DALIT NIGHTS AND PEEPLI LIVE

It's not just Rahul Gandhi who is attempting to learn about India at an age that he should have been running it. Babus too are beginning to do so, rather late in the day, theirs as well as India's. Will others follow suit? Is this the dawn of a new hope for India's poor?

Rahul's exclusive education is, of course, costing India a bomb. His sanitised one night stands in dalit homes and similar outstation on-the-job classes cost a crore rupees a day. All because when he should have been been learning about India free of cost, he was cocooned and had his gaze fixed to the West, where he headed after college, and where stayed so long that India forgot about him. But Mummy remembered. And now the country is paying for his real education only because the dynast has to made somewhat capable of exercising his birth right to rule this country, no matter what the cost, no matter how long it takes.

So what if there is no evidence yet that thousands of crore rupees later, he has had even one serious Eureka moment or that he has learnt something that has opened his eyes to see how badly the all-knowing Indian elite has failed India's millions criminally, that has got him to speak practically about and put in place political, governance and administrative structures that work for them, not their oppressors. All that he seems to have learnt so far is that elections can be won if more tax payers' money is pumped through the same sieves that have been deliberately designed to ensure that little reaches whom it should.

Now, India can't afford to spend so much to educate lesser mortals. That's probably why other politicians and bureaucrats prefer to discover India and what Indians want, families in tow, in London, New York and Paris, rather than in Dantewada, Imphal and Machchal. Dangerous places, you see. In any case, what can sub-humans teach them, the well-educated who know all about art, culture, philosophy, economics, democracy, governance, and, above all, freedom? What can be there for them to learn about and from India when they have already concluded that everything that India needs to learn is from them and the West? So what if China next door has already started teaching the West once again? That's no place to go to for a holiday; the Chinese can't even speak English.

Unfortunately for some of them, Peepli Live, a Bollywood film nominated as India's entry for the Oscars, has put on global display India's ugly, hidden warts that they didn't want to open their eyes to, that for them are little more than irritating, inanimate statistics, to be hastily buried in the glamorous ones about the scorching growth rate, Indian billionaires sprouting explosively, the unexpected mobile revolution that has overtaken India despite them, the growing English-speaking middle class that is culturally more at home in Palm Beach than Palwal. And it is forcing some of them do what nothing could for decades.

Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission is one of those who have discovered how useful this Bollywood flick is: "The movie talks about the perception of people on development programs. Hence we thought this will be quite useful for Planning Commission officers." The finance ministry is also likely to arrange a screening of the film for its officials. More ministries and departments will soon follow for sure.

Wow! Isn't it great that just before they take the next flight to Frankfurt and Rome via Tokyo, to get fresh insights into the problems faced by poor Indians, and find solutions for pulling them out of the pit they have been stuck in for so long, our officials are actually going to take a real look at the mess they have made? So what if it is in the comfort of Lutyen's Delhi? So what it is only on a screen? Let's not be cynical. They are taking full two hours out of their precious time for the forever neglected Natha who has become the superstar of the moment. Do they really need to go to Peepli and spend even two unlivable days in a real village to know what they have always known? In any case, can anyone learn in two hours or two days, even if they really want to, what Rahul has not been able to learn in a decade?

Be realistic guys. A Mahatma Gandhi comes along only once in a millennium. And wasn't he a terrible dad? What did he do for his family and and leave for it save a pair of wooden sandals and a couple of other worthless items? But for boring rituals that have to be endured twice a year, does anyone give a shit about him? Had he been sensible, would another dynasty sporting the same name have been ruling India today? Wouldn't his descendants have been talking about merit and modernity even as they were sneaking into St Stephen's College through cooked up quotas? Naked fakir as India's 21st century leader? You are out of sync.

The poor can wait some more. What's the big hurry? They should be grateful that some droppings will eventually 'trickle down' to them, no matter how hard people try to catch them en route. Things can't happen overnight; files don't fly you know. Rahul's Dalit Nights have not been able to put them on the runway; Peepli Live is not going to give them wings.

Related reading: Natha needs Deng not democracy

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AYODHYA: A MATTER OF FAITH

A matter of faith is going to be decided by a court tomorrow. There is tension in the air. There is fear that a polarisation of the sort that took place before and after the Babri Masjid structure was brought down may take place again and lead to communal violence. There are some who believe India -- read Hindus -- has moved on and the idea of a Ram Temple will not catch the imagination of Hindus again. Others, on both sides of the divide, continue to stick to their known positions.

Ram is faith, as is Allah. In matters of faith there never can be historical evidence or proof of the sort that courts of mortals require to adjudicate. Allah and Ram are real and living for those who believe and mythical for those who don't. Allah revealed Himself to the Prophet through an angel no one else saw or heard. Ram similarly revealed Himself to Valmiki, a dacoit who became a saint after much penance. That is the belief of their followers. They do not need any 'proof' of their existence.

Talking of Ayodhya, the town of today, it is worth repeating that it is the place where Hindus have believed since before history that Ram was born and where the capital of His kingdom was. That is why it is a town of temples old and new. Anyone who has been there would have noticed that the Babri Masjid stood in the middle of virtually an ocean of temples. It was, to say the least, incongruous. Almost ever since it was raised in 1528, Hindus have been saying that it was built over a temple at the spot that is most revered by most of them as the birthplace of Ram, and demanding that the place be given back to them. The BJP/RSS/VHP had nothing to do with the Ram Janmabhoomi movement till a few decades back.

