Last weekend, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) celebrated 90 years of its founding in Mainland China. Foreign Policy reports, “in an impressive propaganda effort, the CCP has sponsored concerts, shows, and exhibitions of revolutionary art, as well as “red games” and “red tourism” — all to drum up interest in communist hagiography. The CCP even purchased two handwritten letters by Karl Marx to mark the occasion.” Such pomp and such pageantry — surely not a Mahayana marvel of a Marxist miracle.

So, what could be the story behind China’s ceremonious economics, pan political agreement, and an ever-flourishing culture? The formula is simple. Ideology has been relegated to a distant second position. Instead, a sense of duty, excellence, cooperation and social elitism has taken its course.

Ask any Chinese honcho in the corporate sector about the superstructure of Karl Marx’s genius and they’ll present you with nothing more than a vague, muddy expression, or perhaps throw in a few words on class struggle and the bourgeoisie. The Guardian (UK) reported about the capitalism-communism collision in 2008, citing interesting outlooks to solve the Sino mystery. To quote:

Being a member of the party… is not a political choice but is about “contributing to China” — about “standing up and being counted”. So when the recent earthquake struck, Cathy (works in Wall Street and is an active communist party member) contacted other party members working for her investment bank and started raising relief funds. [.....] And it is also about being part of the elite – and about networking. “Joining the party is very popular,” Cathy said. “If you got top marks then you definitely apply. So here all the top students are members … and a majority of the business school.”

To articulate, the Chinese success story has two major pillars.

For one, the CCP does not rely on central power holding. The party knows how extravagantly difficult it is to maintain a countrywide huddle of one political agenda and aye. Hence, spread the tentacles, make thee presence felt, go an extra mile to ensure participation from the civilian of the civilians. The schools idolise radical revolutionaries like Mao Zedong, and Tiananmen Square is, well, an extension of China’s Babri Masjid where everyone is at blur about the ignition.

Secondly, China shows that when it comes to economics, there is no dividing line between communism and capitalism. For years, we’ve assumed that capitalism and democracy fit hand in glove. We took it as an article of faith that you can’t have one without the other. That’s why a key element of American policy toward China has been to encourage free trade, direct investment, and open markets. As China becomes more prosperous and integrated into the global market — so American policy makers have thought — China will also become more democratic. But that dream obviously saw doomsday, as we, today, see a steady, spinal capitalist economy with an authoritarian government following dogmatic communist ideologues — modeled to suit the tastes of the Chinese disparity. But oh, disparity! It reminds me of what policy wonk Robert Reich said:

Communist, as in communal? Are you kidding? The gap between China’s rich and poor is turning into a chasm. China’s innovators, investors, and captains of industry are richly rewarded. They live in luxury housing developments whose streets are lined with McMansions. They feed in fancy restaurants, and relax in five-star hotels and resorts. China’s poor live in a different world. Mao Tse Tung would turn in his grave.

In China (if not elsewhere), communism is a totalitarian concept taught at law schools. It is an absolutist’s ritual for prospective sovereignty. It is imperative in the country that civil liberties be paralyzed, authorities can arrest and imprison people who threaten stability (as the party defines it), and there are no labor unions and not a single political power outside the communist party.

But no, China shows no regret or remorse whatsoever. A number of recent surveys indicate that after 30 years of capitalist reforms in China, private entrepreneurs are much more interested in running their enterprises and making money than demanding democracy. As long as the Communist Party continues the program of free market reforms and keeps the country stable, China’s new capitalist middle class seems to be content to go along with the current regime. And as far as the Manchurian achievement (worldwide) is concerned, it’s pure complacency. So hey, hail to your amour-propre and congratulations on the ninetieth. If all goes well, I’ll be right here in flesh and blood to type in about your glorious hundredth.

Written for The Huffington Post

The docket goes by the name One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program. The program has developed a radically new low cost laptop computer and aggressively promoted its plans to put the computer in the hands of hundreds of millions of children around the world, including the most impoverished nations. That said, if the critique of Sir Francis Bacon had a say on this, he would comment – “There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.” Following suit, it should be mentioned that, the provision of individual laptops is a utopian vision for the children in the poorest countries, whose educational and social futures could be more effectively improved if the same investments were instead made on more sustainable and proven interventions. Middle- and high-income countries may have a stronger rationale for providing individual laptops to children, but will still want to eschew OLPC’s technocentric vision. This is because, when policy wonks will dive in to scrutinize the blueprint, the first thing that will strike them is, this program represents the latest in a long line of technologically chimerical development schemes that have unsuccessfully attempted to solve complex social problems with overly simplistic solutions.

In India, this program has been widely pursued more as an interactive exchange programme than the elsewhere ‘only education’ undertaking. While Satish Jha’s (President and CEO of the OLPC India Foundation) endeavours are highly commendable, considering the unending chase (of NGOs, governments, corporations and international bodies) for funds commenced – it should be duly noted that, as a functioning policy, the fuel to channelize resources which makes a difference in tender lives is not at the least adequate. Of course, Mr Jha is not at fault here. The creek lies in the basement.

