Desicritics Author: mbjesq

Aman ki Asha: Now Why Didn't We Think of That!

mbjesq — Fri, 8 Jan 2010 12:31:10 EST

Sometimes an idea just takes a while to germinate. Sometimes the big guys simply need to feel that the idea was all theirs before they'll really run with it. Whatever the reason, it seems that the time has finally come for a serious effort at an Indo-Pak peace initiative based on simple people-to-people interactions and cultural exchange.

The proponents of this undertaking are two of South Asia's largest media outlets, the Times of India and the Jang Group in Pakistan. In the garbled, half-literate language of the writers at the TOI: "Starting with a series of cross-border cultural interactions, business seminars, music & literary festivals and citizens meet that will give the bonds of humanity a chance to survive outside the battlefields of politics, terrorism and fundamentalism."

The project is being called "Aman ki Asha", Hope for Peace. Amitabh Bachchan, no less, is promoting the as-yet vaguely defined, bridge-building concerts.

If this sounds familiar, it is because it appears to be based on our lovely Friends Without Borders project and its not-quite-successful sequel, Dil se Dil, both the brainchild of service wizard John Silliphant.

Friends Without Borders was a four-month blitz through India in 2006 to collect friendship letters from tens of thousands of Indian school children and deliver them to kids in Pakistan. Major events were held in around the country, television commercials played on major networks for two solid months, and the project was lauded by the Prime Minister of India and featured in newspapers, magazines (here and here), online media, and television.

The Dil se Dil project was even more ambitious. On the night of 14-15 August 2007, we had planned a special celebration to celebrate the shared 60th anniversary of India and Pakistan and an unprecedented event designed to bring the people of these countries closer together: a concert of Indian and Pakistani superstars, right at the famous Attari/Wagah border. A coming-together of midnight's grandchildren, as it were.

At the heart of both projects was a belief that peaceful, productive coexistence is profoundly wished by ordinary people on both sides of the border, whereas intransigence, antagonism, and recrimination are the domain of politicians and a minority of hardliners. We found tremendous resonance with these ideas during both projects.

Our print-media partners for that undertaking were, of course, the Times of India and the Jang Group. If there is any doubt about the origin of the genesis of the projects, take a look at the TOI article that announced the program. The photo was taken by a TOI photographer at our Friends Without Borders event at Wankhede Stadium in Bombay on 6 February 2006. Even the Aman ki Asha logo looks a bit derivative of the Dil se Dil logo.

Of course, the FWB team is given no credit or kudos for the idea - but that's just fine. Our objective has always been to create positive change. We are open source. If you can take our ideas and do more with them than we can, more power to you! In fact, we'll be glad to assist you.

True, the appropriation of the concept, without attribution and for purposes that appear principally publicity-seeking and commercial, and only secondarily public-spirited, is a bit shady. But then, what do you expect from TOI, the most disreputable, sleazy, ethically challenged media outlet in a country not exactly famous for journalistic integrity?

Still, we are delighted to see these important ideas taken forward.

***

This revival of Dil se Dil prompts me to tell a more detailed story of the crushing disappointment surrounding the eleventh-hour cancellation of our border concert. There were a number of factors censoring my commentary during the course of the project. Chief among these were close monitoring by the Indian Home Ministry at a time when I was in the country on a tourist visa and the fact that our brilliant partners at the NGO Routes 2 Roots were heroically negotiating the permissions with two distrustful governments that did not want to see anything in the media before the deal was done. Even my online announcement of the cancellation was truncated by the judgment that details of the fiasco would only serve to antagonize, when our objective was to sooth.

The concert project had its grand opportunities and major challenges. A.R. Rahman had personally agreed to be our headliner; but his manager, Deepak Gattani, turned-out to be one of the most venal, corrupt, slimy human beings on the face of the earth. The border was a fabulous location; but we had to obtain permission from both governments (never before given) and work out security and logistics with both armies. The United Nations Millennium Campaign agreed to be a partner; but dealing with the UN-anything is an almost guaranteed fuck-up. Hundreds of thousands of people were expected to show-up; but we could only accommodate a few thousand within the secure area of the concert venue and there was no way to turn-back impromptu celebrants from the general area. Nokia signed-on as our major sponsor; but they had done so in such a soulless and shamelessly exploitative way as to completely miss the spirit of what we were attempting to achieve. We had a team of extremely creative, articulate American volunteers; but, fearing al Qaeda targeting of the event, the Home Ministry forbid any overt signs of American involvement, effectively handicapping our PR machinery.

Two weeks from show-time, our partner, the brilliant NGO Routes 2 Roots, was called before the Home Ministry to be advised that security threats from al Qaeda and other, non-disclosed antagonists were running extremely high. Border Security Forces and police from around Punjab, which would have been detailed to our event, would be reassigned to the protection of Delhi. The Government of India would not tell us not to have the concert - it would lose tremendous face in light of Pakistan's go-ahead, were it to do so - but the warning was clear.

Six days from the concert, the show had been scripted, the musical line-up of A.R. Rahman, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Ali Asmat, Shafqat Amanat Ali was ready to go, as were the MCs Shah Ruhk Khan, Julia Chawla, Wasim Akhram and Shaiyanne Malik. The show had been scripted and we were working with the fabulous CNN-IBN team on the taping of special content. The concert was to be broadcast through India and Pakistan by major networks, and beamed around the world to satellite affiliates. Television advertisements were already in the air and newspapers were beginning to print stories. The stages, lighting, and television installations were under construction at the border. And all hell broke loose.

It began with anonymous telephone threats to one of the directors of Routes 2 Roots, which the Indian Intelligence Bureau was able to trace to "an off-shore satellite source somewhere in the Indian Ocean." These call were followed with calls to the Routes 2 Roots office, traced to a pay-phone in Delhi. Routes 2 Roots were once again summoned to the Home Ministry and this time the message was clear: the Government of India would not be able to guaranty the safety of those attending the event and was considering withdrawing its No Objection Certificate - government-speak for the permission we had arduously obtained to be able to hold the concert. The Intelligence Bureau believed the threats were al Qaeda related.

We had no choice but to cancel the concert.

