Desicritics Category: Politics: Asia

Book Review: The Book of Saladin by Tariq Ali

Vinod Joseph — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 01:00:52 EDT

In The Book of Saladin, Tariq Ali goes back a few centuries from his first book, Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree. This second novel in Tariq Ali’s Islam Quintet is set in the 12th Century and is narrated by Ibn Yakub, a Jewish scribe retained by Saladin to pen his memoirs.

As the name suggests, The Book of Saladin revolves around Saladin, the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty and the Sultan of Egypt and Syria. All most people know, Saladin’s biggest achievement was the recapture of Jerusalem from the Crusaders and its defense against subsequent invasions. Tariq Ali has done an excellent job in portraying Saladin’s character. Saladin is not your average, run-of-the-mill brave King who dashes off into danger without a second thought. Instead, Saladin is shown as a schemer and a planner who has only one objective in mind – the re-capture of Jerusalem from the crusaders. A Kurd from the mountains, Saladin lives by the Kurd’s code of honour. He will do anything to honour his word. A simple man, he leads a non-ostentatious life, eats simple food and gives away most of his wealth to charity. He leads by example, albeit in a calculated manner. He avoids giving battle unless the conditions favour him. He is cruel only when necessary and treats his defeated adversaries generously.

Ali does not gloss over Saladin’s weaknesses. Saladin can be indecisive at times, taking his caution to an extreme. Many a time, especially towards the end of his life, Ali shows how Saladin failed to seize the moment.

At the beginning of the novel, Ali uses Halima’s story to tell us the sort of man Saladin is. Halima is a beautiful women sentenced to death by stoning for adultery. Saladin manages to save her from the jaws of death, but uses her for his own ulterior needs. I’ll leave it to you to read the book and find out what exactly Saladin does with Halima.

Unlike in the Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree, where Ali mentions only the Arabic versions of place names, in this book Ali uses English names, slipping in the Arabic version (such as Al-Kuds for Jerusalem) occasionally. I do think that Ali ought to have followed the practice of using Arabic names as he did in his first book, for they helped create an ambiance which is lacking in the second novel from his Islam Quintet.

In addition to portraying Saladin’s character, Ali gives his readers a feel of the sort of society that prevailed in the Damascus and Cairo of those days. Not only are the ruling elite and the nobility shown to be extremely promiscuous, the multitudes are also shown as having a very relaxed attitude towards prostitution and homosexuality. Ali’s female characters are strong-willed, just as in the Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree. As I had mentioned in my review of the earlier book, I do wish Ali has given some indication of the sources from which he has obtained his back-ground information.

A few things in this book, I didn’t like at all. Saladin is a Kurd and Ali depicts how tough it was for an ‘outsider’ to climb the sleazy ladder of power in an overwhelmingly Arab world. However, Ali refers to the Kurdish language as the ‘Kurdish dialect,’ implying that Kurdish is a dialect of Arabic. This I find to be totally unacceptable. Kurdish is a language in its own right and not a dialect. It is a part of the Iranian family of languages, while Arabic is a Semitic language. A historian of Ali’s calibre should not, nay, cannot make a mistake of this nature.

Even though this novel is very much non-Euro-centric and looks at the re-conquest of Jerusalem solely from Saladin’s point of view, Saladin does introduce to his readers, two crusaders, namely Raymond of Tripoli and Reynald of Châtillon. According to Ali, the former is the good guy, whilst the latter is pure evil. In order to emphasise how evil Reynald is, Ali says that Reynald ‘led a raid on Mecca and desecrated our Holy Shrine. His horses defecated in the Mosque.’ Raymond and Reynald are both historic figures. It is widely accepted that Reynald was quite evil (though quite successful in many of his endeavours) and that he did launch ships on the Red sea that sought to threaten Mecca and Medina, Islam’s holy cities, a sort of tit-for-tat response to Saladin’s attempt to retake Jerusalem. However, to make the case that Reynald desecrated the Mosque in Mecca is taking fiction too far. There are no records of Mecca ever having been desecrated by any crusader, let alone by Reynald. If such an event had happened, I’m sure it would be talked about and never forgotten. In fact, the narrator of the tale, Ibn Yakub himself doesn’t know about this desecration until he enquires why Saladin hates Reynald so much and finds out.

Tariq Ali does something very similar in order to show Saladin’s high regard for Raymond, the good guy. On his way to Jerusalem, Saladin captures various coastal towns held by the crusaders. However, at Tyre, Saladin hesitates and he eventually by-passes it. When his emirs press him, Saladin’s tells them that the cost to human life would be too high to be worth it. Ibn Yakub tells us the real reason for Saladin’s behaviour - that Raymond is holed up in the castle at Tyre and, if there’s a fight Saladin will have to kill Raymond (whose sense of honour will not let him surrender). If Ali wanted to show Saladin as a man who put friendships above his mission to capture Jerusalem, he does succeed. However, this story doesn’t ring true and it is an accepted fact that Saladin, wily man that he was, preserved Raymond’s life in order to encourage in-fighting among the crusaders.

Tariq Ali’s depiction of battles in this novel is not very good. Even after making allowances for the fact that the narrator is a scribe who is not present at the battle scene, I was disappointed at the way the actual battles are described. In a book of over 360 pages, just a small chapter is devoted to the battle of Hattin in which Saladin destroyed the crusaders as a prelude to taking Jerusalem. The siege of Jerusalem and its capture gets done in a few pages. I do wish Ali had taken a page from Andrew Wheatcroft’s book Infidels which describes battles between crusaders and Muslim armies in an exemplary fashion.

