Soulful tunes...

Radio has seen a phenomenal return in India of late, what with the opening up of the airwaves for private players. Television and cinema were threatening to make the once-ubiquitous radio-set an artifact of the past, a relic of antiquity. The private radio stations were a breath of fresh air when they started out, and gave the government’s radio stations a run for their money.

And sadly, now each of these radio stations has become a clone of the other, with doubts about what exactly differentiates one from the other. Each station plays the same songs and sometimes even the same song at the same time. The commentary is sad, slapstick and barely managing to be funny, with the notable exception of Red 93.5, which still has a splendid repertoire of funnies, which are a delight to listen in to between songs.

But the point of this blog is not to lament the opportunity that the Indian radio fraternity gambled away. That is for another time and another mood.

Of late, I have become habituated to listening to broadcasts of the BBC’s Radio 2 station. These broadcasts are available on the site http://www.bbc.co.uk, and are an absolute delight. I have been listening in to two shows, Desmond Carrington’s ‘The Music Goes Round’ (broadcasted every Tuesday evening) and Steve Wright’s ‘Sunday Love Songs’ (broadcasted Sunday morning), and both are absolutely delightful, not just with reference to the songs played but the general feel of the show. There are many songs which I have heard for the first time, and have instantly fallen in love with them, songs which one so doesn't get to hear on radio in India.

The Beeb, as BBC is fondly referred to, has always been a paragon of quality and standards. India's radio fraternity would do well to take some lessons. (Although I think FM Rainbow 107.1 is doing a significantly better job than the rest, much better indeed...)

Will the people stand for this....?

Politics makes strange bedfellows, or so the adage goes. And perhaps no nation’s systems so very exemplify this maxim as India’s. Political outfits which swear by the inimical nature of their interactions at one moment, become the best of buddies in the very next. Sometimes, this change of heart is prompted by ‘national’ interest, sometime by ‘self’ interest, and sometimes because coming together will benefit everyone in the system. It is very rare for the political class to come together for something that will really go to work for the ‘people’, and therefore when they come together, it only bodes ill.

Just a day after the ‘executive’ President of the Shiv Sena, Uddhav Thackeray made a pronouncement that the Congress was the Sena’s enemy number one, the Sena, in a majority in the local Municipal Corporation, managed to get the Congress to join hands and pass through a resolution modifying the status of a huge plot of land from no-development to residential. The plot of land falls under the strict CRZ norms and hence development till now had been hampered by the environmental norms prevalent under the CRZ regime.

Politics and environmental concerns rarely go hand-in-hand, at least not in India. One reason for this could be that there isn’t much awareness about to what extent the environment affects us. And in a place wherein such an issue gets such low importance, it tends to be bartered away for trivial benefits. The benefits per se may not seem trivial, but in the context of what one is giving away, certainly comes out to be very trivial.

The BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation) has decided to de-reserve the aforesaid plot and re-designate it as a residential plot, in lieu of which the developer will construct, as ‘compensation’, primary and secondary schools, playground, a maternity home, a library, and a market. These all may seem good, but are we being bribed here? Are the people being told, “Sure, I am destroying the environment, but am I not building these facilities for you at the same time?”

Mangroves are the natural drains for Mumbai. After the cataclysmic deluge of 27 June 2005, their importance is perhaps even more emphasized, and yet it would seem that neither the State nor private enterprise is neither keen to appreciate this, nor are they ready to do something to ensure that environmental concerns are given a fair hearing before they are haggled away to satisfy developmental requirements. This deal is perhaps yet another breach of trust committed by those who claim to enjoy the mandate of the people, who claim to represent the will of the people. Given a choice between slower development and better safety during such adverse climatic conditions, I am certain that the people of Mumbai would be more in favour of better safety. Any initiative hindering or hampering such a need is clearly against the ‘will’ of the people.

That there were voices of protest against this move is still a good thing, a sign that there are still some representatives who feel for their constituents, for the ‘tired and toiling masses’. It Is only my hope and prayer that this minority become a more vocal and most powerful majority, so as to ensure that at least at the local level, our democracy can truly become ‘by the people, of the people, and for the people’.

Rumble at Raisina Hill....

The office of the President of the Republic of India is seldom seen as one which should cause much consternation amongst candidates or political parties. It is an acknowledged fact that the President reigns but does not rule. His powers are in only in name, but are exercised in right by the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers. Even if every agreement or document issued by the Government of India or the State Governments bears the name of either the President or his representative Governor concerned, it is understood that neither person ever has had any say in the contents of the document itself.