The extent of this fiasco apparently had repercussions well beyond our shattered volunteer team, collaborators, sponsors, and supporters. Although President Pervez Musharraf was up-to-his-ass in a constitutional crisis, thanks to ongoing conscientious protest in the judiciary, his office took the time to telephone Routes 2 Roots to insist that the show must go on. But we could not allow that to happen in the circumstances; and by then it was too late anyway.

The Aman ki Asha agenda is substantially less ambitious and backed by two media powerhouses. This bodes well for success. We wish it well.

Haagen-Dazs, Mistaken Cause

mbjesq — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:59:56 EST

Photo credit: Times of India

As I have written in a different context, Indians have a strange love of parsing insults from the innocuous -- or as in this case, the poorly thought-through. Particularly when the phantom effrontery seems to come from foreigners.

The latest uproar involves a newly opened Haagen-Dazs ice cream store, which had the bad judgment to fly the banner depicted above to announce its store opening. It reads:

PARTIED AT THE FRENCH RIVIERA? WELCOME.
Haagen-Dazs

EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW FOR INTERNATIONAL TRAVELERS

Access restricted only to holders of international passports.

The reaction began with a sketchily described post by Times of India writer and Chief Editor of Times Internet, Rajesh Kaira, on his TOI blog, Random Access. According to Mr. Kaira a pseudonymous "friend" of his was refused entry to this Haagen-Dazs store for failure to proffer an "international passport."

The story was repeated by the TOI as a regular news story. Both pieces carried the headline, "Sorry, Indians Not Allowed."

Since then, it has blanketed the blogs, generating breathless commentary. Feedback from readers has been overwhelmingly incensed and incendiary, even in response to the commendably even-handed post on Desicritics.

I don't get it. Sure, the banner was stupid beyond belief. But that's just it: who could read it and believe that it intended anything as sensible as an insult?

The promotion clearly meant to create cachet by equating the consumption of Haagen-Dazs with the romance and luxury of international travel. Was this ice cream seller determined to sell only to people who vacation in San Tropez? Of course not. To people who wish to sell us stuff, "exclusivity" means little more than "limited to anyone who will buy."

In Noida, that means Indians. It makes no sense to interpret "international" to mean "foreign" or "non-Indian". How many non-Indians are regularly hanging-out in the strip malls of the heinous suburban dystopia that is Noida? We can agree that the ham-handed promotion doesn't reflect a great deal of business sense in the first place, but was it really intended to exclude 100% of the store's potential customers?

True, the Times of India writer says his anonymous friend was excluded by the store manager (an Indian) for failure to present the so-called "international passport." Is this remotely credible? First, consider the source: TOI. Enough said. Second, doesn't this smack of, "I know a guy who knew a guy who..."? Third, what the hell is an "international passport"? The only thing I can think of is the United Nations Laissez-Passer, issued to employees of the UN and ILO.

The concluding line on the banner, "Access restricted only to holders of international passports" is, indeed, problematic. It is rather artless and seems takes the theme of "exclusivity" far too literally. But the clumsiness of the language also suggests that this was something generated locally and not by the marketing department of the American overlords. Leaving aside the inanity of the "international passport" requirement, what professional copy writer would follow the word "restricted" with the redundant word "only"? One in India, only.

Common sense suggests that (a) this was a dumb-ass promotional idea, (b) to foster the equally dumb-ass consumption of absurdly overpriced ice cream, (c) badly mishandled in the execution by some dumb-ass Indian ad agency, (d) on behalf of some dumb-ass decision-maker either at the franchisee or within the licensor's organization. The interesting issue is the last. Who was ultimately responsible for this idiocy? If there is insult to be found in this fiasco, was it a racist barb emanating from shameless foreigners?

I did a little investigation, calling first to Nestle, which owns the Haagen-Dazs brand, and then to the public relations office of General Mills, Inc., which owns the rights to all Haagen-Dazs franchise licensing outside of North America. The spokespeople at both companies stated that each store is an individual franchisee, with "independent responsibility and control of advertising and promotion." This doesn't necessarily mean, however, that General Mills didn't have a hand in the fiasco.

And which General Mills?

The next morning, I received an email from the director of Haagen-Dazs brand management at General Mills India Pvt. Ltd., Arindam Halder. Mr. Halder is the architect of brand management for Haagen-Dazs in India, and the man responsible for overseeing the opening of franchises like the one in Noida. His note offers some important details, which support my reading of the event as an ill-conceived marketing idea made even worse by incoherent manifestation:

There have been some reports on various online media alleging that the recently opened Häagen-Dazs shop in New Delhi, India, denied access to Indians. We vehemently and categorically deny this. Häagen-Dazs products and our Häagen-Dazs shop in India are and will always be for our consumers in India.
The recently opened Haagen-Dazs shop is open to one and all, and there’s no question of barring entry to anyone on any basis. The preview on Thursday, 10th December had a morning media event which was attended by journalists of repute from Indian media. The same evening we had a launch party for our friends and families, less than 5% of whom were foreigners. Also, during the mock training days at the shop leading up to 10th December, a lot of interest were generated and hundreds of walk ins were given samples of our ice cream. The store is now open to all public and seeing brisk business.

The poster in question was part of initial local store communication at a few locations within the same mall announcing the opening of the new Häagen-Dazs shop in the mall. The message was intended to suggest that you can enjoy, for instance, a taste of the French Riviera without traveling to France – by enjoying Häagen-Dazs. Unfortunately the reference to the international passport holder on the poster may have led to a significant miscommunication. This was completely unintended and we apologize for creating the misimpression that may have hurt our sentiments as Indians.

Regards,

Arindam Haldar
General Mills India

Clearly, there was no intent or attempt to exclude Indians; and we can all agree the brouhaha was the result of what Mr. Haldar euphemistically describes as a "significant miscommunication." But there are two very pregnant ambiguities in his statement. First, the "local store communication" language doesn't make clear who originated the promotional idea or created the banner, General Mills India (namely, him) or the franchisee. It simply says that the campaign was deployed locally, in the mall where the store was located. Second, the last line, in which Mr. Haldar says, on behalf of General Mills India, "[W]e apologize for creating the misimpression", suggests rather strongly that the banner came directly from General Mills India. It sounds very different than, say, "We regret that this misimpression occurred at a Haagen-Dazs franchise."