The OLPC program represents a marriage of Negroponte’s (Founder – MIT Media Lab) digital utopianism and the constructionist learning theory of Seymour Papert, Negroponte’s long-time colleague at MIT. Their inference being, having several students share a computer is as inadvisable as having multiple students share a single pencil. Whereas this sort of idealism works fine in the cosiness of the MIT Action Labs and America’s affluence, the contours of the likes of the OLPC program hit an abrupt halt when faced with the many economic and social challenges of countries like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Myanmar, etc.

Unlike Negroponte’s approach of simply handing computers to children and walking away, there needs to be integrated education improvement efforts. No one pondered over this, sadly. Without the basis of elementary education, a computer is as good as a pestle and mortar to children, with no utility other than the amusement of funny keys and a magic touchpad. Papert’s hypothesis also falters for a nation whose literacy rate is as good as the number of healthy eaters in Indonesia. He says, “In the end, [students] will teach themselves [how to use the laptop]. They’ll teach one another. There are many millions, tens of millions of people in the world who bought computers and learned how to use them without anybody teaching them. I have confidence in kids’ ability to learn.”

This amplification of pre-existing differences through computer access stem from two main factors. First, students from high socioeconomic status backgrounds are more likely to have family members and peers who can support and guide them in learning more sophisticated new technologies. This kind of support is referred to as the social envelope of educational computing. In other words, it is not the computer itself that brings benefit, but rather the social and technical support that surrounds the computer that makes the difference. Second, students who already have strong language and literacy skills, as well as background knowledge on topics at hand, benefit most from unstructured learning environments. For underprivileged India, this is where the OLPC falters and the exercise becomes completely futile.

Constructionist theories require a proper skeleton to be built upon. But in the case of this country, there is only a carcass, or rather, nothing at all. There are important differences between a research-oriented development effort and a large-scale international campaign involving the production, distribution and use of millions of educational computers. For an effort of that sort to be successful, it requires an understanding of how to organize large-scale social improvement efforts involving technology and how best to support learning in diverse contexts. Racing ahead without this understanding can waste precious resources required for development and divert attention from more promising approaches to educational and social reform. Regrettably, there is no magic laptop that can solve the educational problems of the world’s poor. A genuine effort to curtail that will require the talents of a wide array of policymakers, practitioners, scholars and designers, including the kinds of technology innovators that have been drawn to OLPC.

Written for The Broadmind

To begin with, keeping the 2007 margin, Pakistan has seen twenty-three governments in the past sixty years, including: fourteen elected or appointed prime ministers, five interim governments and thirty-three years of military rule under four different leaders.23 Excluding the military and interim governments, the average life span of a politically elected government has been less than two years. If the five-year period of Bhutto is excluded, then the average span falls to 1.6 years. The tour d’horizon of the past sixty years of Pakistan’s economic history lends credence to the argument that interruptions to the orderly political process whereby elected governments were dismissed, forced to resign or overthrown accentuated the tendency of economic discretion. Without the clause of accountability, the Pakistani leadership deepened its already unfathomable grooves of socio-economic infrastructure – often attributed to the lack of a democratic set up and the continuous existence of politico-military regiments.

However, it would be wrong to say that Pakistan is financially bankrupt. As Stephen Cohen points out, the country’s vaults are graced by high levels of aid from the United States, military grants from China and subsidies from Saudi Arabia. But then, sensible utilization and governance is not Pakistan’s forte. For instance, when the supposed ‘arch enemy’ India, bid for nuclear capability – Pakistan couldn’t wait to but answer in the same coin. This objective was inevitably achieved by sacrificing domestic investment and social development, garnered by military arrogance and bilateral supremacy with the US and China.

The United States has given Pakistan billions and billions of dollars in military aid over the years. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, that aid was increased sharply, and depending on what we count in, has reached more than $10 billion over the past decade. There were two points of contention between the United States and Pakistan regarding this massive military aid. The United States wanted Pakistan to invest this money in augmenting its anti-terror capabilities: more and better equipped ground troops; more emphasis on small commando-type units; better gear for domestic surveillance; and more. The Pakistanis, on the other hand, wanted to use the money to augment their military capabilities against India. To do that, the they wanted to use the money to buy fighter planes, radar installations, missiles, ships, and submarines. The second point of contention: Pakistan cheated the United States in two ways. First, as is the practice in the country, much of that military aid ended up in the personal bank accounts of the country’s top political and military leaders. Second, using false accounting and forged reports, the Pakistani military, while telling the United States it was using (what was left of) the money to buy counter-terrorism related gear, was in fact using the money to acquire equipment more suitable for an India-Pakistan conflict.

Time to ponder – what if instead of American forces looking only for bin Laden, we would have had an Indian commando group entering the country to decapitate the Pakistani political and military leadership as a prelude to an all-out Indian attack on Pakistan? Pakistan would be doomed before the game even began.