A lot has been written about the mutual admiration and appreciation that supposedly developed between Saladin and Richard the Lion-hearted who never met. Ali however does not take the beaten path. Saladin is shown to view Richard with contempt.

As a final comment, I ought to mention that Tariq Ali has devoted some space (in the initial part of the book) to the destruction of the Fatimid Empire by Saladin as he consolidated his power in Egypt. The Fatimid Empire was in its final stages of decay when Saladin finished them off. The most important aspect of the Fatimid dynasty is that it was Shi’ite. Saladin hated the Fatimids for splitting up the Caliphate (and thus contributing towards disunity amongst the Ummah). He is also shown as viewing the Fatimids as heretic Shi’ites. This portrayal of Saladin’s approach to the Fatimids is not exactly in keeping with Saladin’s character as shown in the rest of the book, where he is (very rightly) shown as an extremely tolerant ruler for his time. At the height of their glory (much before Saladin’s time), Cairo under the Fatimids was a centre of learning and culture. The Fatimids were very tolerant of other faiths, including that of the Sunnis. But alas, Tariq Ali’s description of the Fatimids does not show them in a positive light. After Saladin extinguished the Fatimid Empire, Shi’ites never held any real power in the Arab world (other than in Syria where the Shi’ite Alawi sect is in power) until very recently when George Bush’s largesse has allowed them to acquire power in Iraq.

Book Review : Speaking of Empire and Resistance by Tariq Ali

Shantanu Dutta — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 07:07:11 EDT

Tariq Ali is one of the most articulate leftist and secularist thinkers to have come out of Pakistan and has been living in exile in London since the 1960s when he began to speak out against the country’s first military dictators. Nearly fifty years later, he has lost none of his fire and has consistently spoken out against imperialism, colonialism, religious fundamentalism. In his book Speaking of Empire and Resistance conducted as a series of interviews with dissident thinker, David Barsamanian, the focus is on Anglo – American engagement in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Arab world.

In this extremely readable and extremely articulate book, Tariq Ali, reaches way back into history to recreate the history of imperialist involvement in the world- both the overt, in your face British imperialism, and the comparatively overt American imperialism. For instance Tariq talks about the nature of British imperialism – viceroys and governors ET all all imported from the mother country – and the American version where they simply bought off purchasable allies willing to do their bidding. King Hussein of Jordan, Suharto, the Pakistani generals, the Shah of Iran, the several Gulf Sheikhs Emirs is cited as examples.

There are also examples from India too – Tariq for instance mentions that except for World War II, when the country served as a transit point for Allied troops headed East, at no point did the British ever have more than 36,000 troops of their own in the huge territory of undivided India; yet they were able to retain control, by buying off the allegiance of the rulers of the princely states as well as the landed gentry and aristocracy. The Americans refined the process and bought off the leadership of countries en masse.

Some observations in the book are quite poignant. Citing numerous instances, Tariq Ali establishes how during the cold war era, in the name of suppressing communism, the secular elements of the polity of many nations were either weakened or completely eliminated. Indonesia which once had the world’s largest communist party outside the socialist countries is one example where Suharto’s brutal repression wiped the nation of a secular, non sectarian voiced. Afghanistan is another example cited where a secular government was first destabilized prompting Soviet intervention and then once the Red Army moved in, reactionary Islamic fundamentalists were intentionally marshaled, trained and then coaxed to fight the godless infidels. The vacuum left by the destruction of these secular forces has now been filled by the rabidly religious, for which the US and its allies alone are to blame.

The book has been written in the context of 9/11 and the subsequent interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan and has that anti war focus, but surprisingly enough does not appear to be biased. Tariq Ali traces out the many failings in the early communist states – particularly the Soviet Union and points out that their own failings were also largely responsible for socialism losing popular support and subsequently collapsing.

Tariq Ali’s consistently anti American stand may not be popular with those who support the American foreign policy and the actions of the current Bush Administration in particular; but so potent and well researched are his arguments going far back into history and tracing many of today’s burning issues to their very roots, that it would take back breaking research to counter his extremely logically argued point of view. And ultimately of one thing we can be sure; no matter what view point we hold- this book will make the reader sit up and take note that there is another way to go- even if it is a path hardly ever trodden.

Sexing Up Disasters

Dianne Sharma-Winter — Mon, 9 Jun 2008 01:35:21 EDT

Last week the US Navy ships, frustrated by the stonewalling of the military junta to bring aid to the estimated 2.5 million Burmese, slipped quietly out of the waters off cyclone ravaged Burma. Tailgating their ships were the British and the French fleets.
The Burmese once again have been left to suffer in silence, in the same way as their democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi has so eloquently demonstrated in her 13 years of house arrest.

I wonder if the people of Burma are still waiting for the help that sat off shore for four weeks during the diplomatic dithering that went on while they starved, shivered in torrential rains and attempted suicide out of the kind of despair that those who held their fate in their hands will never know.

Smugglers from the Bay of Bengal smuggled what they could into the area. They didn’t wait for international approval, they didn’t dick around with diplomatic double speak. Their response may have been a drop in the vast ocean of despair that swamped Irrawaddy basin, but it was heroic and human all at once.