The concluding apology is also laugh-out-loud funny. So eager is Mr. Halder to self-identify as Indian, he essentially begs forgiveness for an Indian company having offended itself.

What conclusions can we draw from all this?

I think we can agree that there is no evil foreign hand in this story, no American or European racist out to mistreat Indians in their own country or determined to slight them. Indeed, Mr. Kaira of TOI got it exactly right (in his original essay, not the subsequent, abbreviated news item), even if he failed to look at the contribution of the licensor:

Whatever it is, it is idiotic. I checked later and found that the franchisee is an Indian company based in Delhi and the man incharge [sic] is also an Indian. I have often maintained that we ourselves are our biggest enemies. Our mentality is that of slaves and we think anything is good only if its approved by foreigners, or the “holders of international passport”. This is all about how India and Indians see themselves. Foreigners have nothing to do with it.

I don't necessarily fault the bloggers fanning the flames of this supposed outrage for failing to take the 15 minutes Mr. Kaira and I did to pick up the phone and get the facts. It is slightly disappointing, however, that the online commentators have almost uniformly ignored the obvious lack of malicious intent behind the fucked-up promotion. And there is yet deeper culpability in repeating only the tastiest, most shocking morsels of this story, in complete disregard of the basic fact that the errors in judgment were made not by foreigners, but by Indians -- even though this was reported and thoughtfully analyzed in Mr. Kaira's original story. This episode presents a cautionary study of how untrustworthy and manipulable online information can become as true journalism cedes way to what passes for "citizen journalism" in the blog world. It is always tempting to tell the story, not according to the facts, but according to the sermon one wishes to preach. The art is to tell a morally compelling story within the bounds of the evidence.

To her credit, and as we would expect, Deepti Lamba's Desicritics essay tells the full story -- as it was revealed in the original TOI piece -- and doesn't shy away from noting Indian responsibility for both the debacle itself and the underlying attitudes which engendered it. Yet, even Dee reaches the abrupt and slightly ambiguous conclusion that "racist brands" should be chased from India. Brands aren't ethical agents. People and corporations are. And those at the heart of this story were Indian. Perhaps Dee's intended plea is to abolish self-loathing; but somehow the anti-foreign implication creeps through.

There will be some, of course, bitterly disappointed that there is no longer a foreign scapegoat by whom to feel insulted; but they will have no difficulty transferring their ire to me for pointing this out. And it will feel just as good, since I am a foreigner.

If Indians want to salvage some national pride from the situation, they can always take encouragement from the fact this crazy promotion could happen in Mother India, but could never have occurred in the United States. After all, most Americans don't have a passport and have not heard of France.

Experiments with Truth

mbjesq — Sat, 5 Dec 2009 12:09:28 EST

"When a thing is true, there is no need to use any arguments to substantiate it," wrote Vinoba Bhave. Oh really?

Like so many of the wonderful aphorisms spun by Gandhians about the nature of truth (and, principally, by Gandhi-ji himself) this inspiring line from Vinoba-ji is itself true only in the most metaphysical and therefore trivial sense. Truth, it seems, isn't a requirement for a socially, politically, or spiritually stirring catch-phrase, even when the very subject is truth.

Naturally, we give guys like Gandhi-ji and Vinoba-ji the benefit of the doubt. They were not only among the most brilliant men of the twentieth century, but were impressive in both the purity of their motivations and clarity of their ethics. The moral certitude of the line quoted above would, however, feel quite a bit sketchier were if it were attributed to, say, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, or George W. Bush, all of whom might be equally plausible authors.

There are good reasons not to be too hard on Vinoba-ji. Sure, he failed to recognize that almost all the fun lies in the argument and very little of it resides in the ultimate truth of the matter. But fun wasn't really his big thing. And we must readily acknowledge that it is convenient to be able to offer the occasional pronouncement without having to "show your work", as though all of life were a high school math exam.

I spew this kind of unsubstantiated crap all the time. Sometimes I get called on it; often, when the things I say have the veneer (if not the deep resonance) of truth, I get away with it. Which brings us back to Vinoba-ji - and to our story.

I live half of each year in the country Gandhi-ji and his faithful lieutenant, Vinoba-ji, made. India fascinates and perplexes me; and I find nothing more confounding than the paucity of ethical (or even effective) political leadership in the place that gave the world these two great men. I am fond of underscoring the tragic irony of the India's useless political cesspool by questioning how this could happen in the country that gained independence through something as ballsy and original as the radical application of nonviolence and achieved the largest peaceful redistribution of wealth in the human experience.

This latter accomplishment, of course, refers to Vinoba-ji's spectacular Bhoodan Land Gift Movement. Between 1951 and 1963, Vinoba-ji walked the length and breadth of India, asking landowners to allocate a portion of their holdings to be given to the landless poor. In that time, five million acres of land were given -- and the movement also established the basis for subsequent legislative land reform in India.

But, a friend asked, is there any documentation to support this assertion that the Bhoodan Movement represented "the largest peaceful redistribution of wealth in the human experience"?

Enter Rahul Brown, who is best known to many as the auteur behind such films as The Law of Love and A Close Shave. Rahul came up with the following calculations to support the claim.

Consider the average price of agricultural land in India today: $4 / square foot, by one estimate. Land within 40 km of a city is presently worth Rs. 20-40 lakh (roughly $44.4K - $88.8K at current exchange) per acre, by another estimate.
Thus, in modern terms, Vinoba-ji's 5 million acres might be worth:

5M acres = 217.8B square feet
217.8B square feet * $4 / sq. ft = $871B

or

somewhere between
5M acres * $44.4K / acre = $222B
and
5M acres * $88.8K / acre = $444B

Rahul was willing to be conservative. He wrote, "Assume that half of the land is totally worthless. (Is anything totally worthless?) That still places the modern value of the Bhoodan Movement at between $111B and $435B USD. This would seem to verify MBJ's comment. By comparison, the Gates Foundation's current endowment is $34B, and the entire foundation world's assets are roughly at $290B."