In the light of the same, advice to U.S. policymakers: It is time to reconsider the massive aid to Pakistan. Recall former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir’s comment regarding an especially egregious corruption scandal in Israel: “Just see how much public money could have been wasted yet — had it not been stolen.” With regard to Pakistan – ditto. Another advice: Strength is relative, not absolute. It is not enough to be strong. Better to be smart in what kinds of strength we accumulate, and what kinds of strength we deny our potential adversaries. Reference – China.

To pinpoint and postulate, Lieven says that the core Western policy with regard to Pakistan should revolve around protecting the state from an Islamist revolution – recognising the country’s resilience and employing it accordingly. The statement is made in vain and where his point falters can be reasoned with the very pulp the statehood of Pakistan came into being. The partition of the pan Indian empire didn’t materialise because Lord Mountbatten was fanciful of the idea of a separate Islamic state. The current geographical borders are primarily results of a full-fledged ‘Islamic Revolution’, the demand of a non-secular terra firma fathered by the machismo of identity egotism.

******

American journalist Nicholas Schmidle was in Karachi in May 2007, when the pro-Musharraf Muttahida Quami Movement staged a rally on the same day Chaudhry was to address a gathering of lawyers in the city. He witnessed riots that quickly spiraled into ethnic strife—the gathering was a microcosm of a nation plagued by ethnic tensions among its Baluchis, Pashtuns, Punjabis and Sindhis. Schmidle posits that the failure of the state security apparatus to quell the violence in Karachi was a deliberate attempt by Musharraf’s regime to further destabilize an ethnically-divided nation, thereby rebuffing any viable opposition. After being deported from Pakistan in January 2008, Schmidle returned seven months later on the eve of Musharraf’s resignation and the assumption of the presidency by Asif Ali Zardari, Benazir Bhutto’s widower. Shortly after his return to Pakistan, Schmidle was tailed by Pakistan’s various intelligence agencies. Pakistan’s clandestine agencies remain a formidable force domestically and regionally, in both intelligence-gathering and intimidation of potential adversaries and unwelcome Westerners. These agencies are ultimately subsumed under an army that remains the dominant player in Pakistan’s political life. For fear of his personal safety, Schmidle quickly left Pakistan again—a harrowing experience that signifies the Pakistani military’s resolve in preserving its powerful role within the state, illustrating that civilian-led governments have been of ephemeral importance during much of Pakistan’s sixty-three-year history.

That said, this definition of Pakistan will never make way to its history books a few decades from now – authenticating the very fact that its geopolitical smugness is proportionally relative to its adamant fallacies, flowered by a testament that scripts everything barring raison d’État.

Written for IBNLive

The book covers the three primary political and administrative casualties – the Naxalite surge, the Valley of Denial (Kashmir insurgency), and, the Collapse of the North-East. The quintessence being – Insurgency as an excuse for misgovernance. The authors managed to stick to this core throughout. Not offering solutions, but being investigative around and about the inference line.

From the depths of Jharkhand to the dark of Chattisgarh – the authors took a crack at each of the imperilled firing lines and brought out the raw, pragmatic thread, leading from one truth to another. Seventeen years ago, on the morning on which Turiya Munda’s body was discovered hanging lifeless from the berry tree, numerous dreary realities were being enacted in other parts of the world. It was the 24th of July 1991 – on the other side of the globe, in room 118 at the office of the Texas Water Commission, government officials were bickering over minor sewage issues. In India, sporting the light blue turban that was to make fashion statements in the near future, Finance Minister Dr Manmohan Singh was getting ready to make his speech, a speech in which he would present an epochal Union Budget to a grey, despairing nation. In the midst of this lull, Turiya Munda decided to end his life with that single action, translating the grief of his poverty, his inability to educate his sons, into extinction.

He was the first man to die because he had not received wages under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), purported to be the world’s largest social security set-up. The deliberate void created by the successive elected governments is now filled by the Maoists. They run the show in areas like Dandakaranya – a sprawling, ‘liberated’ zone, extending over 100,000 square kilometres, incorporating parts of the states of Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, with a population of over 2 crore. No welfare schemes, no Nehruvian Five-Year Plan ever came within whistling distance of it. More than ninety-percent of the population was illiterate, until their introduction to the ideologies of Marxism and current. They came to know about Mao Zedong before they figured out the concept of alphabets. Yes, this was the scenario. A bleeding example of veracity compared to the Indian boom on display at global forums.

A close look at the placid waters of the 314-square-kilometre stretch of the Dal lake, one of the most magnificent and most photographed water bodies in the world, would reveal that the lake was rotting and shrinking despite the 240 crore spent on cleaning it. In Kashmir, the malfunction of the government had for years been masked behind the facade of a twenty-one year old insurgency. No militant had ever attacked a civic official or seized a dredger meant for cleaning the Dal Lake. It was Kashmir’s government that was struggling to meet ends, choking on administration.