After the cataclysmic Presidential elections of 1969 which would cause the split in the Congress Party, no Presidential election has ever been fought so keenly or in such an inane manner. Never before has a Presidential candidate been termed as a joke on the nation, nor has a candidate offered to step down if the incumbent President be acceptable to everyone.

And in the midst of it all, we have forgotten why the office of the President exists in the first place. The President was meant to supplant the icon of the King or Queen of the British Raj, and was supposed to serve as a unifying figure about which the nation could rally in times of crisis. The Prime Minister may be the Head of the Government, but the President, by virtue of being the Head of the State, was supposed to be an impartial figure that took no sides, but adjudicated in a manner becoming of his office.

It would therefore seem appropriate that the President be a unanimous choice, rather than be seen as a nominee of disparate groups. That in the Republic’s fifty years the President has rarely been a non-partisan figure, with the notable exceptions of Dr. Radhakrishnan and Dr. Zakir Hussain, and the incumbent Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, may speak poorly of the institution per se, but it no ways serves to indicate what is expected of the Presidency by the Constitution.

Mrs. Patil and Mr. Shekhawat are both seen as excellent contenders for Raisina Hill, both having their own supporters and their own detractors. Mrs. Patil’s detractors would have us believe that she would serve as a rubberstamp of the Congress Party and that Mr. Shekhawat is a more independent soul. Mr. Shekhawat, for all his geniality and his popularity across party lines, is termed a communal figure, a divisive individual. I don’t know which is worse. If Mrs. Patil were such a rubberstamp person of the Congress, then she wouldn’t have had a very nice time in Rajasthan where the BJP rules the roost. If Mr. Shekhawat were such a divisive figure, then I fail to comprehend as to why the angst in his case was not exhibited when he was serving as Vice-President.

The Left never did fancy Kalam, a fact that was exhibited in its token opposition in the form of Captain Lakshmi Sehgal’s candidature in 2002. It, being in the prominent position of dictating the course of the UPA government, seems to have effectively scuttled the chances of a man reckoned by many to have done a fine job. And yet, their demand for a women candidate has effectively ended all further discussion on the matter, ending a drama long drawn out. And perhaps rightly so as the thought of a woman as Head of State is an idea whose time has come.

The real issue is that political alliances today, as perhaps always, are about symbolism. Alliances cannot be seen to have lost ground on any front, no matter how insignificant it may seem, to the opposition. They cannot be seen to champion the cause of someone who is perceived as a representative of the opposite camp. And they cannot be perceived to give the throne to someone who might conceivably play into the hands of the ‘enemy’.

Whatever will be the outcome of the election, a new President (or perhaps an old one, given Mr. Kalam's recent statement) may sit in Raisina Hill in July for sure. It is my hope and prayer that he/she be able to deal with the demands of the office in a dignified manner, becoming of the stature of the post.

How doth the Cheshire CAT smile.....?

Enough is enough! Sloth is evil, one of the cardinal sins, and I have sinned as much as can be borne. Now it is time to gather my energies and start my preparations to slay the dragon (not that I am anywhere close to being a knight in shining armor; more like a fool on a donkey). The Cheshire CAT smiles and smiles to Kingdom come, taunting me. It is time I showed it who's the boss, or is it?
November's D-Day, and the weather's going to be rough till then. The seas will be treacherous and my boat is bound to spring many leaks, but there will be no one to assist me, and I can expect no one to assist me either. I don't know how to tie some ropes, how to pull up the sails and to navigate some straits, but there is no Divine Providence waiting to grant me that wisdom; I have to get wise on my own.

Shay was right when he said, "Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember it didn't work for the rabbit." I have neither a rabbit nor rabbit's foot; I hope something works out for me!

An eye for an eye....

I recently saw this feature film, Eye For An Eye (1996), which was basically about how a mother goes about avenging her daughter’s death by stalking the killer and then ultimately killing him. The daughter does not die because of any accident, nor is the killer a doctor whose negligence causes her death. The poor child is brutally raped and subsequently murdered by the demon. And all the time, while her daughter is being violated, the mother is doomed to listen to the entire chaos on the telephone, helpless, unable to help her child.