The long-suffering American wealthy might argue that their tax dollars make Vinoba-ji's project look like chump-change. (People in other countries pay taxes too; but, in the unique American epistemology, if you don't know that other countries exist, perforce they don't -- or at least couldn't possibly matter.) Leave aside the question of whether the direct benefits conferred on taxpayers by the payment of tax disqualifies this as pure wealth redistribution; if the Tea Party class is even half as aggrieved as their ceaseless whining suggests, the taking of their assets by taxation sounds like coercion, deprivation of basic liberty, and barely sublimated violence - hardly peaceful.

That's the argument I'd make in support of Vinoba-ji's achievement. Truth worth arguing for.

The End of Dadaism

mbjesq — Sun, 9 Nov 2008 11:59:39 EST

Leave it to Sourav Ganguly to go out in a perplexing blaze of nothingness, with a first-ball duck at Nagpur, just as he entered with a perplexing blaze of brilliance, with an opening-innings century at Lords nearly a dozen years ago. Always a bit of drama with Sourav. Okay, more than a bit.

Unless you are a Bengali -- in which case chauvinism blinds you no less in matters of cricket than in any other aspect of life -- Ganguly made life just a little uncomfortable for his would-be admirers. You wanted to give him your unconditional support; but somehow, he never let you. You couldn't help but admire his ballsy incisiveness as India's captain, his often magnificent stroke play (as Rahul Dravid famously said, "On the off-side, there's God, then there's Ganguly."), and his uncommonly articulate post-match interviews. And yet his play never ceased to be infuriatingly selfish, sloppy, and cynical. I have not looked at the statistics, so this is entirely impressionistic, but I think one would be hard-pressed to name a player who got more of his teammates run-out unnecessarily, hit more pointless centuries in losing causes and inevitably drawn tests, or was dismissed so often within a ball after reaching his personal milestone du jour.

His nickname was "Dada", from the Bengali for "older brother". Yet the derivation could just as easily come from the contrarian art movement of the early twentieth century, given the maddening ambiguity of his prolific, yet profligate career.

My voice was among those who called for his retirement during the dark days of 2005. I was also among those delighted with the success of his 2006-2008 comeback. It would have been wonderful to have seen him go out as he'd come in, with a blaze of glory. But his golden duck coda seemed well-deserved instant-karma for a cricketer who so often seemed to play only for himself.

Kuzhali Manickaval Has Wings

mbjesq — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 08:01:41 EDT

We are sometimes tempted to say, when reading a wonderfully crafted story, that the line between prose and poetry has been blurred. We don't really mean it, of course. It is simply our hyperbolic way of acknowledging the writer's stylistic gifts. We cannot read Michael Ondaajte, for example, without marveling at the precision and emotional fullness of his writing; but our brains do not really struggle to ascertain whether we are in the midst of his fiction or his poems. The confidence we bring to the distinction belies its arbitrariness - at least since poetry was liberated from its formal constraints at the opening of the twentieth century - but we are usually confident nonetheless.

This sure ground frequently falls away under the magical pen of Kuzhali Manickavel, whose new work of nearly intertwined short... ummm... pieces, Insects Are Just Like You and Me Except Some of Them Have Wings, has just been published by Blaft Publications in Chennai.

Kuzhali's stories are like well-remembered dreams. They are frustratingly elliptical and playfully topsy-turvey in their abandonment of mundane reality, yet sufficiently vivid and subtle to provide that delicious moment of doubt about the dreaming/waking, imaginary/reportorial dichotomies which make us feel in control of our lives.

The book is so start-to-finish wonderful, it is hard to know from which story to give you a taste (or, really, just a nibble); so I'll take it right off the top, from the opening "stanza" of the book's first story, "The Godlet":

The minute Malathi takes charge, the universe begins to sing her name like it is something holy. She cracks her knuckles and creates a new day that consists of Sunday morning, Saturday afternoon, and Thursday night. There will be no more Mondays. The universe applauds her decision.

Kuzhali's is language in full play. It has the astonishing, unfettered, fantastical, pyrotechnic quality of a Stanly Elkin or a Tom Robbins. It succeeds so engrossingly because it is always deployed in the service of unerringly depicted and bitingly true vignettes and larger themes, not simply as a masturbatory exercise. Kuzhali's stories depict the myriad of ways people communicate and miscommunicate with each other -- one-on-one -- verbally and through intuitive happenstance.

One recurring trope is what one of her characters calls "unphrases", those magical bits of nonsense and almost-sense that so easily germinate in the mulch of our linguistic landscape. Though she writes from the South of India, Kuzhali does not rely exclusively, or even heavily, on the sometimes easy target of Indian English to harvest the ironically mangled expressions which crisscross the book like a convoy of purposeful ants (to use an insect metaphor). When she does explore the local idiom, she does so with the affection and warm humor of a Nizam Ezekiel. In both language and imagery, Kuzhali's writing seems to pay tribute to Jean Paul Satre's nearly-true aphorism that the more complicated the concept, the closer it is to its opposite. Only Kuzhali's version would have it: the more confused the concept, the closer its misses are to their mark. Like the nutty college student in one of her stories - who reads the cursive inscription "I am that bread of life" beneath a cheesy picture of Jesus as the admonition: "Jam that bread of life!" - Kuzhali is constitutionally unable to render the world in the less joyful or less poignant of whatever might be the available interpretive options, even if it means fudging a little.

The endorsement blurb on the rear cover, by the California-based filmmaker, performance artist, and writer Miranda July, nicely sums up the fun and intimacy of Insects Are Just Like You and Me Except Some of Them Have Wings:

Not merely lyrical and strange, but also deadpan funny. I can't shake the feeling that I know this woman, personally - like we hung out at a party of something. But I don't, and we didn't. She's just that good.

She is, indeed, just-that-good. But unlike Ms. July, I do, and I have. We first met in early 2005, at what I then-called a "Pondy poetry slam", convened by the also-gifted writer, Pavithra Krishnan. Just two weeks ago, I had the chance spend a little time with Kuzhali at her sister's wedding in Chidambaram. In between, she has written stories for Book Box, the wonderful literacy project of another mutual friend, Brij Kothari. She is one of those people who, after meeting, you tell yourself to keep a close eye on - even if from a distance - because the promise of greatness glows from them.

Insects Are Just Like You and Me Except Some of Them Have Wings is a magnificent literary party, and the rest of the world's chance to hang-out with Kuzhali. Don't miss it.

******

The book is available in India for Rs. 175 via Landmark and in the U.S. and elsewhere for $7.95 via Amazon.

