Category: Opinions

Living with dignity anywhere depends upon how much freedom we get to do the things that we want to do as long as the doing of them is not illegal. One doesn’t exercise a choice in being born in a country; if at all, sometimes the parents may exercise such a choice. So, if you grow up in the country of your birth, wherein you did not exercise a choice to be born, you expect to live, above all, with dignity. This is despite your not being in majority; by your religion, caste, creed and vocation. I know that James Michener had commented, “If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay home.” However, JM’s comment is suited for those who exercise a choice. What if home is country or state of your birth? Where do you go if you reject the ways of your people? Worse, where do you go if people reject your ways? I am not talking about seditious ways chosen by some, eg, Arundhati Roy or Geelani.

I shall give you a few examples of how your dignity (not ego) gets adversely affected simply by living in India.

There are extreme examples of carrying night-soil that was banned only recently in India. Or there was this tradition of Sati – the self (sometimes provoked) immolation of a widow after her husband’s death. Dowry, poverty, being born a girl, having to face injustice or to be wrongly accused, would be some other such extreme examples. This article is not about these. This article is about the dignity of ordinary middle class people living ordinary lives.

My examples starts with my home (whatever that means) state Himachal. The other day a friend from Himachal asked me how is it that we settled in Himachal when we are Sikhs and Punjabi speaking. When I showed surprise he asked me a more direct question, “When did you migrate from Punjab into Himachal?” I told him that I was born and brought up in Himachal and that each one of the Indian states are supposed to be multi-lingual and multi-religious and that an Indian has got a right to settle down anywhere in India. I told him that there is a recent Supreme Court ruling on it. Now, it was his turn to show surprise. Even though well educated, he had never dwelled on this point and had taken it for granted that whilst Hindi speaking people can hope to live with dignity anywhere in the Hindi belt, others necessarily belong to where they are in majority, ie, Punjabis in Punjab, Bengalis in Bengal and so on.

I had read about the travails of a Muslim trying to buy a house in a predominantly Hindu locality in Pune. It was in the papers last year.

I tweeted and wrote a lot about the Navratri  festivities in our part of the city. The cacophonic noise of filmy songs had nothing to do with any religious sentiments. At thirty past midnight, one night, I phoned the local police station to complain that with the excessive noise we couldn’t sleep. The constable on duty told me, “Nahin, Navratri mein nahin sone ka.” (No, Navratri is not meant for sleeping). Even though he did not say it, since the majority of people was involved, it was taken for granted that everybody must share the sheer joy of those festivities, even though outside legal limits. However, in the same breath an indoor ‘midnight mass‘ on Christmas eve had to finish by 2215 hours to keep us free from “excessive noise” caused by ‘Silent night, holy night’.

A time has come in India when one has to be apologetic about belonging to any community, caste, creed, and culture other than the majority’s. At many places it can be dangerous too. The Wikileaks revelation about Rahul Gandhi telling the US Ambassador to India, Timothy Roemer, that Hindu radicalism is a greater threat to India than Muslim fundamentalism was certainly well off the mark, at the verge of being anti-national (considering the damage to Indian societal fabric being done by such organisations as LeT and SIMI), and in poor taste. But, we must take notice of the fact that a potential PM candidate thought of voicing it. Do we still maintain that we give equal opportunity to other communities, castes, creeds, cultures in ordinary things that they can do? When I voiced it on Twitter the argument given was that we had a Muslim President, services Chief, Sikh PM and so on. I maintain, as I did above that this article is about the dignity of ordinary middle class people to live ordinary lives. I am not talking about extreme and isolated examples.

Here is another example. Poor driving habits kill more people in India in a year than in all the wars India fought with its neighbours. However, when the majority believes in jumping lanes, red lights, drives on the wrong side of a road with median, edges you out of the lane, honks relentlessly in case you have stopped to let a woman or old man to cross; try doing the right thing, see where it lands you? You will be a like a foreigner in your own place. Talking about foreigner, you can see Indians driving abroad; but, have you ever seen a foreigner in India driving in, say, Mumbai?

In case by lack of road signs or wrong road signs (they are aplenty) or because you are edged out by a lorry and you land up in the wrong, you have to face the traffic cop whose only assistance to you is to make you rid of some of your money. Indian police makes you feel like criminals even if you have stopped to ask for directions or gone to the Police Station to lodge a complaint. Try to do any of these things with dignity. Indeed, all so called public servants in India make you feel as undignified as possible for your error of judgment in having approached them for any help.