In my view, whatever be the verdict of the court, there is little fear of any outbreak of violence or re-polarisation at this point of time. It is not because Hindus have 'moved on' or because the Muslims have softened their stance in any manner. I don't remember who it was who said that the destruction of the Babri Masjid destroyed Advani's movement but I believe he got it spot on. The galvanisation that took place then was to have the masjid moved so that a temple could be built. Effectively that has happened though not in the manner it could and should have. Lest we forget, the movement was not anti-Muslim or anti-mosques. It acquired some anti-Muslim overtones because Hindus believed that Muslim leaders were being unreasonably intransigent and insensitive to their faith.

Have Muslims moved on, or even an inch? No one is asking that question because everyone knows the answer. And as always 'secular' Hindus are not contesting or questioning their position; they are manifestly more worried about appearing to be on the same side as the BJP than anything else. For inexplicable reasons, for them Hindus and the Sangh parivar have become synonymous. Perhaps this has something to do with the Congress strategy of 'turning Muslim' only because that gets the electoral arithmetic right, perhaps it is because they have convinced the party to put its eggs in that basket. Be that as it may, this winning strategy that has effectively bludgeoned the Hindu voice is not going to be the dousing path that some believe it will be. It is only going to widen the gulf over the long run and could lead to unexpected, unprecedented communal violence.

It requires two to move on, you can't have one moving in as the other moves on and not get a serious blow back at some point of time. May be I am missing something but while many Hindus, including those who I like to call non-Hindus and anti-Hindu Hindus, are calling for Hindus to yield, with reasoning that stretches from the sensible to the scandalous, I have not heard one Muslim of any standing asking Muslims to show magnanimity and respect Hindu sentiments. No one is telling them to not pitch for a mosque constructed by conquerors who destroyed many structures of other faiths, including the famous Nalanda University nearby and, as many believe, built mosques over many of them not as symbols of faith but of conquest, of subjugation.

I wish Muslims liberals and intellectuals who want the rest the world to allow a mosque to come up at the site of a building wasted by the 9/11 attack could show the same sensitivity and respect towards the faith and feelings of Hindus. But they won't because, exceptions apart, it appears that they are fine with Islam's distortion into a supremist, political religion that is designed to grab space, not cede any gracefully to others, even in a multi-religious setting. That is why an increasing number of people have come to conclude, wrongly or rightly, that there is a underlying unity of belief between them and the Taliban who, only a few years -- not five hundred -- back, blasted the Bamian Buddhas out of existence even though they all converted from Buddhism centuries ago and even though there are no Buddhists left in Afghanistan.

As of now, the reality is that the masjid structure has gone and a functional temple is in place at the Janmasthan. Construction of a bigger temple there in a hurry is not an issue that is going to energise a people who have enormous tolerance and patience, qualities that have enabled them to survive and outlast all other civilisations of the world.

What is it, then, that can reignite the electric energy that the BJP once exploited politically at the expense of a Congress that then clumsily tried to play both sides and that is now foolishly playing one alone?

It is only when law steps into and over the domain of faith that the unpredictable that everyone is wishing away will happen. And that will be when and if the Supreme Court passes a final order giving right of the disputed property to Muslims, clearing the way for the building of a new masjid. It is at that point of time that the demands for removing the idols of Ram Lalla will acquire the teeth they lack now. That is the time when many home truths will come tumbling out to haunt dishonest coots who are making light of faith today and are mouthing preposterous suggestions that are politically convenient at this point of time.

The sooner we get it into our heads that neither can the idols be removed nor can another mosque be constructed at the Janmasthan the better. Rajiv Gandhi, I believe, understood the dynamics better than his family does now, if it has even tried to. That is why he allowed the gates of the masjid to be opened and the shilanyas of the temple to be done. Had he been around, I have little doubt that an amicable solution would have been found and the Congress would not have lost the ground it did. The BJP would have still been struggling to get more than a handful of seats in Parliament and communal passions that led to so many deaths subsequently would have been avoided. That chance was lost. One more is coming up.

One can only hope that after the verdict of the High Court is received, India's politicians and Hindu and Muslim religious leaders will sit together and hammer out a solution that reflects due respect to the faith of Hindus as well as the dignity of Muslims. That can happen only if no one tries to squeeze political milk out of it. That milk, as Guru Nanak once demonstrated in another but related context, will be only be red in colour.

THE MORE RAHUL'S CONGRESS CHANGES, THE MORE IT'S THE SAME

"The more it changes, the more it's the same thing." When Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote these words, he did not know that more than a hundred years later in far away India the Congress party would prove him right. When a fresh, dimpled Rahul Gandhi presented himself to the nation as the voice of the youth, the face of a new, modern and truly democratic India -- "My aim is to change how politics is done, we want to take it to the politics of the future" -- there was great hope that the old, creaking Congress would finally change. Today no one, not even Rahul, talks about change.

The future of the Congress is locked in its past, its dynastic past. Nothing else defines the Congress anymore. No ideology, no objective save power which it believes only the dynasty can deliver. Inner-party democracy, the one big change that Rahul Gandhi promised when he returned to India after years abroad, is more dead than ever but no one in the Congress can raise a voice.

The grip of the dynasty is now stronger than it ever was, perhaps even more than during the Emergency. Then it was fear at work, now it is greed.

No one, it seems, is surprised or dismayed by the fact that Rahul's mother has managed to re-elected herself unopposed as the President of the Congress party for a record fourth term and that she has already been in that post longer than anyone in the GOP ever was. When there is stifling autocracy at the head, can there be democracy in the body?