Pondicherry - The People Fight Back

mbjesq — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:34:09 EDT

Last week was a good one for democracy in Pondicherry. The people took to the streets to protest a government which, time-and-again, deftly protects the private interests of its corrupt officials, disregards the public good, and holds itself to be above the law.

The issue concerns the ongoing battle over the illegal concession given to a private developer by former Chief Secretary Khairwal and Minister Valsaraj to build a huge port complex in the heart of this tiny heritage town, and the vast environmental, economic, and social devastation this development will cause.

Rather than summarize the specific grievances which led to the protest, let me reprint the text of the letter I drafted on behalf of the Pondicherry People's Protection Committee to the Chief Minister and Lieutenant Governor:

28 September 2008
To the Honourable Chief Minister, Thiru. V. Vaithilingam
and His Excellency the Lieutenant Governor, Govind Singh Gurjar:

Re: Action by the Government of Pondicherry Against C. Balamohan

On behalf of the citizens of Pondicherry, the Pondicherry People's Protection Committee condemns the recent actions taken by the Government of Puducherry against C. Balamohan.

In August, Mr. Balamohan was formally served with a charge sheet, accusing him of unlawfully opposing government policy by filing public interest litigation opposing the proposed deep water port project. The Government of Puducherry contends that, as a government employee, Mr. Balamohan is prohibited from standing as a plaintiff in litigation against the government. This proposition has been soundly rejected by the Supreme Court of India. Moreover, High Court in Chennai has already overruled this specious argument in this very case, when it overruled the government's challenge to Mr. Balamohan's standing to file suit.

By reprising this false charge against Mr. Balamohan, one month before his scheduled retirement for government service, the Government of Puducherry continues its campaign of intimidation, designed to pressure him into forfeiting the litigation. Given the clarity of the law on this point, the action by the Government of Pondicherry can only be interpreted as an act of bad faith.

The formal charges against Mr. Balamohan are more than simply an illegal, reprehensible, and desperate act of government officials whose carelessness, manipulations, and malfeasance have been legitimately challenged in the public interest litigation. It is an unconstitutional action which undermines the very foundations of democracy. It is an abuse of power by representatives of the government to subvert the cleansing power of judicial inquiry. It is a shameful exercise of governmental procedures to protect the interests of corrupt or negligent officials at the expense of the public interest.

The merits of the public interest litigation are beyond reasonable dispute. Official documents of the Port Department conclusively prove:

� The contract of developing a port in Pondicherry was awarded to the private developer through illegal means. The normal contract tender procedure was not followed. No Expression of Interest was issued for development of the port. The private developer was awarded the contract after a private meeting in the chamber of the Port Minister.
� The private developer was actually deemed "unqualified" by the Pondicherry Port Department, having absolutely no port development experience, and had been banned from selling public shares by the Securities and Exchange Board of India for illegal trading.

� Corrupt politicians and bureaucrats misused their office and plotted with the private developer to grab valuable land in the name of developing a port.

� Contrary to requirements of the Ministry of Shipping and Surface Transport of the Government of India, no feasibility study was undertaken for the port project. The government commenced this development project without ever studying the disastrous environmental, economic, and social impacts of building such a large port in the middle of a small town like Pondicherry.

As you well-know, the litigation filed by Mr. Balamohan on behalf of the people of Pondicherry is not only appropriate to ensure that this enormous development project be conducted transparently and following all necessary statutory procedures, but is also of crucial importance. Pondicherry is already suffering the devastating effects of coastal erosion caused by the development of the Ariyankuppam fishing harbour in the late 1980s. The proposed deep water port threatens to wipe-out our few remaining beaches, thoroughly salinate our vital fresh-water aquifers, ruin the livelihoods of fishermen and others who work the sea, and turn our precious coastline into an expensive, never-ending, futile battle of ignorantly-conceived rock walls against the ocean. Look no further than the obvious subsidence of Beach Road to see that the sea walls serve as only psychological protection against the erosive force of the sea in the absence of the natural protection afforded by a sand beach. The ocean will always win - and the people of Pondicherry continue to lose.

As the heads of government in Puducherry, we call on you to immediately rescind the charges against Mr. Balamohan. If you display the courage to stand against unconstitutional abuse of governmental power, the democratic institutions which you proudly lead may yet prove their integrity.

Very Truly Yours,

_____________________________________
for Pondicherry People's Protection Committee

To meet Balamohan is to realize the extraordinary power of moral courage. It is all-the-more impressive in his case, because it resides in a humble, mild-mannered person whose only motivation is to do what is right for his community. He is not a firebrand or rabble-rouser. He is a soft-spoken, simple man who could not stand by and watch the town he loves fall into the sea as a consequence of the greed and power of venal officials and insatiable developers. If he is an unlikely hero, he is also an inspiration to all of us. If a man as modest and unprepossessing as Balamohan can act on his convictions and speak truth to power, why not us also?

Approximately 600 of those inspired souls participated in last week's march through the city. The date was selected because it was both Balamohan's 60th birthday and the day of his retirement from public service as an administrator at the Department of Education. Unlike most civil protests here, there was no disorderly conduct, no stone throwing. It was loud, passionate, and boisterous; but there was no need whatsoever for the hundred-or-so police officers to disrupt the two-hour procession through the heart of town. At the end of the parade route, the protesters filed neatly into waiting police busses to effectuate their arrest, as had been prearranged with the officers in charge. The protesters had advised the government that they would remain in jail until such time as the Charge Sheet against Balamohan had been withdrawn and his retirement benefits were guaranteed.

It turned out to be a rather brief party at the Pondicherry jail - or rather, at the Police Community Hall, which was the only facility large enough to accommodate all 600 arrestees. At approximately 5:00 pm, roughly four hours after the arrests were made, the government announced that, while the "investigation" would be ongoing (a face-saving measure), it would guaranty that Balamohan would receive his full retirement benefits no matter the outcome. Those of us who did not offer ourselves for arrest went to the Police Community Hall, which had transformed from a place of captivity into a party venue. The celebration lasted well into the evening.