The media, those able to make their way into the area or those already there continued to report, mostly anonymously for fear of military reprisals. The rest of the media reported from Bangkok rooftops and other places off shore, but there was a sense that they too were ready to leap into the fray if and when they received permission to enter Burma.

While the world waited, I thought about other natural humanitarian disasters in recent years. The tsunami of 2004, the earthquake that affected Pakistan, Afghanistan and India in 2005 were two that sprang to mind. I happened to be in Tamil Nadu that Boxing Day and for a month or so afterwards, so I was able to see first hand the sexing up of that disaster by the media who had an absolute field day.

I remember seeing helicopters carrying obscure Hollywood has beens to the distraught and displaced fishing people of that coast. I remember seeing fights between the displaced and those unaffected by the tsunami who equally received aid from whoever was handing it out. Worse still, I remember the unshakeable feeling that the headcount of those lost was somehow more “sexy” to the media by the huge amount of foreign tourists who were also taken that day.

As information filtered through to those of us foreigners on the coast of Tamil Nadu, it became apparent that what was to us a local tragedy was rapidly becoming an international tragedy. One Irish man who had a cell phone and who was in contact with the outside world reported at one gathering that “The Swedes seem to be the most affected.” In fact they lost around 62 citizens while ten thousand people were never heard of again in Tamil Nadu.

Less than a year later when a devastating earthquake hit the disputed area of Kashmir, the media response filtered through to me safe at home in the shaky isles of New Zealand. Having visited that area previously I had an understanding of the difficulty of even bringing aid to an area where roads and basic infrastructure didn’t exist. The media reported from where they could get to and we got a lot of reports of the situation in Balakot.

I do remember seeing one report from New Zealander Mike McRoberts who had walked for three days into the mountains to report on something other than was what becoming common fare. Looking at his dusty clothes, hearing his breath straining in the high mountain air rapidly chilling with the approach of winter I thought, “Good on ya, mate.” I was proud of him for doing what I expected reporters to do, to search out the human truth of what we call the news.

In the case of the Pakistan earthquake, the story died as winter approached and people suffered and froze in the harsh climate of the Himalaya and the even harsher climate of disaster in a politically sensitive area. But was it the political or the geographical landscape that delayed relief efforts? India was the first country to offer aid to her warring partner and for that I had to say another (if slightly more cynical) “Good on ya, mate.”

India and Pakistan at least talked and finally agreed on opening up entry points for relief aid in the Pakistan controlled area known as POK and relief, although slow in coming, eventually made an appearance. They talked and that’s the point here. There was some communication which resulted in aid reaching some of the affected. It may not have been a perfect solution but it was a nod in the direction of humanity.

While I am pondering the history of disaster politics, Mother Earth revealed another weapon of mass destruction. The earthquake in China’s Sichuan province has devastated millions of people of a scale that is yet to be fully appreciated. But I was left with the uncomfortable feeling that the many international media hounds who were baying at the shores of the Irrawaddy delta simply turned tail and camera and headed for the hills and valleys of Sichuan in order to bring us the news.

The few brave media souls who stayed in Burma are now the odd cry in the wilderness of the sexing up of disasters in the media. Disaster sells. Quiet suffering doesn’t. When the monks took the streets last year in Burma, images were splashed across the world. “This is a momentous time,” reported the BBC’s Andrew Harding in hopefully authoritative tones. But nothing changed, the monks got bashed and beaten and gassed and things went back to abnormal.

Aung San Suu Kyi quietly entered her thirteenth year of house arrest during this time, no doubt feeling even more isolated from her people and the world than ever before given the circumstances they now face. I wonder if from the window of her house she watched the Americans slinking away with their aid relief.

Now I am left scratching my head wondering how it is that America could invade Iraq on a raft of sexed up charges that were later proved to be false, can deny the truth of the suffering of the Burmese people?

Then words of another BBC reporter rang hollowly in my ears from five years earlier when reporting on the invasion of Iraq. “There is no doubt,” said Matt Fry, “that the desire to bring good, to bring American values to the rest of the world and especially in the Middle East is increasingly tied up with American military power.”

Then I cheered myself up with the thought that all that unused relief aid sailing out of South East Asia might get diverted to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people who are without such basics as clean water, medicine and food. After all they have been waiting five years now for their liberation with no end in sight.

Sorry Burma seems you just weren’t sexy enough.

Malaysia - Truly Asia But Not Fully Asia

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Sun, 8 Jun 2008 06:33:45 EDT

It was a very pleasant surprise when I was invited to speak at a conference in Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia. I have been to that neighbourhood so many times, but never to Malaysia. While I have blogged about the conference, this essay is about my impressions about the country. It is based on a very scientific and detailed analysis of reading the daily newspapers and observing the city and talking with some people. So yes, these are very facile observations on the national infrastructure, the people, history, cuisine, politics, economics and will end trying to predict the future of this extraordinary country.

Also, please remember that it was just a trip of six days in very urban setting speaking to the professional, technocratic and political class of Malaysians. To give you a comparison, it would be like trying to explain India or China based on a 5-day conference visit to Delhi or Beijing.

As you land in Kuala Lumpur airport, walk out to whiz down the highway to the city looking at the surroundings, check into your hotel and then stand on the 30th floor looking out over the twin towers, you get a sense of surprise and are impressed. The entire corridor between the airport and the city is landscaped as far as the eye can see. The neat townships, the wide highway, the tall skyscrapers, the hotels, the cars, the shops, the advertisements, nothing that you would see out of place in a European setting. And from what I understand, this infrastructure development has taken place in all the Malaysian states, by and large. So just by looking at the infrastructure, you would say this is a developed country. Extremely impressive indeed and something that my father said when I was talking to him. He visited Malaysia 40 years ago and we were comparing notes.