A few months back, state units of the Congress in Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Meghalaya unanimously asked Sonia Gandhi to nominate office bearers, including state chiefs. Maharashtra has now gone even a step further by asking her to pick even city heads. In Madhya Pradesh, most of the 502 PCC delegates elected are from prominent regional camps and the "list teems with the wives, sons, nephews, brothers and brothers-in- law of prominent party leaders." Rahul Gandhi, on his part, has left no one in any doubt that no inner party democracy, except at inconsequential levels, is to be experimented with: his micro-management of party affairs has led him to personally pick candidates even for the Delhi University Student Union Elections. Let us not even go into many other cases where he has directly chosen state level leaders solely on the basis of loyalty to the dynasty, and political lineage.

The signs that Rahul Gandhi had no clear idea of how he was going to replace the old politics of patronage with that of empowerment were always there, but the media threw a blanket over them. When all that he could achieve was holding of elections at the level of secretary of local units, no one asked why there were no debates on policy and ideology that would guide the party of the youth in the 21st century When he said "What I'm trying to do is create through the Youth Congress and NSUI thousands of Obamas running around in this country," as if Obama was an assembly line mass product, the media hailed him as India's Obama instead of questioning his intelligence. When he once betrayed his shocking grasp by saying that terrorism could defeated in fifteen minutes by empowering villagers, there were no gasps of horror or follow-up questions to gauge the depth of his ignorance.

For obvious reasons, no one has had the guts ever since to ask what views he has on the burning issues that he will have to grapple with once he gets to Chair That Matters. On his part, he keeps harping about the achievements of his ancestors to the exclusion of all other leaders of the Congress and has, of late, even started taking their socialist ideological language, drawing much praise from Maoist supporter Arundhati Roy. The flag bearer of the new generation now dons the garb of the humble sipahi who will protect tribals and, as a consequence India, from the bad boys who talk development and progress. More are sure to follow.

In short, no one is privy to his views, much less his vision, on any subject. In fact, more than a decade after he joined active politics, no one knows if he has any to share with India. To make matters worse, no one knows even where Sonia Gandhi stands on critical national issues. All that the we can see is that mother and son are enjoying absolute power without even the pretence of responsibility or accountability. If the government screws up, they express their imperial annoyance and displeasure; if it does well, they appropriate the credit and an obliging media sells it as their achievement.

The wine is the same, the bottle that looks new is of the same lot and the objective remains unchanged. Harish Khare, media advisor of the Prime Minister, says of the Congress -- now defined by and wholly dependent on the dynasty -- that it is a "status quoist" party that "doesn’t believe in convictions. Its only conviction is how to win elections." Power -- plus the pelf that comes with it -- is the sole driver.

That is why no change is possible. That is why, in addition to murdering even the semblance of democracy within the party in so far as the dynasty is concerned, the Congress has got, as Khare puts it, too many camels into its tent. That is why caste is back; that is why reservations, this time for Muslims, are back; that is why the Women's Reservation Bill that will even further empower a few hundred political gharanas is so close to Sonia's heart; that is why the fissiparous and explosive strategy of banking almost wholly on Muslim and anti-Hindu Hindu votes is being pursued with fatalistic vigour.

The more Rahul's Congress changes, the more it's the same thing. The way it is going, fifty years down the line the only thing that will change is the colour of the hair of dynastic leaders who are young today.

MUSLIMS AND HINDUS, THE GOOD GUYS AND THE BAD

A couple of years back, a friend of mine was looking for a tenant for his flat. A property dealer rang him up to say that he had a 'party' that was willing to pay twice the going rate. Intrigued by this unexpected offer, coming as it was from three students, he asked about their backgrounds. The answer was not surprising: they were from the Valley.

His answer was immediate and negative. Was it because they were Muslims, I asked? No, he said, and I believe him, he would have given the same reply had they been Hindus or Sikhs whose parents were still in the Valley. He simply did not want to risk getting involved in any anti-national activity, willing or coerced. The boys might have been perfectly innocent, but he had no way of knowing that. And the sweetened deal, which would have been made even sweeter, was not going to tempt him to make himself vulnerable to all kinds of avoidable complications and troubles.

Unfortunately, our English media, populated by numerous rootless wonders, have been running programs and publishing columns on how Muslims are being unfairly discriminated against in cities and towns when it comes, among other things, to letting houses and flats. The villains, as you would have have guessed by now, are primarily Hindus like my friend and, by extension, me. We and our religion, according to these preachers of a modernity that is disconnected to and, in many cases in denial of, historical and contemporary societal dynamics, are standing in the way of India becoming a truly secular nation and the society becoming genuinely cosmopolitan, the kind they want their kids to grow up in, the kind in which kids of the three Khans of Bollywood are going to grow up.

In this perfect KJo film world of theirs, India's Muslims are the secular and progressive guys and Hindus who have not broken free of their dirty religion are the communal and regressive goons who are anti-Muslim, anti-change, anti-secular.

A couple of days back, Rajdeep Sardesai's CNN IBN telecast yet another sting operation whose prime objective could only have been to incite hatred in Muslims against Hindus and to convince impressionable deracinated Hindus, many of whom will never personally experience a difficult Hindu-Muslim situation in their lives, that ordinary Hindus detest Muslims and do not want to socially engage with them for no real reason except hate. It showed that they do not let flats to Muslims in Mumbai and are, thus, most guilty of ghettoising urban India.

As if on cue, Shobhaa De followed it up with a column today about how Muslims are being denied admission into colleges of repute in the city, two years after 26/11. The city -- read Hindus -- is marginalising Muslims, she says, adding helpfully that it is a fact that everybody knows but nobody talks about. Though she rightly concludes that we must not forget 26/11 which was the handiwork of hardcore terrorists, she too blames Hindus for "killing the spirit of innocence" of young Muslims.