People often look at India as one of the world's great democracies, in which hundreds of millions of people regularly cast ballots to elect their representatives at the local, state, and national level. Certainly the principle of universal enfranchisement is a necessary aspect of a functioning democracy; but the right to vote is not, by itself, sufficient to ensure a just and democratic government. The spectacular dysfunction of Indian democracy comes as a result of the failure of the judicial and administrative institutions to establish a government that is responsive to the public will and acts in the public interest. The fact that one is empowered to vote-in the corrupt politicians who will line their own pockets while disregarding the needs and aspirations of the community is not democracy; it is a bizarre complicity which serves to maintain a pernicious system for the benefit of the powerful. It is ironic and perverse.

Last week, Pondicherry took a major step forward in making its government officials accountable to the rule of law.

Could India Host an Impressive Olympics?

mbjesq — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:33:43 EDT

India and China. China and India.

Whenever discussion turns to the New World Order, these neighboring giants are always mentioned in the same breath as the up-and-comers. I understand the arguments, but remain deeply skeptical about the prospects for both countries, though for vastly different reasons.

With the Beijing 2008 Olympics drawing to a close, one must concede that China has managed to pull off a fabulously successful advertisement for itself, even though its ugly authoritarianism and environmental shamefulness remained on plain view throughout. So the question nags: Could India hold an Olympics that would flatter, rather than embarrass the nation? I, for one, seriously doubt it.

The Olympics requires the host nation to provide three basic elements: infrastructure, architecture, pageantry. This is no mean feat; just ask the organizers of Athens 2004 and Atlanta 1996. Greece failed in two of the three, just managing to save face, largely as a result of the world’s extremely low expectations. The United States failed across the board.

Infrastructure development takes vision and planning – not areas in which India has distinguished itself. Delhi is the only metro in the country which appears to spend on infrastructure in anything but an ad hoc, purely corruption-driven way – not that Delhi’s version of forethought has made it even remotely the world-class city it purports to be. Sure, it is difficult to remake old cities – although that is, essentially, what Beijing has done – but even its built-from-scratch, nouveaux riches commercial neighbor, Gurgaon, is an almost perfect study in tastelessness and dysfunction.

One of India’s most challenging infrastructural problems, from an international public relations point of view, would be to develop habits and systems of internationally acceptable public hygiene. I suspect that most first-time visitors to India will be under-impressed by the filth and noise of their surroundings, and the television cameras will have a difficult time avoiding the blight of omnipresent garbage, which flows through the streets of India the way water flows in riverbanks.

Perhaps India, like Greece, might shine in the spectacle, even if they would fail in the organizational aspects of building proper infrastructure to host the athletes and visitors in style and comfort. From classical dance to Bollywood, India shines in artistic performance. But would this kind of close-up oriented presentation captivate the world when executed on the scale of an Opening Ceremonies? Perhaps not. Have you ever attended a major pop concert in India (or involving India performers traveling abroad, for that matter)? They are unwatchably cheesy. A.R. Rahman may write world-class music, and Adnan Sami and Asha Bholse may be stars of Indian popular song, but their live concerts are hideously amateurish affairs. They are often accompanied by filmy dancing which, though so attractive on the screen, comes off as a bad joke when the scale of the movements are dwarfed by the live venue.

Architecture is an extremely important element in the Olympic mix if, as with China, the aim is to establish one’s prestige and announce one’s global intentions. It expresses a country’s ambition, accomplishment, sense of style, sophistication, and ability to produce tangible outcomes suited to a major occasion. Most of the world sees the host nation only via satellite feed, and images of the Olympic venues are the ubiquitous “context-establishing shots” which begin the coverage of almost every event. A country can do no better advertising for itself when hosting an Olympics than provide monumental, attractive architecture. This has certainly been a key part of China’s strategy – and it has worked.

China commissioned outrageously wonderful buildings from teams of architects and landscape architects from Switzerland, Australia, France, Germany, the U.K., and China. The superb “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium, the “Water Cube” National Swimming Center, and Olympic Forest Park are the glamorous face of a spectacular Olympics. The subsidiary venue structures each have a degree of architectural merit, even if they are not as jaw-droopingly innovative as the main sites, and the 1,600 unit Athlete’s Village has received LEED “gold” certification for its sustainable construction techniques and energy efficiency. In addition, Beijing has undertaken an impressive array of non-competition-hosting buildings as part of its Olympic face lift, including a spectacular National Theater, a Digital Media Center, a Convention Center, and television network complex.

Now consider India, which has hardly built a worthy piece of major architecture since Independence – I can think of only two possible candidates, one of which was designed by a Canadian, the other by a Frenchman. A couple years ago, a friend sent me this idiotic Business Week slide presentation, touting the greatness of contemporary Indian architecture. I sent him back a note congratulating him on the excellent joke. Awkwardly, it turned out not to be a joke, but an earnest (if blinkered) piece of jingoistic bragging.

Are there great Indian architects working today? Surely there must be. But what are they building? And would insular, foreigner-resenting India consider commissioning high-profile Olympic buildings from international architects? Never. Indian national pride would never allow it to do what even xenophobic China was able to do – what the entire rest of the world does: commission world class architecture from throughout the world.

Then there is the little problem of paying for the infrastructure and new architecture. After the politicians and bureaucrats have siphoned-off their monumental bribes and contractors have been selected on the basis of kick-backs rather than ability, will the bid-winners have sufficient talent and remaining resources to deliver quality buildings, on time? There is certainly plenty of past experience on which to hazard a prediction.

I have tremendous affection for India, and a like degree of antipathy for China. But there is no question which country has announced its presence on the world stage with panache and which can never hope to do so. “I love my India” as much as the next guy, but not because it has a prayer of achieving greatness in my lifetime.

Doing Peace Wrong

mbjesq — Mon, 19 May 2008 00:08:35 EDT

Nicholas Kristof’s Sunday essay in the New York Times, “Fed-Up with Peace”, sounds a depressingly cautionary note about the future of the Tibet – China conflict. Young Tibetans are frustrated with the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s strategy of peace and now widely favor violent resistance. “We think the Dalai Lama has been too peaceful,” Mr. Kristof quotes one young Tibetan monk as saying. “There is a big discussion now about whether we should turn to violence.”

But the problem is not the impotence of pacifism; it is how ineffectual the Dalai Lama has been in using non-violence for political change.