But what they still do not have is the developed country people, and thank God for that. By and large, the developed countries tend to end up having people who do not smile as much (how is that for a sheer generalisation?). The sheer warmth of everybody I met was astounding and simply amazing. Smiles galore, great big blooming smiles all over the place. And this is whether you are talking about your shop assistant to the driver of the coach to the chap who was watering the plants to the lady who was crossing the street. Very warm, helpful and warm people and that is what I found on every level, from the Prime Minister down to the ordinary bloke on the street. I didn’t get a chance to speak to the Sultan at the dinner but I have no doubt he would be the same. I just hope they keep this national characteristic.

I noticed a general and curious lack of history. A broad based observation here, but I went trawling through two large bookstores in KL, saw the Sunday editions of the newspapers, asked the concierge of the hotel about historic sites, looked around in the admittedly limited trips, and poked my nose into the colonial buildings, but, I did not get a sense that history existed or even exists for ordinary Malaysians. This is going to be difficult to explain, but it is a strange mixture of old mouldy buildings and monuments, loads of historical books, names of houses/streets referring to ages old dead people, frequent referrals in speech to old history, and so on and so forth. Was the rush to technology and modernity accompanied by the loss of history? Picked up some books written by their first political leaders and they also refer mostly to their current and not the past. Rather surprising and curious, especially when you see countries like Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines etc. where I did not get this feeling.

But that did not stop them from having the most amazing cuisine. I was interviewing a lady and on the spur of the moment, offered to do this over lunch at the hotel itself. And the sheer range of food that was available, just blew me away. I regretted I was on appetite suppressant medication, but still managed to put away some serious amounts of food AND lost weight. The combination of Japanese, continental, Malay, Indian, Chinese, yummy, wonderful, absolutely delicious. How on earth do they manage to keep their weight under control despite this wonderful gastronomic spread? The food court in the twin towers shopping mall had 30 different shops selling different kinds of food. I went around thrice before settling on Nasi Goreng from the Malay shop. Just great.

The corruption was unfortunately fairly typical of a developing nation. Again, no direct evidence, but only from what I heard from people. For example, when the father of Modern Malaysia, Tun Dr. Mahatir Mohammad, resigned from the ruling party while I was there, I was quite certain that a whole bunch of others will follow him. But no, almost nobody did. I was puzzled and after inquiring, the common response was, who on earth would be stupid enough to get out of the patronage party? Am I surprised? No, political parties are the same all over the world.

The economy is doing well, well diversified, not that much about of concentration in any one sector, not much government interference in the economy as shown by the low 12% of public consumption in the economy compared with about 20% for the USA and 22% for the UK. Nicely galloping along at 5-6% per year GDP growth, but subsidies are a worry. These range from industrial, agricultural, fuel, service and a whole load of them. If the government is not careful, the debt servicing could be an issue. But again, nothing that worried me terribly.

The last observation before my summing-up would be to point to a far more dangerous factor which is brewing in Malaysia. And that is the race factor. The sheer casualness with which race plays a part in politics, business and normal society is shocking for a person coming in from outside. To further complicate matters, this has a religious overtone and is getting worse day by day. I see the blog site of Dr. Mahatir Mohammad and am frankly horrified to read some of his pronouncements on race and religion. And that is wrong, public policy should never be established based on religion or race, because it will simply end up with angst. Especially when you have multiple religions and races in the country. Can you imagine a Prime Minister of any other country clearly stating racist views nowadays?

Take the emotion out of the arguments, help all Malaysians, such as all poor Malays. Do impose the national language for all Malaysians. Malays are ethnically and historically a combination of Indian and Chinese ancestry but now there is a strong but still controllable difference between the Indian Tamils, Indian Punjabi/Sikhs, the Chinese, the Malays, the mainlander and islander Malaysian etc. etc. In the list of the top richest Malaysians, only one was Malay. And this is after decades of affirmative action. On the other hand, the Indian Tamils are bottom of the pile and after they saw the success of the use of religion by Malays, they have also climbed on the Hindu religion bandwagon. This can still be controlled, stop that sucking up to the OIC, think of all Malaysians independently and uniquely. Malays look to Mecca, Chinese look to China and Indians look to India. Who or where is the lookout for Malaysia? But it is not that bad, I think the political class would understand this and can stuff the racist/religious monster inside the cage.

Bottom line and by and large, I think Malaysians can be proud of what they have achieved in their country. The emphasis on information technology, the way they have had a systematic plan to drag their country into the developed country status. I am also impressed by how well joined up the government, industry and bureaucracy is to push for Malaysian interests. This bill of guarantees for foreign investors is absolutely amazing and provides evidence that Malaysia is serious. This is something that other countries can only dream about but the way this kind of national will and drive for months, years and decades is good and creditable. All political parties are on-board with respect to national development and this country will improve dramatically indeed provided it manages to take all its citizens along with this national drive. Salamat Datang (welcome guest) indeed.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!

Jinnah, Advani And Jinnah

temporal — Tue, 3 Jun 2008 06:50:24 EDT

KILLAI (TN): Showcasing secular values in this remote village of Tamil Nadu, a devout Muslim couple have built a temple for Hindu Goddess Mariamman in the backyard of their house and conduct regular poojas, arousing interest and curiosity in this region, which remains a citadel of communal harmony.

