact that often there are no tangible rewards to the time and energy expended is a good reason to opt out. But if there is one place where that well known quote that “there is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit” it is here – in the battle to make change happen, reform happen, behaviors change , obscurantist practices disappear and many other changes that are needed in our society.

Far too many things we leave to our leadership to act on – be it the political leadership or any other. But even the best of leaders will only act on the voices, demands and representations that are made to them. their opinions , views and decisions will be largely shaped by the many things they see and hear - some tangible, but largely intangible.

Silent whispers begin in the mind of one man or woman. That whisper over time can be magnified into a voice that cannot be easily ignored. A whisper can become a cry…a yell… a demand that cannot be easily put aside. Some times many whispers coalesce into one amplified note. But shaping and reforming of world views is not the matter of a day or even months… it can and usually takes years and that journey is filled with disillusionment, discouragement and jeering and criticism from those whose world views are being threatened. But as the Dainik Bhaskar advertisement reminds us, zid - that dogged perseverance and persistence that simply will not be cowed down is the way to go. If you want to change world views, opinions, thoughts, policies, laws. There is only one sustainable way - Persevere. “Zid karo aur duniya badlo….”