The film shows how the murderer is identified, but then acquitted on a technicality, something that is so very common in India. And this is what triggers the mother’s desire to see her daughter avenged, to get, in Biblical terms, an eye for an eye.

While the film ends predictably with the murderer killed, and the mother being seen as a victim rather than a perpetrator, I thought to myself that while this is all fine in the realm of imagination, but in reality, none of this ever could happen. Rapists are perhaps the worst of the breed of criminals that the human race can produce. I have always found them to be the most despicable of the criminal world, precisely because of the nature of their crime.

There is no greater offense against mankind, against society, than the one perpetrated by these sexual perverts. They fancy the whole world to be their realm, and the women in it their bonded property, to be used as they fancy, and when they fancy. They care not for the laws that bind people, nor for the niceties that govern societies, nor for the basic humanities which define us as a species (or perhaps not...)

The agony that the victim in this case undergoes is worse than that which a victim of any other crime, save murder, could conceivably undergo. A murderer, in his/her fury, may cut short a life, but a rapist does worse; he cuts short a life without giving the gift of death. A murderer seems humane in comparison to this demon, for he/she at least condescends to release the victim(s) from the pain that is entailed in the wounds that he/she causes.

But this deviant just doesn't wound the body; he wounds the very soul of the victim. He takes a living body, and leaves behind a sentient corpse. An irony, you say? Hardly. And yet, there are some who would plead for them to be treated in a 'humane' manner. I ask of you this, how does one treat these monsters, worse than even animals, for even animals have decency in them, in a manner contrary to their very nature? They ask that they not be hanged; that they be punished by being forced to serve a life sentence.

In India, and perhaps in many other nations, the system envisages a chance of the person reforming. Thereby, each prisoner is then given a chance to maybe show that he has changed for the better, and therefore can be sent back into society. But I submit that there are some who can never reform, who can never turn a new leaf. They are stuck on that same page of Life, and no matter how much the winds of change may blow, they simply refuse to look at life anew. Rapists are the prime examples of this category. And so, a life sentence is impractical.

Humanity is not just meant for the perpetrator. What about the victim and the victim's family? Are they not worthy of the warmth of justice, of the realization that even if their wounds could never be erased completely, that thorn which caused them injury will harm no one ever again? In the film, the mother hears, helplessly, as her daughter calls out for assistance. Imagine what a mother must feel when she looks at her broken daughter. Think of how completely useless the parents must find themselves for their inability to protect their beloved child.

Gandhi may have said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind", but then when one is hurt so grievously, it is hard to remain so dispassionate. If there is a crime worthy of capital punishment, that is rape. Let there be no doubt about that. Let no more women suffer the scourge of such lustful deviants. Their crimes must come to roost, and they must realize that the law will penalize them, in a manner becoming of their horrendous crime.

General....

It has been a turbulent fortnight for India, what with the reservation-related chaos in Rajasthan and the sectarian violence in Punjab. Matters weren’t that good when China decided to act like the good neighbour and start harping about its claim to the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. West Bengal is just about quiet after nearly two months of turmoil, and the rest of the country is still reeling from the shock of Mademoiselle Mayawati’s victory in Uttar Pradesh.

And in all this, one fact is coming to fore, and that is that India’s democracy is facing its toughest test. On one hand, protestors in Rajasthan and Punjab chose to disregard the authority of the State and take matters into their own hand. Their wanton disrespect for the basic civilities perhaps ensured that matters got so out of hand that a civilized discussion was simply out of the question.

And on the other hand, Ms. Mayawati’s victory illustrated that while dynasties may rock the presses, appeasement may satiate some appetites, and communalism may enflame some hearts, in the hearts of the Indian people, there still is some amount of self-pride, a desire to show the political class that it is they, the people, who decide the fate of the politicians and not vice versa. In her victory, one saw the complete obliteration of the presumption that hitherto inimical communes cannot come to terms with each other and strike out at those whom they see to harm their common interests.

Rajasthan and Punjab were a shocking example of the abdication by the State of its duties and responsibilities, of its reluctance to act out against those who dare to violate the laws of the land. That this is no new feature of India’s democratic system is no justification; every example of such perfidy must be deplored, be it committed by any political outfit.

India is being listed as one of the least likely places where one may come to expect peace. They may be slightly wrong here. Things are bad, sure, but they aren’t as bad as they are made out to be. And yet, if not contained, the state of affairs could spiral into something unmanageable, something that we, the people, can little afford.