Don’t get me wrong. The Dalai Lama is a profoundly great man, and the purity and simplicity of his philosophy of peace has been an important and influential source of good in the world. The question on the table, however, is not whether his teaching is flawed; it is whether he has used his commitment to peace as an effective instrument of the political change he seeks.

The Dalai Lama is often touted as an heir to the great legacy of Mahatma Gandhi; and he also is not immune to making this reference, as he did in his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize. Certainly, the Dalai Lama has used his tremendous natural charisma and the universal attractiveness of his philosophy of love to win a large and enthusiastic following around the world and to draw attention to the injustice and violence of the Chinese military occupation of Tibet, which he refers to as “cultural genocide.” But Tibet is no closer to political autonomy and cultural liberation than it was when the Dalai Lama and his government took flight into exile in 1959.

There are a number of important historical differences, which make the Dalai Lama’s independence effort quite a bit more challenging than between Gandhi-ji’s. The most important, perhaps, is that Gandhi-ji’s adversary was a liberal, democratic society. While the British government was understandably reticent to acknowledge the injustice of its colonial rule, it was, ultimately responsive to growing public sentiment which saw the inconsistency of British constitutionalism and the way in which India was ruled. China’s autocratic government labors under no such democratic handcuffs. China is also emboldened by the historical ambiguity of the arguments in favor of one-side-or-the-other in the question of entitlement to govern Tibet. Britain’s only moral justification for continued colonial rule was an outmoded Nineteenth Century paternalism, which was never more than a convenient excuse for its venality.

But the Dalai Lama also holds a number of key advantages. In Gandhi-ji’s day, the cycle-time for a news story to reach England from India could be measured in days, was largely limited to print, and was mostly filtered through the editorial prism of British journalism. Today, the news is multi-media and largely instantaneous. The Dalai Lama is able to travel the world and deliver his message directly, without editorial intermediary. He enjoys considerable celebrity and immense esteem in the global media. The recent embarrassments experienced by the Chinese in parading the Olympic torch around the world demonstrate the remarkable breadth and depth of international support for the Tibetans.

Why has the Dalai Lama not been able to convert these crucial advantages into Tibetan independence? Not, as the radical young monks would have it, because of the Dalai Lama has followed Gandhian non-violence; rather, it is because the non-violence of the Dalai Lama lacks Gandhian shrewdness and opportunism.

Gandhi-ji understood that the political power of non-violence involves forcefully and relentlessly targeting the conscience – if not directly to the perpetrators of injustice, then at least to those who might influence their actions. If Gandhi-ji’s tool was the persuasive force of ethical absolutes like the human right to self-determination and fundamental injustice of colonialism, that “Truth” (Satya) was not expected to work its magic simply by force of ontology. The tool of truth was to be actively deployed in the service of politics. For Gandhi-ji, the ceaseless strategic struggle was to find ever-more effective means to ensure that the truth reached its target audience in ways most likely to influence change. It is not enough for the world to merely see things as they are; the world must also be moved to act in favor of a solution. Were it not for this caveat, the Dalai Lama’s pacifism might well have been successful. He has certainly won the moral debate with the Chinese; but the Chinese are not capitulating, and the international community has thus far decline to press the issue.

Gandhi-ji understood a fundamental distinction between mere “passive resistance” and his strategy of non-violent political opposition, satyagraha. “Passive resistance,” he wrote, “has been universally acknowledged to be a weapon of the weak…. Satyagraha is a weapon of the strong.” The strength – indeed, the outright bravery – required of the Gandhi-ji’s satyagrahi comes, in significant part, because of the crucial political theater created when the forces of power are seen to brutally crush well-deported people who seek only justice. Gandhi-ji did an awful lot of jail-time and more than a few well-publicized hunger strikes. His non-violent protesters regularly got the crap beaten out them, with the newsreel cameras rolling. They were well-trained for their mission of non-violence, intelligently deployed, and well-disciplined to resist retributive impulses. None of this was accidental, and they took their lumps (and worse) to great political effect. The British, eventually, had no stomach to see their military continually brutalize innocents.

The Dalai Lama, on the other hand, seems to have a belief that righteousness alone, by its mere existence, will ultimately prevail. He has declined to actively train his people in the practices of non-violent protest; and so, it is not altogether surprising that the recent protests in Lhasa degenerated into moderate rioting once the Chinese military crackdown started. This lack of discipline created a media talking-point for the Chinese (who have neither great faith in, nor particular adherence to the concept of truth) and somewhat diminished the Tibetan moral high-ground.

When the Dalai Lama vigorously denies Chinese claims that he instigated the March protests in Lhasa, he is perfectly credible; but it is hard to see the merit of his position. Better that he would have lead a massive non-violent seige of the Tibetan capital, preparing his followers, like Gandhi-ji did, for a courageous, well-planned, orderly, entirely peaceful civil disobedience. No doubt the Chinese would respond with heinous, oppressive violence as always; but the moral contrast would be on display to the world in powerful, provocative images.

Freedom always comes at a high price when totalitarianism holds sway. But better to rip the plaster off quickly than to suffer through endless, ineffectual half-measures. Indian Freedom fighters were prepared to endure beatings, arrest, jail, and martyrdom in the service of liberty. The Dalai Lama seems unprepared to ask his people to incur the cost, even though it continues to be paid, with interest, year-after-year.

When the Chinese military began shooting protesters in March, the Dalai Lama was quick to urge Tibetans to back-down. He characterized this position as advocacy of peacefulness but, in reality, there was nothing essentially violent about the conduct of the Tibetan demonstrations to begin with. The truth is: the Dalai Lama has never been willing to allow Tibetans to be put in harm’s way. Gandhi-ji and Martin Luther King understood the indispensable utility of harm’s way.

One could well argue, as the Dalai Lama himself might, that it is compassion for his people that causes him to shield them from the full-force of Chinese brutality. On the other hand, the slow, festering suffering of the Tibetan people shows no remit. It is therefore unsurprising that the youth of Tibet are looking for another way.

I hope the youth of Tibet will come to see that they should not abandon peace; they should just do peace right.

Nirmala Deshpande and the Death of Gandhianism

mbjesq — Sat, 3 May 2008 01:04:39 EDT

With Nirmala Deshpande in November 2002

Nirmala Deshpande died yesterday; and she is being eulogized as a great Gandhian leader in the major newspapers and hailed by politicians across India. I strenuously demur.