Can it be anybody's case that a community can remain completely insulated from the actions of a few, particularly when there is a long history that dishonest historians want people to forget but which gets transmitted, as it has for thousands of years, from generation to generation? Can anyone claim that ordinary citizens are blind to the legacy of India's Partition that is awakened every time there is a terror attack by terrorists who recall the religious divide that led to it? Can anyone believe that ordinary people are unaware of what is happening in Kashmir?

When the Khalistani movement was at its peak, people were afraid to let out their houses to Sikhs. This was despite the fact that there had never been any animosity or hatred between Hindus and Sikhs ever. All that has been forgotten because post that unfortunate phase, Sikhs have not built walls around themselves or done anything that may fracture social relations. Their distinct religious identity does not come in the way of their being socially secular and more progressive than most other Indians. Can the same be honestly said about Muslims who chose a secular India over Pakistan after Partition?

Who is really marginalising Muslims in India? Is it the Hindus or is it Muslim religious and political leaders who are deliberately, sometimes provocatively, widening the social and political gap between them and Indians professing other faiths? What is Zakir Naik effectively achieving under the garb of teaching Islam? Is not the Deoband seminary guided Jamiat-Ulama-I-Hind attempting to effectively quarantine India's Muslims, to make them secede from India socially, and by natural progression, politically in the long run? Is SIMI not already engaged in the pursuit of that long-term objective, an Islamic state in India, directly and through its sword arm, the Indian Mujahideen? Does anyone need night vision goggles to see what Deoband-inspired ideology has already done to Pakistan, what Pakistan in turn is threatening to do to India by cleverly inciting Indian Muslims?

Why, then, are the dangers of marginalisation seen by those cocooned in Pali Hill only when the rest of the society tries to protect its way of life and even itself from real danger, but not when Muslim leaders and organisations build bigger walls in the name of religion to abdicate their responsibility to adjust to a multi-religious society? Why are Hindus always shown to be the bad guys and Muslims the aggrieved, helpless minority? Why is it that no one has made any attempt to address the unshakable belief of Mumbaikars that powerful locals and politicians were involved in 26/11, or to assuage their fear that terrorists will strike again? Is the marginalisation of Muslims in Gujarat going to be reduced or increased by endlessly blaming Narendra Modi and Hindus for the riots that followed the burning of the rail coach carrying Kar Sevaks at Godhra?

Fear of Muslim reaction only partly explains the pusillanimity of the so-called secular elite. It is also apparent that some distinguished members of this club have lost touch with much of their own selves and reality, past and present, and live in another world. That is one reason why they are unknowingly setting the stage for unprecedented violence by fanning -- and that too from the wrong direction -- completely avoidable communal hatred and intolerance while pretending to do the opposite.

Somehow they seem to have convinced themselves that being anti-Hindu is a prerequisite for being pro-Muslim and modern. This is the disastrous formula they are using to dampen the spirit, the confidence, the belief of those who have not yet lost their memories, their pride and their connect with the soul of the living religion of their ancient land, and turn them into a defeated people and their religion into a joke that befits being followed only by inferior and unintelligent people who belong to medieval times.

Perhaps in their hearts some of them know that this is a fundamentally illogical stance. But they continue to pursue it possibly because they believe it is this that has driven Muslims into the lap of the Congress and also pulled impressionable, rootless Hindus to it out of disgust for their religion and co-religionists. They have also manifestly convinced the even more rootless Congress dynastic leadership, or the other way round, that this is a winning formula at the electoral box office, one that has delivered two consecutive hits, one that is fail-proof, given the arithmetic of the electorate. The fruit that it has yielded to them is too sweet to let go.

So, bad guys, if you really want to get rid of the black mark that you are being stamped with relentlessly and save India from the cauldron into which it is being pushed, there is much you need to do. But all will come to naught unless you find a way to beat the arithmetic.

Related reading: For the today of a few, the tomorrow of India
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AFSPA OR TERROR 2?

In 2008, voters came out in large numbers in the Valley, defying calls given by pro-Pakistan separatists to boycott the elections. Why did they do so? Because they felt they safely could: there was a near total absence of terrorist violence and, unlike during previous elections, no threats were issued by either the LeT or the HM. Many believe that both kept mum because their ability to enforce a ban through use of force had been significantly eroded. And the ordinary Kashmiri knew it well enough to muster courage to go out and cast his vote. No wonder pro-Pakistan hardliner Syed Shah Gilani, stung by the surprise, could do no more than than say that voting figures were artificially inflated by bogus voting and invisible pressure of security forces.

It is a no-brainer that Gilani's Pakistani masters would have been even more deeply disturbed by this unacceptable normalisation of the situation that, more than anything, signaled an important shift in public opinion away from a failing Pakistan. Were Pakistan's generals going to just sit back and let Kashmir slip out of their fingers? Were they expected to simply shrug off their defeat and let the blood that runs in their veins just flow out of their body?

A strident Pakistani response to reclaim Kashmir should have been anticipated by India. Perhaps it was too. But, a clever enemy that is driven by a congenital 'junoon', hit where and when few expected it to. The military mind that was strategising the counter offensive yet again achieved what is central to success in any military operation: complete surprise.

Just before the tornado of stones hit an unsuspecting India in May this year, there was much complacency. Absence of violence and influx of a record number of tourists made many analysts who know Kashmir inside-out claim that the tide had turned, that India had almost won the war against Pakistan, that the people of the Valley had turned their backs on that nation. They were as right then as they are now about the anger of tormented youths who have grown up under the shadow of the gun.