The amount of money streaming in from the Centre is whopping, but the capacity to spend it and spend it well is something to ponder on. Militancy is another factor that supposedly, going by the account of the authors, brewed right under the nose of deficient governance. From the ousting of the Kashmiri Pandits to the desire for an independent Kashmir, the book covers it explicitly. It aptly points out how the man who killed scores of Pandits in the valley and declared it openly on television is roaming freely today. Some of them were murdered gruesomely in front of their children and the women of their household. A judge of an anti-terror court had remarked (about Bitta Karate – the Pandit slaughter): The court is aware of the fact that the allegations levelled against the accused are of a serious nature and carry a punishment of death or life imprisonment, but the fact is that the prosecution has shown total disinterest in arguing the case, which is in complete violation of the Article 21 of the Constitution.

Although it is a state deeply divided on the basis of regional aspirations, Jammu and Kashmir has a few milestones of pride, which are also probably the bulwark of its future. Multiculturalism and religious tolerance have survived in the valley – and this does not include loonies like Syed Ali Shah Geelani. The context represents the general populace of Kashmir, the Madrassa teachers, the shop-owners, the vegetable vendors at the corner of the streets. In the postscript, the authors take a dig at India’s youngest chief minister, Omar Abdullah, attacking his stand as a pseudo driver of events, presenting him as a figurative character, capable of and handling nothing.

There is a parallel government running because people are not getting what they want – says the subtext of Part Three – The Collapse of the North-East. To quote the man named Peter, who candidly gave his version for the condition of governance in Manipur: Governments in Manipur are run by two opposition parties – the government itself and the underground. All government contracts are issued by the Underground – government officials are just rubber stamps.

The greatest drawback of the North-East is its crippled infrastructure. Other factors include unfenced borders with Myanmar, Bangladesh, inapproachability and economic blockade. The state-heads are accused of collaborating with militants for furthering their own personal agenda. I.K. Gujral and Atal Behari Vajpayee tried to break the nexus between the bodies of power and those of the militants, but without fruitful results. The state, evidently, is not only absent, but truncated and rusted to its roots. But given all the research and thorough surveys conducted by the authors, what largely disappoints in Part Three is the complete ignorance of Assam and its affairs. The crux of the North East mêlée – a perennial gurgle of political instabilities and rabid insurgencies.

While the book gives a purely journalistic insight and blunt images of national inaction, it has been, I am afraid, partly partisan by not revealing the entirety of the resolutions taken up in the Centre. The content is more exploratory than analytical. ‘The Valley of Denial’ took off fine until this inquisitive assertion – could India be blamed for responding to the campaign of terror with terror of its own, a ruthless state response backed by half a million people, which had been unable to crush the militancy or Pakistan’s support for it but had instead routed the lives of thousands of innocent people? Many such suggestive accusations follow as the pages go by, some baseless, some hypothetical. But the highlight of the book is in its portrayal of the rash reality, the inflamed state of affairs that leads to or precedes from the fungus of corruption, absolute negligence and internal disregard.

This book is highly recommended for its sincerity towards the voice of the muted, for the inner foul that shrouds our peripheral glory, for the bravado of the authors who took the nerve-whacking journey and turned it into a directory of India’s other existence.

One piece of advice that would come handy while reading the book: Keep the brain and the heart in their respective places. A merger would prove costly for perception.

Book: The Absent State; Author: Neelesh Misra and Rahul Pandita; Hachette India: Rs. 495

Written for IBNLive

The outpour of sympathies from the Chinese block for Pakistan’s alleged vulnerability (and of course the benignant outlook) after Osama Bin Laden’s death prominently defines China’s geopolitical interests within and outlining Pakistan’s boundary. Going by history, China is basically a nation governed by manipulative instincts and power tactics. From reforms led by force than social reconstruction to impounding martial laws on the democratic dividends of the country, China has done it all in its quest for puissance.

As we very well know, the media bodies in China are an extension of the CPC wing inside the government – and in spite of the foreign ministry’s official statement claiming Bin Laden’s death as a ‘milestone’ in the history of counter-terrorism – the state-run media has issued a sustained series of reports to downplay the event and focus on Pakistan’s ‘sacrifices’ in the war on terror.

Ishaan Tharoor, in his piece in the TIMEWorld, deduces the China-Pak equation post Washington’s open trust deficit stint with Pakistan.

“China sees in Pakistan a pivotal proxy for its geo-political expansion into South and West Asia — most notably, the Chinese were allowed to build a multibillion dollar sea port at Gwadar in Pakistani Baluchistan. For Pakistan, the Chinese alternative is a useful chip to have in hand when trying to seek leverage with Washington. China has been instrumental over the years in the development of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. Gilani’s trip later this week to China will further thrash out the terms of a civilian nuclear energy deal China agreed with the Pakistanis last year. After the U.S. under the Bush administration signed a controversial nuclear energy pact with India, the Pakistanis clamored for their own dispensation from Washington, but that never came — a decision that makes sense given Pakistan’s instability, but which still irks many in the country, including its Prime Minister.”