It all started with a dream that M Bashirbi (50) had in her sleep and her husband Mohammed Ali Jinnah (55) without any hesitation gave his full backing for building the small temple 10 years back in the backyard of their thatched house in this town, near Chidambaram, about 250 km south of Chennai. Muslim family builds temple for Goddess. Muslim family builds temple for Goddess

On august 11, 1947, Quaid e Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah, sought permission from the Speaker J. N. Mandal, and addressed the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan.He said this in his speech:

I cannot emphasize it too much. We should begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority communities, the Hindu community and the Muslim community…Indeed if you ask me, this has been the biggest hindrance in the way of India to attain the freedom and independence and but for this we would have been free people long long ago.

No power can hold another nation, and specially a nation of 400 million souls in subjection; nobody could have conquered you, and even if it had happened, nobody could have continued its hold on you for any length of time, but for this. Therefore, we must learn a lesson from this.

You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State.

We are starting in the days where there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State.

Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.

This is the Pakistan he had in mind. Those who knew him personally were aware of his character and nature and even his worst enemies did not accuse him of harbouring fundamentalist ideas.

When Zina ul Haq came to power, he used the full might of the state machinery to obliterate and delete this part of Jinnah's speech.

Mr. L K Advani grew up in Karachi and was aware of the political movement for independence and when he visited Quaid's Mazar (Jinnah's Mausoleum) in Karachi this is what he wrote in the visitor's book:

There are many people who leave an irreversible stamp on history. But there are few who actually create history. Qaed-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah was one such rare individual. In his early years, leading luminary of freedom struggle Sarojini Naidu described Jinnah as an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity. His address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on August 11, 1947 is really a classic and a forceful espousal of a secular state in which every citizen would be free to follow his own religion. The State shall make no distinction between the citizens on the grounds of faith. My respectful homage to this great man.

The BJP has Jinnah in its Enemies Hall of Fame and rose in uproar over this and other comments by L K Advani that proclaimed Jinnah secularity. Ultimately the BJP succeeded in forcing him to quit as party chief.

In his recently released memoirs, My Country My Life, in a chapter headed "I have no regrets" Avani writes: Mr. Advani grew up in Karachi and was aware of the political movement for independence and when he visited Quaid's Mazar (Jinnah's Mausoleum) in Karachi this is what he wrote in the visitor's book:

I could well understand if some ordinary people had felt surprised and even upset, at seeing headlines in TV news bulletins or newspapers that said: 'Advani calls Jinnah secular'. But what pained me is that some people thought I had committed a serious ideological heresy even before acquainting themselves with full facts and background information.

Advani recaptures the turmoil which forced him to resign as president of the BJP. "It would not be an exaggeration to say that I was upset," he notes. His resignation was, however, not accepted by the party's Parliamentary Board. He withdrew his resignation but Advani recollects that the turbulence did not end there.

"I was in a dilemma. What should I do ? How should I respond to this situation ? Never in my political life was I enamoured by any post or the power that supposedly came with it," he notes. I had no regrets and no disappointments. I had the satisfaction of having served my party dutifully and conscientiously -- and the determination to continue to do so in the future," Advani writes.

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet". - (Act II, Scene II).

So Back to the other Mohammed Ali Jinnah who can also boast of secular credentials.

Bhakti is the one essential thing.
To be sure, God exists in all beings.
Who, then is a devotee? He whose mind dwells on God.
But this is not possible as long as one has egotism and vanity.
The water of God's grace cannot collect
on the high mound of egotism. It runs down.

From politics to Spirituality by way of digressions: one of the wandering paths taken by poets to capture nano seconds of lucidity.

The pleasure is in journeying: not in arriving at the destination. God is everywhere. She may be oblivious – I am certain of it. Since I tend to be inclusive, for atheists reading these lines, and still here, feel free to substitute Golf, or Net, or any other Passion for god and stick around, she won't mind.

There is peace in the pursuit of peace.

Salman Rushdie and Freedom of Speech

Somik Raha — Sat, 10 May 2008 02:20:22 EDT

Noted and controversial writer Salman Rushdie gave a talk at Stanford University recently. The Stanford Daily report covers important parts of his talk but misses out on the ending. Rushdie, towards the end, pointed to the fundamentalism displayed by the Hindu right toward M. F. Hussain. He said that M. F. Hussain had painted goddesses in the nude, who had "always been depicted that way," and, Hussain had been hounded out of India for committing this transgression as a Muslim. Now, Hussain lives in London and Dubai, and is about to open an art museum in Dubai. India will lose the art works of its greatest artist.

Rushdie's support for free speech is well-known. I spoke to some close Muslim friends and tried explaining how much I liked Rushdie's talk. To highlight Rushdie's support for a Muslim artist, I mentioned M. F. Hussain. Immediately, my Muslim friends (who are not from India) quizzed me on what Hussain had done. When I mentioned the painting of Indian goddesses in the nude, the reaction was of immediate disgust, and I could not get my Muslim friends to support M. F. Hussain. They felt that Hussain had been highly insensitive and should never have done something like this.

I tried hard to explain that I wouldn't send my kids to Hussain's art gallery, but I would defend his right to paint whatever he liked as long as he didn't use taxpayer money. In the end, my friends reluctantly agreed that Hussain should not have been kicked out of India, but that was because both my friends don't like government interference in public life, like me.