It is presumptuous, if not downright unintelligent, of those who fly into the Valley for what are essentially well-protected and by now well rehearsed conducted tours for a couple of days to claim that they understand the dynamics better than those who serve and live there on a full-time basis for years, and professionals who have intelligence and operational inputs that are not available in the public domain. It is because of this Molotov cocktail of arrogance, ignorance and focus on the moment rather than the continuum that the whole debate about Kashmir has got largely deflected from the essentials.

In the last few months, 70 precious lives have been lost due to firing on stone pelters and arsonists in a few towns in the Valley. Deaths of ordinary citizens pain every one, more so soft, emotional Indians who are easily swayed by suffering. The deaths, not surprisingly, have become central to the argument designed to deflect India's attention away from core issues behind the intifada and pressurise what is widely perceived to be weak, confused and vote-bank driven Indian government into making concessions that, on the face of it, appear somewhat justified.

Consider this: all protesters have been killed in firing by the state police and CRPF. Not one has been killed by the Army. Lt Gen HS Panag, former GOC-in-C of Northern Command, under whose watch the whole state was, tells us that the Army has not opened fire on protestors for the last 20 years and that for the last 10 years the Army has not operated in any city. The police are responsible for maintaining law and order in all cities and they have been given additional powers under that Public Safety Act(PSA) and the Disturbed Areas Act(DAA). This means that none of those teenagers who have been pushed into the streets of a few towns including Srinagar have ever seen the Army firing in and around their localities and killing people.

Yet, other than the calls for 'Azadi' that translated, as they had to, into the hoisting of Pakistan's flag in Lal Chowk on Eid in the presence of the 'moderate' separatist leader Umer Farooq, what is the most strident demand being made by protestors and separatists undoubtedly at the behest of their leaders some of whom are no more than couriers delivering fiats received from their masters and handlers in Pakistan? Remove the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from all of Kashmir. Some mainstream politicians too have jumped onto this bandwagon, if not anything else, out of fear of getting isolated.

Odd isn't it that no one is asking for removal of the PSA and DAA that enables the police to carry out what Pankaj Mishra, in an op-ed in the New York Times, calls "brutal suppression of non-violent protests"? Even more odd isn’t it that an isolated fake encounter by the Army in remote Machchal is being blown out of all proportions by Kashmiri separatists and some Indian analysts who possibly consider it their moral duty to not only believe what separatists say but also amplify it with eloquence -- rather than filter it with elementary commonsense -- to demand from every possible forum that the 'draconian' AFSPA should be withdrawn?

Let us ask two basic questions. Why has terrorism almost disappeared from the Valley? Has the situation really changed as much as we are being led to believe?

Terrorists are on the retreat in the Valley and the LeT and HM no longer pose the combat threat that they once did. This has happened primarily because the Indian Army has relentlessly fought them for 20 years and has all but defeated and demoralised them. The fight has been bloody, with as many as 5962 soldiers killed by terrorists in J&K between 1988 and July 05, 2010. This success, at a heavy price, would not have been possible without the AFSPA. For those who may not know, the AFSPA entitles soldiers to execute military operations against armed insurgents on its own, including carrying out cordon and search of suspected militant hideouts, and opening fire as per their military judgment, without awaiting a written request from or the presence of a magistrate. It also provides legal protection to soldiers carrying out tasks assigned to them by the government which calls them in only when all other instruments available to the state to deal with a situation have failed.

Of course, there are those who are propagating the myth that terrorism has almost evaporated from the Valley because the international climate has turned against the use of violence. Some believe that Pakistan has temporarily eased off the pressure in Kashmir because of the pressure and presence of the US in its backyard. B Raman, a former RAW officer, is of the view that although Pakistan is continuing to infiltrate terrorists into J&K, it has brought down the "level of their acts of terrorism so that any escalation does not come in the way of the confidence-building process going on between the two countries as a result of initiatives taken" by the governments of India and Pakistan. No one in India, it seems, thinks that the Indian Army has anything substantial to do with it!

There can be no better barometer of a situation than the reaction of the enemy, if one can look through the smoke that he always generates to mask it. In my view, Pakistan's generals have paid rich compliments to the Indian Army for the success that it has achieved in the Valley but, in the din created by the pelting of stones, no one in India has noticed.

In response to the success of the elections in 2008 that jolted them -- don’t buy the latest spin that they were for local governance only -- had Pakistan's generals been in a position to re-crank terror, they would have not hesitated to do so. If they can brazenly play what Matt Waldman calls "a double-game of astonishing duplicity" with the US in Afghanistan by appearing to be fighting on its side while using the Taliban to defeat it, if they can tell the US to lay off saying "Kashmir is ours", can anyone believe that they will willingly exercise restraint against India?

It is because Pakistan could not reactivate Kalashnikov bearing fighters in Kashmir in substantial numbers and was convinced that this time they would be put out even faster, that it was forced to change strategy to send a loud message to Indians, including Kashmiris, that it was not throwing in the towel so easily. Developing and fine-tuning it took some time and, at the perfect moment, the stones surfaced and hit a surprised India. Former Army Chief General Shankar Roychowdhury says that the latest protests in the Valley are "too precise and calibrated to be anything but enemy action." Lt Gen HS Panag, who should know a thing or two more than frequent-flyer analysts, tweets: "Intifada is a carefully calibrated strategy of ISI & separatists & not repeat not pent up frustration of "the tormented generation" and that "we have fallen into the trap."