China’s borders are easier to invade than to defend. The long coastline is open to invasion from the sea. At sea, Chinese claims abut or overlap with some of the land-bordering neighbours, and South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The inland borders are mostly mountainous and cold, difficult to garrison, and populated by minority tribes of doubtful loyalty to the central government. China has more different political units as immediate neighbours than any other country except Russia. On land, China shares borders with fourteen states -Russia, North Korea, Vietnam, Myanmar (Burma), India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and four states of Central Asia. Extremely apparent why China is threatened by its immediate neighbours and desires a pawn for its security benefits. Hence, what can be easier than taming a physically susceptible state like that of Pakistan and posing it as a shield to nurture an uninterrupted domestic proliferation.

To quote Ishaan Tharoor again

“It’s hard to deny that an improved Pakistani economy and a stabler political situation would please all the country’s neighbors and the U.S. to boot. But there have been few indications from the Chinese that they’re willing to act in concert with the U.S. to improve rule of law, encourage political reforms and help strengthen civilian institutions in Pakistan.”

While it is a very important pointer noted by Mr. Tharoor, the Chinese foreign policy should be kept handy. Not everything China does is reflective of Mao Zedong’s stairway to power – it knows how to act in accordance with the global temperature and swiftly adjusts itself to political fluctuations.

Chinese foreign policy favours “multi-polarity,” by which China means that other countries should resist efforts by the United States to dominate the international system. Yet in many aspects Chinese foreign policy interests overlap with those of the U.S. as sited in the quote. For example, China has cooperated with the U.S. in seeking peace on the Korean peninsula. Like American foreign policy, Chinese foreign policy seeks to create a favourable environment for economic growth. China favours stable world markets, opposes trading blocs, and works to improve its own access to developed-country markets.

Thus so long as the international system is America-dominated, China takes an ambivalent posture. One of its top foreign policy priorities is to maintain sufficient economic and military strength to deter and if necessary defeat invasion or the threat of invasion. Paradoxically, however, such self-strengthening requires close economic ties with the West. From the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 until his death in 1976, Chinese Communist Party chief Mao Zedong experimented with self-reliant methods for developing China without significant contact with the West, but these failed. Hence the “open-door policy” of the reformer, Deng Xiaoping (in power, 1978-1997). The dilemma for China is that the Western powers are both the main source of its technology and markets and a major source of capital, yet at the same time the potential enemies against whom China is preparing to defend itself should relations turn bad.

Written for The Broadmind

What did Pakistan do?

Osama bin Laden’s Bilal town residence is barely 2 hours from Islamabad by road, just 35 miles outside the capital, in a sprawling upscale neighbourhood in Abbottabad, home to retired army officials. Going by logistics and Pakistan’s vested interest in cropping its defence machinery in favour of extremist policies, it only makes sense that bin Laden would settle for something more sophisticated than a pothole amid arid mountains and acacias – in a secure, safe environment, the national military academy just down the road, neighbours who mind their own business, great person to person courier service. To quote the unfortunate architect who claims to have been hired to design the mansion, who identifies himself as Bill – “On paper it was beautiful; a large entry court around a two story water feature, Italianate with Etruscan entablatures and friezes from the 13th Century Portuguese renaissance. The client was apparently a local farmer who made a killing on defaulting on $500 Kiva loans. I worked through a 3rd party based in Geneva who called himself Seamus. I was paid for conceptual design up front, then Seamus and my plans ran off – never to be heard from again. Later, through the grapevine on Archinect I read that my design had been obtained by a local concrete contractor in Islamabad who was hired to complete the drawings and construct the project in 3 months time for someone else; apparently the farmer decided to use some of his fortune to open a liquor store in Rosemead, CA. Anyways, fearing the worst, and wanting to salvage something for my portfolio, I tried to contact the local contractor to have my name removed from the plans, but apparently they Value Engineered out the telephone/cable TV/internet option in my concept… That wonderful 12 seat theatre… all those plans shot to hell. Anyways, I can’t comment at all on the accommodations – I was never extended a courtesy night stay for the designer. I suppose it’s for the best.”

A house like that right under the nose of the military – so much for secrecy. And Pakistan fears retaliation from its in-house militant faction. Understandable, actually. It takes audacity to see its citizenry share intelligence with the US concerning the most wanted man on Earth, while guarding the country’s best kept secrets under the diplomatic seal. It takes even more spinal strength to strip away the fact that Pakistan nurtures militants and takes part in counter-terrorism initiatives at the same time.

All that Pakistan didn’t care for

The presence of Bin Laden in Pakistan, something Pakistani officials have long dismissed, goes to the heart of the lack of trust that Washington has felt over the last 10 years. For nearly a decade, the US has paid Pakistan $1 billion a year for counterterrorism operations. The chief aim was to kill or capture Bin Laden, going by the US interest. To fortify that objective Pakistan was supplied with the best possible perks tagged under the category of national security, humanitarian relief, etcetera. An outcome was expected after the overdose of strategic bias, extended commercialism and a suitable atmosphere for the existence of an imploding statehood like Pakistan.