This conversation was remarkable in many respects. While discussing Rushdie, one friend pointed out that Muslims ought not to waste their time with such things, for the Prophet had clearly asked his followers to ignore those who abused his teachings - it was better to do good in the world than waste one's energy to counter such people. Somehow, I find all my Muslim friends to have such an open and liberal attitude, and this isn't just at Stanford.

Moving on, I think freedom of speech by itself does not pass scrutiny. I wouldn't like someone to come into my home and talk about topics that were uninteresting or disgusting to me. I do have the right to ask people to get off my property. Then, freedom of speech is the prerogative of the property owner. In this context, it becomes much easier to tackle situations that seem like violations by examining the property rights of the individuals concerned. In Hussain's case, whose property was he on when he made and displayed the paintings? As long as the property owner is fine with it, no one else's opinions can have legal standing.

Finally, as Indians, we would do well to recognize that our forefathers really meant "freedom" when they fought for freedom. This means that people have a right to be jerks in their own homes or outside as long as they don't physically hurt or defraud anyone else. Those that get offended have the option of shutting their eyes, not buying books, turning off the television, etc. We need to attach ourselves to a much higher ideal of freedom. I would like to end with a reminder of such an ideal, from Tagore's immortal poem on the subject.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high,
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action–
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father,
Let my country awake.

Cosmetic Changes in Islamabad

temporal — Thu, 1 May 2008 09:11:55 EDT

Pakistan's Moment: We will fight terrorism -- our way appeared under the byline of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani. Since his name is on the mast, I will assume that he takes full responsibility for this article. He writes:

It is important for Pakistan -- which has transited from an authoritarian regime to democratic governance -- that the message of this first critical post-election period be bold and clear. Like newly elected governments in other democratic societies, we intend to set the tone and agenda. We want to show the world that our nation is back in business, with an overwhelming mandate from our people.

It has been thirty days since he and his cabinet took oath. What does he have to show for the past thirty days? Please keep in mind that his party (PPP) and his coalition partners, PML-N, ANP and JUI had nearly six weeks to prepare an agenda before this oath taking.

Inflation is unchecked, prices for rice, flour, petrol and other commodities are still escalating. Law and order is still in a mess. The ministers travel in motorcades and the traffic is still diverted and blocked as it was under the previous administration.

The Judiciary issue is used as a lightening rod and a smokescreen simultaneously to deflect the attention and scrutiny away from the pressing problems facing the nation. The irony is, while the issue is being debated in Dubai between Asif Zardari the interim co-chairman of PPP and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, Mr Gilani is not even a member of the participating teams.

I find nothing bold and clear nor any attempts to set the tone and agenda.

Mr Gilani describes Benazir Bhutto as "Pakistan's quintessential democratic leader" ...facts and history speak otherwise.

My government is a coalition of modern, moderate, innovative, progressive democratic forces determined to jump-start the economy and to rebuild the social fabric of Pakistan.

We saw many of these "modern, moderate, innovative, progressive democratic forces" in the previous two terms each of PPP and PML-N. And the Pakistanis have not forgotten why both the PPP and PML-N were turfed out a total of four times.

We understand that unemployment, inflation and poverty are corrosive elements that, if left unaddressed, can create hopelessness and ennui that undermine authority.

The people of Pakistan did not elect him and his coalition to "understand" - they elected him to act quickly to alleviate these issues. Other than playing the blame-the-previous-government his administration has done nothing substantive.

He writes of "smuggling of Pakistani wheat across our borders."

Does he realise how impotent this sounds when read by the US readers? It reads as an confession of his Administration's inability to exercise control within his territory. This is going to raise eyebrows in the foggy bottom. The Pakistani detractors bring up the issue of Nuclear Weapon's safety and control every other week. If Pakistan cannot effectively control her side of the border how can he cite this weakness as a raison detre for smuggling?

Now we are negotiating from a position of strength.

The proof is in the pudding. This is what I have written here in Zardarigate: Who's Afraid of Judiciary:

Witness these recent developments from the new coalition government of Raza Rabbani:

* The coalition accepted the appointment of Maj Gen Jay Hood (of the Qur'an desecration infamy) in the US Embassy at Islamabad.

* The coalition recalled Gen. Mahmud Ali Durrani, a protege of Shirin Taher-Kheli and a colleague on Balusa, as Ambassador to the Court of St. Bush and appointed him National Security Adviser to the PM Raza Rabbani (Shirin is also a neocon and knows Hussain Haqqani, Ayesha Siddiqua and others through IDSA and other fora.)

* The coalition appointed Hussain Haqqani, first as Ambassador-at-large and then as Ambassador-designate to the Court of St. Bush. Last week Blogger Pakistan ran a long, rambling article by Moin Ansari - Husain Haqqani:-Dangerous 5th Column or Selfish opportunist? which tried to establish Hussain Haqqani as a neocon at best and a neoconzix at worst. * Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has "detached himself" from the Balusa Group according to Mariana Babar.

The parachuting of Washington's dream team means status quo remains unchanged in Islamabad. And the criticism and bunking of President Musharraf's US tilt is self serving lip service. Playing His Master's Voice (no pun) does not indicate a "position of strength."

Yousaf Raza Gilani is in an unenviable position. He cannot tell people to eat cakes. He has to act boldly, clearly, firmly and quickly: which means refraining from blame-game and delivering results.