The real trap is perhaps not the intifada; it is what Pakistan hope to achieve through it. I don't believe that Pakistan's generals have the patience -- or trust Kashmiris enough -- to put all their eggs in the intifada basket. Pakistan is not a weak Palestine. For it, intifada is an inferior and temporary tool of necessity. That is why relentless, emotive pressure is being exerted to get the government to lift the AFSPA from the entire Valley. Sections of the government have, as per media reports, already fallen into this trap. Some just want to get rid of the problem of the moment by partially withdrawing it from some districts, including Srinagar, where the maximum fire is raging, and Ganderbal, in the Valley. The logic is that situation is now normal.

Is the situation really normal? Has infiltration stopped? Has Pakistan given up its claim on Kashmir? Has it stopped using the LeT etc as instruments of the state to achieve its objective of liberating Kashmir by force? Are the security forces in the valley operating "with an expansive mandate that is not commensurate with military necessity" as "General" S Varadarajan has concluded?

The situation looks normal because the Army has brought it under control and is working 24/7 to ensure it remains so, with more than 1000 small teams out at any given point of time, and troops guarding the LoC too. As Lt Gen Raghavan brought out in a TV show, the moment AFSPA is lifted in the whole Valley or even any part of it, within weeks terrorists will regroup and reorganise, like it happened in the North East. Pakistan also knows that once they lift AFSPA, India's leaders will not have the guts to reimpose it till the situation gets out of hand. That is what it wants!

Let us not forget that the normalcy that AFSPA has helped restore has benefited Kashmiris the most. This urban stone-pelting generation does not know what it is to sleep with the sound of bullets flying through the night and live with the smell of danger and death at every turn. How can such a generation ask on its own for the removal of an Act which has never impacted their daily lives?

Pakistan wants AFSPA out. Mere talks, it has learnt from experience, won't get it anywhere. Force, it has realised, is not something that India's leaders can either withstand or repel. It wants, therefore, to take terror to a new level, better integrated and in tandem with indigenous uprising, to get India to give more and more till nothing is left to give. For re-building capacity that takes time, a relatively safe sanctuary is required, the kind Kashmir was before AFSPA was imposed. Remember, there are no walls between districts in the Valley and no demographic differences. So, if AFSPA is lifted in even a couple of districts, it will suffice. And, as the intifada has shown, we will not get a whiff of what is happening till terror strikes again, new, improved, lethal.

India has a choice to make: AFSPA or Terror 2?

FOR THE TODAY OF A FEW, THE TOMORROW OF INDIA

After weeks of anti-India protests by stone pelters seeking secession from India, Pakistan's flag was hoisted at Lal Chowk in Srinagar by followers of the so-called 'moderate separatist' leader, Umer Farooq, the Mirwaiz -- chief preacher -- of ethnic Kashmiri Sunni Muslims, on Eid in full view of the Indian media. During the same period, a solitary pastor in the United States threatened that he would burn the Holy Quran on the same day which also happened to be America's 9/11. He was, however, persuaded from doing so and publicly made an announcement to the effect too a couple of days in advance.

How did the entire Indian visual media and almost the whole national print media cover both these developments?

The 'spontaneous' protests that broke out in a few towns in the Valley in May were marked by organised stone throwing on the police and burning of government property. The Indian media however, led unsuspecting Indians to believe that this was a secular outburst of a tormented generation fed up of the excesses of security forces and that they had to be assuaged by generating better job opportunities and by measures that would improve the quality of their life. Barring a few informed and educated analysts and professionals whose voices were quickly drowned out, no one was willing to accept that the intifada was being masterminded and executed with precision by Pakistan's ISI and its agents in the Valley.

In fact some almost seditious TV starlets crossed many red lines in justifying, propagating and inciting anti-India hatred and were quick to dishonestly and deviously bury suggestions that behind the histrionics and the fake facades, this was a new and far more internationally palatable show of strength by Pakistan that demonstrated its unshakeable resolve to sever Kashmir from India. No one was prepared to accept that having closely watched how India's weak, aversive-to use-of-force and strategy-blind leaders had been rattled after Kargil and, more recently, 26/11, Pakistan's real leaders had concluded that if more pressure was applied, it was only a question of time before they would capitulate, enabling Pakistan to take the war to another level, just short of the very high Indian threshold for full-scale hostilities.

The hoisting of Pakistan's flag was India's moment to show to the whole world that Pakistan was the mischief-maker and also substantiate earlier reports that the leaders of the stone throwers were being controlled from Pakistan, that many were being paid to throw stones, that small children were being deliberately brought into the line of fire, in some cases even carried on shoulders, to fulfill daily 'martyr' targets laid down by Pakistani handlers orchestrating the sordid drama. In one visual stroke, the lie of those who were made/paid to say that their 'struggle' was not communal and that they wanted Kashmiri Pandits whom they had thrown out two decades back to return to the Valley would have also been nailed. Any other country would have milked such a event to death to its advantage. But not India.

The threat of the pastor in faraway America was, however, not subjected to any censorship or governmental guidance. It was liberally aired and written about by the media almost every day. The pastor was rightly criticised but his threat was skillfully juxtaposed with the mounting opposition to the Ground Zero mosque with visuals that provided enough material needed by extremist leaders to incite angry and misguided Muslims to kill, and the less extreme to unleash arson and violence. The lack of restraint showed that either no lessons had been learnt from the Taslima Nasreen and the Danish cartoon cases or that it was being covered to give a subtle but clear political message to Indian Muslims.