There is no question that Didi - as she insisted on being called, effectively mandating a gesture of affection from others - lived a fascinating life. She had the good fortune and great privilege to be the personal secretary to the great Vinoba Bhave-ji, from shortly after of the commencement of the Bhoodan Land Reform Movement until the time of his death. She used this impressive association throughout the rest of her life to establish her own celebrity and, ultimately, to win a seat in the Rajya Sabha of Parliament and the nation's second highest award, Padma Vibushan.

I do not mean to imply that Didi's self-promotion was not used without broader social benefit. She lent her efforts to a successful, people-to-people India-Pakistan peace program and spoke effectively to quell violent flare-ups in Jammu and Kashmir. She wrote several well-regarded novels, which incorporate Gandhian themes, and a biography of Vinoba-ji. (I confess to not having read them.)

Didi was probably at her best with small audiences, telling stories about Vinoba-ji and her participation in the 40,000-km Bhoodan Movement padytra across India. She was able to convey the spirit of the time in thrilling detail - history from the mouth of one who witnessed it and participated in its making. If her retelling of the story was slightly varnished and naive - crediting only Vinoba-ji's undisputed brilliance and charisma, her version of events invariably omitted mention of the fear of communism which often lubricated the landowners' willingness to part with some of their property - it was also captivating and credible in its simplicity and authenticity.

To my mind, however, Didi's life was emblematic not of the successes of Gandhi-ji's immediate disciples, but of their tragic failures. In "six decades of service," Didi compiled remarkably few achievements, particular given the opportunity and leverage accorded by her fame. She never struck me as intellectually gifted or creative; but these shortcomings could easily have been overcome with a modicum of effort and passion.

The fact is that she, and others of her generation who were close participants in the events of the Independence and Land Reform Movements, have been negligent and ineffectual custodians of Gandhi-ji's legacy, which has essentially evaporated in the 60 years since Independence. It is a sad, but indisputable fact that Sanjay Dutt's simplistic, cartoonish Munabhai character has done more to popularize Gandhianism among the children, youth, and middle-aged of India than Didi ever did.

Didi's negligence in keeping alive the vision of Gandhi-ji and Vinoba-ji, however, was far more extensive and palpably culpable than the mere lack of inspirational, effective teaching for which she and her aging Gandhian colleagues can be properly faulted.

For example, she was the President of the Harijan Seval Sangh, the organization founded by Gandhi-ji in 1956, and head of the trust responsible for the preservation of the Harijan Sevak Sangh Ashram, where Gandhi-ji spend his time while in Delhi. The HSS, which solicits funding from both Indian and foreign sources, has been accused of financial mismanagement and impropriety and the ashram grounds have been allowed to fall into unspeakable dilapidation and encroachment from neighboring buildings. The limited school activities, which still occur on the land for Harijan children, are an embarrassment, and other schools run by the HSS under Didi's stewardship have been judged so poor as to cause the government to withdraw public support.

One of the most pathetic structures at the Delhi ashram is the library, in which books and paper lay rotting and unprotected. In July of 2007, it was publicly revealed that hundreds or thousands of Gandhi-ji's books and private papers, which had been housed at the Delhi ashram library, had been given away indiscriminately and without record, or simply had been allowed to be taken. After witnessing the carelessness with which the archives were being treated in February of 2006, I personally raised the question with Didi, which she dismissed. "There isn't much of value there," she said.

If her custodianship of Gandhi-ji's library was shockingly irresponsible, Didi's disregard for the legacy of Vinoba-ji is, perhaps, even more appalling.

Few people know that Didi had kept scores of volumes of notebooks, containing all the dictation she took from Vinoba-ji as his personal secretary, until the time of his death in 1982. A close friend of mine implored Didi to make these documents available to the public, but she declined. She explained that the notebooks would be useless, since the notation involved a combination of script and invented symbols which only she could decipher. He offered to set up an audio recoding system, so that she could preserve these invaluable historical documents for future scholarship, simply by reading them aloud. She refused.

When I made my own appeal for her to record the contents of her notebooks, I stressed the historical importance of original documentation, reminding her that Vinoba-ji's land reform movement represented the largest peaceful redistribution of wealth in human experience. She casually brushed aside the suggestion, stating, "There has already been enough written about Vinoba-ji and the land reform movement."

Didi's passing is, indeed, a major milestone. Her life should remind us of the extremely modest successes and tremendous failings of a generation of Gandhian leaders who presided over the eclipse of Gandhianism as a significant social and political movement in India. Didi's death does not represent the passing of Gandhianism nearly so much as her life did.

Health and Freedom in a Simple Piece of Cloth

mbjesq — Thu, 1 May 2008 00:10:55 EDT

Where most people see trash, Shuddham sees opportunity; so it was only natural that fashion designer Anjali Schiavino would turn to Shuddham with her problem. Anjali was making an exclusive line of organic cotton clothing for a European client and wondered if there was a constructive use to which the pattern trimmings could be put. Thanks to our friend Anshu Gupta, we came up with an answer which Anjali immediately proclaimed as, "super cool!"

Anshu is the founder of the much celebrated, Delhi-based NGO, Goonj, which collects and distributes used clothing in needy villages throughout India. A couple years ago, Anshu decided to do something about a problem which handicaps and creates serious health risks for poor women throughout rural India: the lack of cloth to use as sanitary napkins. Goonj cuts-up cotton garments which can no longer be worn to make simple, absorbent menstrual pads.

Now, Anjali's Pondicherry-based fashion house, Creative Art of Souls is moving full-speed-ahead on turning waste organic cotton into an important solution to the health and social problem that virtually imprisons countless poor women each month. Anjali and her designers are working on variations and improvements to the simple "dosa-style" folded pad Goonj currently offers. The napkins will be distributed by Goonj.

To further cement the collaboration, Shuddham has commenced a clothing collection system for Pondicherry, which will supply Goonj's recently opened Chennai branch.

Shuddham is proud to have been the link between the thoughtfulness of Anjali and the brilliance of Anshu - and it is exciting to see this program take-off in Pondicherry.

Anjali and Anshu