Al-Qaeda operative UmarPatek, an Indonesian involved in the Bali bombings in 2002, was captured at a house in Abbottabad in February, where he was protected by an Al-Qaeda courier who worked as a clerk at the city’s post office. Almost a decade after, the death of Bin Laden in such a place led to fresh recriminations from the West and from its immediate neighbours,triggering the see through when it comes to choosing between Pakistan’s complicity and incompetency. In instance of the country’s media efforts to cover up for its damaging governance – prominent TV anchor with GEO TV went on air to rubbish the initial reports of Osama Bin Laden’s death. Following the confirmation of his death from the White House and western media outlets, the Pakistani media were unsure how to treat the story. Diving into the confusion all around, Javed Chaudhury, a journalist with Express News, called Osama a shaheed (martyr).

What’s the verdict?

Not denying the sensible response, thousands of Pakistanis did come out synchronously rejoicing the death of the ‘Villain’, but many more have maintained silence throughout, with intrusions from Islamist outfits like Hafiz Saeed’sJamaatudDawa and JamiatUlema-i-Islam-Nazaryati mourning for the ‘leader’ in Osama Bin Laden. Most political leaders termed it a victory for the country, stretching its inertness and bringing into spotlight the malpractice of props allotted significantly for defence practice. The manner in which the US planned and killed Osama tells an awful lot about US-Pak ties. The fact that the Pakistani government has remained silent for so long suggests that it is in shock, and trying to figure out what to do next. The challenge for Pakistan’s top crust now is to respond calculatedly to the West and not indulge in hasty reactions. But given the very peculiar situation in Pakistan – where a bulky section of the population considers the US a bigger evil than the Al Qaeda – it suits pro-American elements in the politico-military establishment to play down their role in the knowledge of Osama’s whereabouts.

Written for IBNLive

Conceptualizing the absurdities of the market economy is a wide-spread practice – eliminating the remote determinants of life, death, provisionals is just another. The basic structure follows this route – create a value chain, point towards a target audience, go to unfathomable lengths to capture the attention of that target audience. Media content and services are proliferating at such a rapid rate that the volume of log-material is essentially unlimited, but that of new variants of issues are at a massive dearth. Therefore, the ‘urgent’ call for risky pursuits and do-whatever-it-takes to dig for feeds.

The widening gap between limitless media and limited attention means it is harder for any offering to attract significant public attention. In the early 1970s, Nobel laureate Herbert Simon described this growing disparity as a ”poverty of attention”. Commentators from many disciplines now view attention as a prerequisite for the exercise of economic or social influence. The general fraternity assumption is that, the real scarce commodity will always be human attention and that attracting that attention will be the necessary precondition of social change. It is this lust for change and rearrangement of the social order that gets zealous journalists going and repeatedly plunging into known peril. Tim Hetherington was in Libya to continue his ongoing multimedia project to highlight humanitarian issues at this time of war and conflict, supposed to bring about a structural change in the Middle Eastern geometry. Verifies the hypothesis – less known facts, even less area of coverage, hence, strikes the chord of uniquity in rarity.

Now to reflect on informative journalism – it is important (very), but at the same time picture partial and discriminatory. As Walter Lippmann, the American essayist wrote in his seminal work “Public Opinion”, newspapers do not try to keep an eye on all mankind. By its nature, news is selective, dependent on editors’ as well as readers’ tastes.

Democracy and journalism are not synonymous either. There was no journalism in ancient Greece. British journalism evolved under a constitutional monarchy. American journalism, operating under a monarchical, colonial power, preceded American democracy. But as Michael Schudson has observed in his excellent book Why Democracies need an Unlovable Press, “Where there is democracy, or where there are forces prepared to bring it about, journalism can provide a number of different services to help establish or sustain representative government.”

Albeit, should such depths of journalism be pursued even if there’s a possibility of being bombarded by a rocket-propelled grenade (in analogy to Hetherington)? Decide with a counterpoint. The essential argument here is that informative journalism enables the citizenry to have indirect contact with people of power or institutions of the state, to better understand how society works, both to their advantage and to their disadvantage. It matters not simply because it is a manifestation of dissent and direct cognizance but because it is an expression of plurality – alternative views and newer fronts of understanding that would lead to individual thinking and not desirous impositions of standardized outlook.

Unlike established professions of law, medicine or accounting any standard of journalistic competency must be centred on practice rather than theory.

For this reason calling a journalist a professional would require a peculiar taxonomy to define a profession. Furthermore, relegating journalists to the realm of professionals is undesirable because it implies limitations that diminish the important role they play in society. Thus the debate is not in the favour of role play by the media but an unrestrained approach of working towards an achievement meant to trumpet its status as a social science – not merely an outpost for narrow vocationalism and a churn-house of information.