And what has been the result? Even though the pastor changed his mind a few days back, Muslims in the Valley have gone on rampage, burning Christian Missionary schools and public property today, two days after. We are being asked to believe that they have done so because they were led to believe that the pastor had actually burned the Quran. Do you buy that argument? Are you in any doubt about how the media will paper it over?

Why did India's media so cover the pastor, knowing fully well that the situation would get explosive, that violence would invariably break out had he carried out his threat? Why was the flag hoisting incident blacked out as if it did not occur at all?

The answer lies hidden in the reply given by Rajdeep Sardesai to a question about the latter on Twitter. Sardesai, not surprisingly, gave a very morally correct reply, but in the process unknowingly let the cat out of the bag: "is the aim of a channel to exercise restraint, or to inflame passions?"

What appears to be the government's fiat to the media is unambiguous and can be even said to be exemplary. But, if you dig a bit deeper and factor in the incidents and cases in which the media has thrown restraint to the dogs without a thought and wantonly fanned inflammation of passions, the last two words that Sardesai did not utter start will start ringing loudly.

The simple truth, as it appears to me, is that the principal ruling party is petrified of anything, just anything, that might rouse the dead passions of Hindus and bring them together. The fear is not that violence may follow, nor is there a worry that the society will get fractured along religious lines. The dread is that if the Hindu vote gets consolidated and a larger percentage of Hindus start voting as a block, the Congress party's one-basket strategy of relying on the 16% bank of Muslim votes to defeat the huge but hopelessly divided Hindu vote will come to naught and electoral defeat will clutch it, possibly for good.

If you ponder for a moment and reflect on how the media has sanitised, if not sweetened, every development, no matter how serious, that shows Muslims, Indian or Pakistani, in a negative, communal, intolerant, extremist light, this aim becomes clear. Now do the same for Hindus and recollect how similar incidents, no matter how insignificant, that show them and sometimes even their religion in terrible light are blown beyond all proportions negatively. What is the aim here? This is the flip side. This is to ensure that a sufficient number of Hindus continue to vote for the Congress not because it is going to do anything for them but by deviously convincing them that by voting against it they will encourage communalism, religious intolerance and hatred against peace-loving and secular non-Hindus.

That is why Pakistan's flag being hoisted in Srinagar cannot be shown.. That is why the media and elements in the government can go to the unimaginable extent of blaming and cutting the hands of the very Army whose sacrifices have brought terrorism under some control in the Valley for India as well as ordinary Kashmiri Muslims. India's soldiers can be faulted and condemned for a few transgressions but not the ones who have been trained to kill them, not the nation that has for 60 years planned and executed only death and destruction in the Valley and the rest of India. Policemen can keep getting injured and dying unsung saving the state whose rulers have sent them into that hot pit, but the tears of India's real anti-nationals are only for those who get killed by them, no matter that they are striking at the very idea, the very foundation of India, no matter that they are being employed as soldiers by Pakistan in the latest phase of a war that it has been waging against a secular India for decades.

A responsive, nation-first government would have gone to every length to ensure that the whole of India saw that Pakistani flag in Srinagar. It would have roused the passions of every Indian, to give an emphatic message to Pakistan and its lackeys in the Valley that Indians are one against its aggression and that it will be made to pay a price if it continues to wage war against them; it would have told communal separatist Muslim leaders of the Valley that Indians will not accept the crossing of unacceptable lines by them; it would have given confidence to the men fighting for India there that their nation is with and behind them.

But, no, this ruling dispensation is manifestly guided by the effect it thinks its actions will have on its chances to retain political power in Delhi and grab it in states where it does not have it now. With the help of Muslims alone. And it has made sure that the crawling, hungry-for-money-whatever-it-takes business houses who run India's media know it.

A political leadership that places its domestic electoral interest above national interest has no moral right to rule. A political leadership that knowingly or unknowingly indulges in activities that are against the interests of the nation, no matter what the objective, is unthinkable.

I am not sure in whose hands India's destiny is today. But I can't shake off the feeling that its tomorrow is being mortgaged by a few for their today. If as an Indian that thought comforts you, India has much to worry about. As do the few.
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Readers may also read:
1. Completing cleansing of Kashmir: Sikhs asked to leave
2. Kashmir: after the gale, back to square one
3. India stoned: the enemy is in our midst
4. No answer to Pakistan's formidable force multiplier
5. Dealing with Pakistan: lessons from history

NATHA NEEDS DENG, NOT DEMOCRACY

A few months back, the entire opposition had united to bring India to a grinding halt for a day ostensibly to protest against the back-breaking price rise that is hitting everyone except the rich hard. To me, the sight of well-fed, rosy-cheeked and inflation-proof politicians courting mock arrest on behalf of the poor was revolting. It was painfully palpable that they had neither any interest in nor concern for the poor in their hearts; they just wanted to show their strength by getting their cadres out on the streets and allowing them to vent their anger by vandalising state property. Not surprisingly, in the evening there was much chest thumping in TV studios about the success of a bandh that boosted their bruised egos but forced millions of daily wage earners and their kids to go hungry.

To add insult to injury, even though the situation remained unchanged for the aam admi, MPs of all parties gave themselves an over 300% hike in salaries shortly thereafter. If this insensitivity that is beginning to become alarming was not bad enough, some political leaders, already allegedly fattened by enough pelf to last them a few lifetimes, staged a mock parliament and bulldozed their way unashamedly to get the hike.