Book Review: Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

Shantanu Dutta — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:09:02 EDT

I have never seen snow falling on cedar trees but have seen snow fall over spells in the Himalayas covering every thing in sight gradually with a curtain and a cover of snow. It has a bit of a mystical experience for me – ethereal beauty of certain intensity on one end and a deep sadness and amplification of past losses and regrets that one knows can never be redeemed on the other. But with all this mixture, my reminiscences of snow and snow fall are

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson is one such luminous book where nostalgia, beauty and realism blend. It is another multi layered book, a love story at one level, a court room drama at another and a living history of what it meant to be a Japanese American in the US in the Second World War time and its immediate aftermath. At this last level , it documents the treatment meted out to Americans of Japanese origin at that time and the perennial odyssey of minorities having to prove their loyalty time and again around the world – in different times , contexts and ways- some how, some things sadly never change and perhaps never will. Very deservedly, it had won the PEN/Faulkner award in 1994.

The brooding, lonely some what defeated character of Ishmael Chambers towers over the pages of the novel – a war veteran with one arm amputated and some one who never quite made it in life – but in spite of all the pain that filled his life, a man who never lost his decency and big heartedness. Ishmael is the son of a small time journalist on the tiny island of San Piedro where many Japanese Americans live and where following Pearl Harbor, ethnic stereotyping begins to happen.

As he sees his father valiantly trying to portray other facts in the local newspaper - the story of the many Japanese Americans and there numerous contribution to local society at a time when the flavor of the season is to be xeno phobic, Ishmael and his father discuss some timeless questions about journalism: “Not every fact is just a fact”-he (Ishmael’s father) added.” It’s all a kind of balancing act. A juggling of pins, all sorts of pins that are what journalism is about”. ‘This isn’t journalism.’ Ishmael answered. “Journalism is just the facts.” “But which facts?” Ishmael’s father asked him.” Which facts do we print, Ishmael?”

The unspoken answer is that a true journalist prints all facts and if he has a bias or a tilt, it is to report to highlight, to under line, those facts that others are not reporting, others are pushing under the carpet, that others are perhaps even hiding, a journalist is not just a man with a camera and a pen- he is a man who is called to be an advocate on behalf of those who are unable for one reason or another can not speak for themselves.

The most poignant section of the book is the one dealing with the aborted love story of Ishmael Chambers and the Japanese girl Hatsue Miyamoto, who eventually ends up marrying a man from her Japanese community, partly because of the interruption caused by the war and partly because when push comes to shove, human differences driven by ethnicity, language, race and religion will always remain to haunt us….. seemingly for over. This book of loss, lamentation and grief casts a long shadow indeed.

The South Asian Water That Is Indian

Diganta — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 01:15:14 EDT

It's been long since I have written about Farakka - the barrage on the Ganges just before it enters Bangladesh. There has been no permanent treaties between India and Bangladesh on the water sharing at Farakka. However, there is a 30 year agreement between India and Bangladesh that ends after 2020. As per the agreement, India ensures 35000 cusec water for Bangladesh at even the driest possible season. The dam was supposedly for supplying more water to the dying Kolkata port, which has already died its' natural death and handed over its responsibilities to Haldia port - a new and better one.

If you Google the term Farakka, you will encounter a lot of documents and articles about Indian unilateral water withdrawal. Some of them are written on a factual basis but some of them are not. So far, I have found an excellent paper written by Mikiyasu Nakayama from Utsunomia University, Japan. This is an excellent analysis of the entire proposal and its history.

I was delighted to find that both the proposals I raised in my previous article were indeed discussed between India and Bangladesh. It was my pleasure to know that the proposal that I stressed on, was indeed put forward by the Robert McNamara, the President of World Bank in 1976. He proposed that dams and water reservoirs should be built in Nepal to solve the long term water crisis in the Ganges. The dams could be on the tributaries of the Ganges (map), preferably on Kosi and Gandak. It was supposed to release water during dry season and to store during monsoon. Canada and World Bank both agreed to fund the project. It was not only for the storage, it would have created huge amount of hydro-electricity for both Nepal and India. Bangladesh also agreed to the proposal. But India did not.

India rejected the idea since it was going to 'internationalize' the issue and will involve a third party (Nepal). Indian policymakers stuck to the point that they'd help Bangladesh to construct a canal from Brahamaputra to the Ganges. Bangladesh opposed with the claim that it would involve displacement of a huge population in a densely populated country and also the Brahamaputra river might not have enough water during dry season. And I don't see Bangladesh was wrong in that. Brahamaputra water is also diminishing (though better than the Ganges).

The other point India cited was the possible earthquake in Nepal could destroy thousands of life if the water breaks out of the dam. The same hold true for counter-Indian proposal to build a water-reservoir in upstream Arunachal to augment the lower supply in Brahamaputra. Either of these two is a probably bitter truth - a dam in either place can carry destructive effects downstream should there be an Earthquake. However, how else can we get extra water?

Nakayama noted that since India was not hungry for World Bank loans in 1970s, they actually did not even bother to care about the proposal. In 1950s, the situation was different when India and Pakistan signed the Indus Water treaty. The other notable observation was India basically stuck to the same pattern that it was successful with Pakistan - get total ownership of a few rivers and ask others to interlink (with compensation of cost of canals ) - something that Pakistan did after the Indus Water treaty. But, it is clear to me that Indian policymakers lacked 'out-of-the-box' thinking and were more committed to stick to their position and never thought in terms of development of the whole region.