These are the best of times and the worst of times if one happens to be a journalist. The best, because the job has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to report, analyse and comment on the most serious happenings since the advent of communicatives. The worst of times, because the business is suffering from the cyclical shock of a deep recession and the skeletal change driven by the internet revolution. To pull up from that the necessity is to reinvent the model of journalism, sticking to the core ingredient of representing all that is not represented and thinking over newer ways to boost media economics other than using news puffery and running behind cannons to get a bestselling front-page. Lord Northcliffe, the British publishing magnate and owner of the Times and Daily Mail, among many other titles, once declared that “news is what somebody, somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising.” Take it as a hint of a new curriculum from the excess of the yellow press – make it an exercise of social evolution rather than stereotyping it as an institutional establishment – paving the way for a new archetype, redefining the word ‘important’.

(The illustrative here is not meant to give aspiring mass media students a perspective on their future life, or a career defining course of action – but a weigh of priorities in a world which thrives on feral sensationalism. Do your bit, make a difference.)

Written for IBNLive

However, amidst all this inanity, it is to be noted that the necessity of stronger laws and modified institutions is a top priority. Stringent action towards the process of administrative bridling is an urgent concern. Corruption and lack of appropriate preventive measures are eating into a system which should have enough credibility to shoulder a nation of 1.2 billion. Albeit, baiting the proposition of self-governance and direct democracy is not going to solve the issue of corruption. It will, moreover, create unwanted lawlessness and land in the stagnancy of subordination. As is already observed – the civil society wanting Anna Hazare to be granted undeviated access and power in the Lokpal panel confirms the naïveté with which the ‘people power’ justifies the remedy of a crisis already causing much struggle in the bureaucratic chain.

Their demand is mostly inspired by the notion called ideological illusion. Trying to create a parallel between Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement and that of inserting puritan reforms confirms the misguided principles with which the aam janta is led today.

The Greeks tried to create a pure democracy and the results were disastrous. The Athenians basically undermined the government organised under Hercules and set the stage for their own defeat and conquest in so doing. I can see the same process taking shape here in India and quite frankly it frightens me. The real problem is that many (or most) people think that India is a democracy when it isn’t. India is a democratically elected republic based upon law and the constitution. That’s a far cry from a democracy.

Lending sovereign ears to the civil society and holding accounts of liability is the foremost task of a reasonable government – a democratic republic – but not at the cost of annihilating the power structure and aligning with a subsidiary whose knowledge of the inside-system is as good as the ones outside it. As Shashi Tharoor replied to one of his twitter followers on the Anna Hazare brouhaha – “then elect different ones (political representatives). But till you do, elected MPs represent the people. It’s undemocratic for the unelected to impose their views.”

A democracy as deduced by the populace who, all for active activism aiming to infiltrate into a course called governance, are presuming that a majority decision will be fair. I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who observed that Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner. And mistakenly so, the entire concept of administration is falling apart courtesy footloose activist thriving largely on polity, a nation’s mass hodgepodging the very ideas of jingoism and rationality and the oblivious government shambling through its log of scams and unattended primacy.

Written for IBNLive

- Mamata Banerjee

“We have been saying from the very beginning that Trinamool and Congress are trying to divide Bengal by joining hands with forces like the GJM. Thursday’s development just corroborates our claim. The opposition alliance will have to give explanation to the people of Bengal for such a treacherous stand.”

- CPM committee member

“That stand (to supports parties who stand by the cause of Gorkhaland) remains unchanged, but under the present circumstances, ousting the Left Front is more important.”

- Senior GJM leader

If the above statements have knotted your brainwaves only to infer another set of loony culpability drama of the Bengal politics, then you are absolutely correct. However, this was an opportunistic incrimination and most of the rationales sited are partly or wholly fictitious with the core ingredient posing to be a fulcrum for the future of political and administrative stance in West Bengal.

As good as the blame-game looks, the scenario, conversely, doesn’t satisfy the detailing offered to the naked eye. The GJM, in contrast, is true to their version of the story this time and not fishing about flipping sides, grabbing incentives from the best of both worlds in this period of utmost desperation offered by the much anticipated state assembly elections. Evidently, it negates the self-righteous statement of Ms Banerjee and leaves a question mark to the ‘conspiracy theory’ of the CPI(M).

Despite thorough BJP support  (BJP’s minority appeasement policy) – the BJP-GJM alliance has come to an abrupt halt courtesy this out-of-the-blue declaration by Bimal Gurung and Roshan Giri. The BJP has reasons to be annoyed. Take this for instance. They left four seats – including Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong – to GJM in return for support of six seats in the plains. State BJP president Rahul Sinha said, ‘GJM’s decision is unfortunate. We have informed the party’s central leadership.’