Did anyone remember that poor man then? Did any political party refuse the hike till inflation came down? Did the political parties giving lip sympathy to the decades-old demand -- approved by the courts -- of ex-servicemen for one-rank-one-pension remember them and put pressure on the government to first meet their just demands? Not at all. The same MPs who sleep forever when it involves issues that don’t affect them personally pushed through their bill in a matter of days.

The above incidents are only illustrative; there are as many available as you want. I know there are many who will find justification for both, the first one as a vital symbol of democracy and the second as the right of MPs to be paid well. The point is not about the right to protest or to a fair remuneration. It is about the broken connect between the people and their elected representatives, a sacred and vital bond that is the soul of democracy, without which it is no more than a sham that is sending out invitations to be swept aside.

Democracy means everything to the elite because it fulfills all their needs and greed, and allows them to secede without guilt from the India that is still struggling to get two full meals a day. Politicians love it because it allows them to proudly rule as feudal lords and plunder India without even the slightest fear of being punished. The bureaucracy, police, judiciary and the media are enjoying the rocking party too. Which other system will give such 'freedom'?

No wonder then that Mani Shankar Aiyar, echoing the voice of politicians and the urban elite cocooned in luxury, says he would rather be a poor man in democratic India than a rich man in an autocratic China. A couple of years back Barkha Dutt, on return from a visit to China that left her dazzled, had similarly dismissed what China has done for its aam admi by saying "we have democracy." Yes, she has it, Aiyar has it, as do I and probably all of us who are reading this article.

Aiyar can say that he would prefer living as a poor man in India because he knows he never will have to. By inserting 'democracy' into his argument he has also absolved his ilk of all blame for the mess that they have made of it till now as well as responsibility to fix it in future.

Does democracy ignite even a tiny a spark in Natha or the 800 million Indians living on less than Rs 50 a day? Given a choice, will he prefer to live in the India he does or in China? Natha is the face of India that none of us wants to see, that none of us wants the world to see, that many of us do not know about, that most who know about want to pretend it does not exist, that those who have managed to escape are thankful that they have and want to forget that it still exists for many.

To know who Natha is and how irretrievable rotten every instrument of the state has become and how disconnected our media is from more 70% of India, do go and see 'Peepli Live'. This Bollywood film is a rare masterpiece produced by Aamir Khan and brilliantly directed by first-time director Anusha Rizvi.

If you have no idea what it means to be poor in rural India, and if you are not a politician or a reporter, this film will jolt you and leave you deeply disturbed. As real as any film anywhere in the world can get, it shows you the real face of an India without hope, an India that virtually does not exist for those who rule it or 'cover' it, an India for whom democracy has no meaning, an India that is as wretched and cursed it was under British rule. Peepli Live also tells you why this India is going to remain without hope even as we celebrate India's great growth story and the astronomical salaries that some of us earn in another India that lives in an entirely different country.

In 1943, Abraham Maslow proposed a theory that human beings are motivated by unsatisfied needs and that lower needs have to be satisfied before higher needs can be addressed. This hierarchy of needs, often portrayed in the shape of a pyramid, start from basic physiological needs -- air, water, food, sleep -- followed by safety, social, esteem and self-actualisation needs. According to Maslow, one will be motivated to strive for higher needs only once the lower needs are satisfied. Bluntly put, if one does not have food to eat, he will be not be concerned about social esteem, freedom and lofty philosophical pursuits.

800 million Indians are still struggling to satisfy their physiological and basic safety needs. In fact millions of Nathas out there not only continue to suffer, the insensitive, manipulative and totally corrupt system that they confront is making it so difficult for some of them that the only sliver of hope they have of getting something out of it is by committing suicide; even then, as the film shows, the red tape can kill that too. What meaning can higher needs have for this ocean of humanity? Does the the model of governance matter at all? Democracy, autocracy, colonial rule, communism, monarchy -- all are still meaningless words for almost a billion people. All they are concerned with is delivery. In that the system has failed them completely, and there is no sign that it is going to change on its own.

Communism became a rage in the last century primarily because it promised and quickly met the physiological, safety and social needs of people. It failed because it did not recognise that the higher esteem and self-actualising needs that got activated as a result had to be met too. China saw the fatal weakness and dumped it for its own unique model that could respond to and meet higher needs as they emerged. The result is there for all to see. In 25 short years, its GDP that was then equal to India, has grown to five times as much. But what is of great significance is that China has not only pulled out all its Nathas from the claws of poverty but has also systematically created economic, social and governance conditions that is not choking rising aspirations.

This is not the India that our forefathers fought to free from British yoke. The founding fathers of the Republic erred, at the very least, in choosing a model of democracy that was developed over centuries by and for a tiny near-single race island nation whose people had long satisfied all their basic needs. Democracy filled their higher needs. For Natha it was mainly a question of survival in 1947 and remains so now. For him democracy has turned out to be a bondage, a curse. China made a similar mistake in 1949, though Mao's misdirected focus never veered from the poor. Fortunately, at a critical moment it was blessed with a Deng Xiaoping who all but threw Mao out of the nearest window.

Unfortunately, we are still stuck with petty pygmies who are working furiously to further distort the model by dividing people among dangerous fault lines and turning democracy into a plunder club of a few hundred dynasties. Their focus is on dimpled Rahul, not scraggy Natha. But the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family cannot be the Deng that the nation deserves. Not that anyone who matters wants, expects or will let him or any known challenger be one. That can only be bad news for India.

The way things are, the big change agent that India desperately requires is unlikely to emerge from within the known political or bureaucratic establishment. When Deng pushed through the badly needed across-the-board reforms in China, he famously said that the colour of the cat is not important as long as it catches the mice. We need such a cat. For Natha.