What would have possibly happened if Nepal was made a party to Ganges agreement? Indian policymakers could have thought from both political and technical point of view. They viewed it as an agreement where Nepal would come to the driver's seat having the storage capacity. Also, they might think that it would be difficult to tackle both the countries instead of one at a time. The other point could be serious. A possible earthquake in Nepal would devastate high populated Indian areas including Uttar Pradesh. Well, that's always a possibility with a water reservoir and we already have a lot of them all though out the country.

Instead of adding extra water to the supply, India and Bangladesh are still vying for water, from Teesta (another Indian river that enters Bangladesh) and the Ganges. It is noted that India gets 39% of water from Teesta and more than 50% of the Ganges. However, the upper-riparian withdrawal is generally restricted to 20-25% in all resolved water disputes till date including Indus water treaty and the Nile river water sharing treaty between Sudan and Egypt.

The paper also noted the unwillingness of lower-riparian states to gain popularity. I was personally very critical of that in case of Bangladesh where political parties do make politics out of this issue but showed little commitment towards solving it. He ended his opinion with a few possible reasons of failure including the mediation of an effective and neutral third party. ICJ interfered in only a single case on record - with Hungary and Slovenia on river Danube. That seems to me the last place for arbitration.

It is said that "better late than never". Even if after 30+ years of bad policies towards Indians and Bangladeshis, some of Indian policymakers get rid of casual attitude towards development - it will be a bonus for the majority of Indians. It should be noted that the extra water could not only solve the dry season water crisis, but also could fix the diminishing ground water levels and the lower growth in agriculture for last couple of decades. In an era when the food prices are doubling every year, it's worth taking a fresh look at the age-old problem. After all, what's wrong if we have a few dams in Nepal?

Food or Fuel - A Hobson's Choice

Shantanu Dutta — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 01:14:35 EDT

I grew up hearing stories about the Bengal Famine of 1943-45, hearing about them from my mother about how close to four million people died due to what was essentially a man made tragedy as food grains were diverted by the British Indian Government to feed the Allied Armies and the war effort, putting civilian lives at a much lower priority. My mother recounts stories of how food was scarce but unavailable as the prevailing shortages and black marketing and hoarding made it unaffordable for most of the farmers who actually grew the food in the first place. Wealthy families who could afford to still buy would often cook a little extra, running soup kitchens of a kind for those who turned up at their doors.

Hearing and reading about the food riots in various parts of the world makes one wonder if the man made famines are coming back to haunt us again. Food riots have already been reported in Haiti, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Mozambique, Senegal, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Bolivia and Indonesia. India thus far has been spared because the country has been self sufficient in food but the impact sooner or later will be felt here too no doubt with inflation making food grains inaccessible to many, especially those out of the ambit of the revamped public distribution system or the various employment guarantee schemes.

But what is worrying now is not that food shortages are happening but the reasons why they are happening and the fact that unlike the famine victims of the 1940s, who were largely ignorant of the causes as well as ignorant of the way, they could protest, today’s generation is empowered enough to make their voice heard but not necessarily knowledgeable enough to reverse powerful processes that seem driven by irreversible policy imperatives

Here is the grim scenario of how the post modern Frankenstein is playing out :

“Briefing media persons in New Delhi on Wednesday, the director-general of UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Jacques Diouf said: "World food prices have risen 45% in the last nine months and there are serious shortages of rice, wheat and maize." He singled out bio-fuel programme as one of the major contributing factor to the global price rise as it has caused diversion of farmland from food to fuel crops and the prices of bio-fuels which scaled up in tandem with the prices of fossil fuels in turn affected the food prices.”

Now with the prices of crude oil consistently rising and trading for long at prices of over at one hundred dollars a barrel, it is imperative to look for alternative beyond fossil fuels. And the search for an alternative seems to have zeroed in on bio fuels wherein farmers once enticed by cash crops to abandon staples are now being enticed to grow food product but use them not for food but to produce fuel. And so farmers in several parts of the world including the USA have increasingly switched to producing corn for the purposes of producing ethanol. This has obviously reduced the area available for cultivation for crops like wheat and diversion of corn from the market place to the refinery. Climate change over the years has also begun to affect farm yields.

In India, the government has mandated the blending of ten percent ethanol in all petrol to be marketed from October. Apart from technical issues (Germany has scrapped a similar program finding it unviable); there is the question of where this ethanol is going to come from. If it is going to come from domestic sources, then it would mean that in India too, land would come from that part of the agricultural land that is currently being used for growing food grains. This along with the fact that increasingly needs for infrastructure are being met by acquiring agricultural land (West Bengal being a well known case in point) means that food grain production in India will decline. India's food grain production could fall 11 million tonnes short of the target of 220 million tones according to the pre budget economic survey presented before the budget.

Caught between the need to feed its people and the need for energy to transport people and goods, it seems that not just India but just the world itself is caught between a rock and a hard place. The tragedy is that in earlier days, thought the effects of famine were colossal, they were localized and temporary and with the right kind of political will, they could be handled in part, because if parts of the world had food shortages, there were other parts of the world that had surpluses and imports or food aid could be arranged. The news this time round is that the shortages of food could be global and there simply may not be enough food any where in the world that is available for import. That the whole world could be headed for a chronic and slow famine with some of the environmental tinkering that we have done apparently irreversible in the short haul at least is a grim thought.