If I remember correctly, then the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha, in 2009, extended reasonable support to the Congress candidate in the Darjeeling Lok Sabha assembly. So there’s hardly any question of shifting loyalties here. Albeit, the focus of the issue is that – why this constant maintenance of devotion to the Congress regardless TMC’s staunch anti-Gorkhaland stand. The answer is easy. Like the CPI-M and TMC, the GJM is itself not so fond of the idea of the occurrence of a Gorkhaland. It thrives on conflicting notions and wants to tread that way for until absolute political dominion. The CPI-M is against the idea of not having a stronghold in GJM’s territory, regulating from the Centre. That, obviously, doesn’t go in sync with the political ambitions of the GJM and hence the support for TMC, who, unlike the CPI-M, prefers to leave the hills alone and operate from the plains.

The GJM pronouncement has unnerved the Left parties which fear the GJM’s support to candidates of Trinamool Congress -Congress alliance will lead to division of votes in at least 12 seats creating troubles in the way of its candidates winning from there. Hence, the CPI-M swiftly seized on GJM’s statement of support to Trinamool Congress and Congress and dubbed it an alliance of ‘separatist forces’, in an attempt to bruise TMC’s or rather Mamata Banerjee’s image.

Written for The Broadmind

Casteism in India segregated the society into ghettos of isolation and exclusiveness, sealing humanity into insulated social divisions. Whereas the dying effects of caste identities are noted by theorists – but given the vociferousness with which casteism is often proclaimed, from political manifestoes to matrimonial columns, it gives rise to the illusion that the ancient caste system is still kicking away.

The caste system in its traditional form meant a functioning vertical hierarchy. According to the norms of this hierarchy, castes lower in status were routinely expected to work for those above them. It is not as if the subaltern castes endorsed the disprivilege and participated willingly in their own exploitation. If the caste system worked, it was mainly because the superiors used coercion quite freely and ruthlessly against the poorer castes. The caste system was ultimately enforced by power and not ideological acquiescence.

In modern India, these then oppressed castes are tagged ‘backward’ only on the basis of their formal educational qualifications, which are generally lower than those of the urban middle class. But we must note that they are numerically not insignificant and economically well-endowed by rural standards. One of the main reasons why political parties indulge in its own breed of backward caste politics.

Corruption in the Indian statehood is directly proportional to the number of policy mishaps and constitutional loopholes. Following the wave, both the administration and the subject in concern turn opportunist and rob instances of mutual discrepancies for individual kinship. And in this case, to smoothen the lower rungs of the society with reference to the higher stratus, a number of derivatives were procured which were less accommodating and more of a tool for repeated both-sided speculation. The cycle brimmed over and now the utopian ‘struggle for equality in India’ is more of a billboard art for the local Communist parties, than a theory under practice.

Samples of modern day discrimination

Even those who know very little about the Naxalite movement know that its central slogan has been ‘land to the tiller’ and that attempts to put the poor in possession of land have defined much of their activity.

Insecurity and exploitation of tenants is a widespread phenomenon, hence tenancy reforms of various kinds have been attempted right from the time of independence. While some States have banned tenancy altogether, some have provided statutory security against eviction, including preferential right of the tenant to purchase the land if the landlord wants to sell it. But instead of improving the lot of tenants, these reforms have only driven tenancy underground.

Indebtedness, also, is one of the chief causes of land alienation and forced labour. Indebtedness among STs (Scheduled Tribes) is particularly widespread on account of food insecurity, no availability of production and consumption credit through public institutions and corruption in the public lending agencies.

Prominent dodges

The enforcement of labour laws has always been tardy after the on-set of economic reforms. It is a matter of common knowledge that officers of the labour departments have unwritten instructions, since the 1990s, not to come in the way of profitable enterprise by insisting ‘too much’ on compliance with labour welfare laws.

The rudderless implementation of the PESA act, albeit partial and perfunctory, faces the first estoppel at the level of defining the ‘village’ that comprises the community, and ‘competence’ of Gram Sabha to manage the affairs of the community in terms of its customs and traditions. Once these ‘features’ are incorporated in the legal frame, the paradigm of administration at the village level would undergo a total transformation, with community at its centre and in a commanding position.

It should be recognized that there are different kinds of movements, and that calling and treating them generally as unrest, a disruption of law and order, is little more than a rationale for suppressing them by force. It is necessary to contextualize the tensions in terms of social, economic and political background and bring back on the agenda the issues of the people – the right to livelihood, the right to life and a dignified and honourable existence.

The determinant

The virus of casteist polarity is being injected with great vengeance even without the supposed ‘help’ of the constitutional and administrative injunctions. Caste awareness has been a notable and deciding factor for many underplayed election victories. Every election accelerates the tempo of the working caste consciousness. Increasing involvement in the political process seems to aggravate caste identification – thereby transforming caste into the dominant entity of partisan politics. In spite of repeated moral embargos, both in theory and practice, the social structure is dark and dismal. Conceptualizing mythical pathos for the mistaken modernities of the statehood is the worst that could happen, and that has taken place already.

Written for The Broadmind