Now, if you belong to a niche group like Indian Armed Forces, who are largely disciplined, secular and upright; all attempts would be made to bring you down to the level of the majority for any small or big aberration or perceived aberration. At a bus stop in my native place I gently told a man, who spat out paan, that he could have done it in a trash can. He gave me a thorough once over and the conversation with him went like this:

He: Aap afsar ho? (Are you an officer?)
I replied in the affirmative.
He: Afsar ho to kuchh bhi kar sakte ho? (because of being officer can you do anything?)
I did not like the sudden unexpected turn he gave to the subject. However, he proceeded without paying heed to any interrupttion from me.
He: Afsar ho to hamare ghar aa ke hamari bahu betiyon ko bhi kuchh bhi kar sakte ho? (By being an officer can you force yourself into my home and do things to our women at home)
I tried to protest at the unfairness of it. But, by that time a sizeable crowd had formed and they asked him what had happened.
He: Pata nahin ji kya zamana aa gaya hai? Mujhe keh raha hai ke main afsar hun aur kuchh bhi kar sakta hun. (I don’t know what world we have landed in? He is telling me that he is an officer and can do anything)
At this another equally wise person remarked: Pehle Angrez afsar the, ab yeh aa gaye hain. (At one time we were under the British officers; and now we have these).
At this the wisest in the crowd remarked disdainfully, “Chhodo ji, mujhe to fauji lagta hai. Bechare ko civil tareekon ka pata nahin hai”. (Let it be. He appears to be a military man. Poor man doesn’t know the ways of the civilians)
Having said that, they “forgave me” for my effrontery in asking a man not to spit out paan in public. Phew.

In case this incident has to take place now, post Adarsh housing scam involving some senior officers from the armed forces amongst bureacrats and politicians, I can foresee the ultimate jeering, “Jao jao, jyaada adarsh mat bano“. (Go, don’t try to become adarsh (ideal in literal meaning but actually with an eye on the Adarsh scam)

Try to, with dignity, become adarsh when you board a bus, or train. You will be left at the station long after the bus or train has departed.

I am reminded of this scene from a Shyam Benegal movie in which a village teacher has his wife abducted and raped by the village goondas. He goes from one government office to the other asking for justice. Finally, he realises, with frustration, that the process of asking for his and his wife’s dignity to be restored is even more undignified.

If you are an Indian, you are used to such indignities as can rape your feelings and emotions, liberties and honour on an everyday basis. From the indignity of a woman being molested in public to your driving a car through extreme pot holes, filth, chaos, indiscipline, you are always under stress; more so, if you are law abiding citizen. Try standing overnight in a queue to obtain train reservation and face the indignity of knowing that your neighbour has managed better seats than you by paying underhand and getting the tickets delivered to him at home.

Adarsh, my foot. Indian society is as far from being adarsh as can be.

Have you ever been to an Indian court? I have been several times for a case involving our neighbours who have encroached upon my mother’s land. Eventually, you may win the case after decades. But, you have to decide whether you can go through the extreme indignity of dealing with lawyers, police, court clerks, officials, judges etc. Your only fault is that someone encroached on your land and now you are an equal contender in the case as the other party! A similar experience awaits you in case you are walking on an exclusive pedestrian foot-path and a vehicle knocks you off and you approach police or the courts for justice.

Here is what Rabinder Nath Tagore wrote in 1910:

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

Let us pause and reflect on how far we in India have come from these ideals.

As soon as I was commissioned in the Navy I had to undergo Subaltern Lieutenant’s training courses. The user-maintainer concept had just been introduced and we had to go to Navy’s Electrical Engineering training establishment named Valsura in Jamnagar, Gujarat, to acquire skills to become proficient first level maintainers.

Most of the First Class compartments had been booked for our course as we headed towards Jamnagar. To pass time, we played Bridge and drank beer and rum. When the TTE (I still remember his name on the his name telly: V Srivastava) came to our compartment he saw that we were drinking. He was visibly shocked at this and addressed us in chaste Hindi which is translated thus: “Young men, you should be ashamed of yourself. You are passing through Mahatma Gandhi’s state wherein drinking liquor is prohibited. And yet, here you are – young men who would be responsible to defend our nation – shamelessly breaking the law and drinking.”

I was, at that time (perhaps I still am) an idealist and moralist. I was so mortified by this that I left the gang, collected my Ayn Rand and climbed to the upper berth to hide my head in shame. I was so immersed in ‘The Fountainhead’ that after some time when I looked down I found the TTE having a drink with my friends. I got down from the berth and berated him, “Srivastava ji, you had no right to be pseudo moralistic. Look at you, now, a TTE on duty having liquor. I think at the next station we shall hand you over to the Vigilance people”.

His reply is pointer towards the central theme of this essay, “Ab chhodiye bhai sahib. Main to ek do peg pi ke chala jayoonga; vigilance wale kam se kam poori botal lenge aapse”. (Just forget it, brother. I shall (quietly) go after one or two pegs; the vigilance people would demand a full bottle, at the least).

On another occasion, I was travelling by the defence – services – friendly Frontier Mail, from Bombay to Delhi. Just the hint of one being a defence officer [and entitled to draw “pure” (it was the public perception) rum] would get one a vacant berth that would have otherwise got the TTE some chai-paani money from others. After “adjusting” the passengers the TTE came to me in the coupe’ he had told me to occupy. I offered him a drink, which soon became two, three, four etc. That loosened his tongue. Over a period of next one hour he told me that he had a house in South Delhi, another in Jaipur, two cars etc and that his elder daughter was about to marry an IAS officer from “a rich family”.

I not only showed surprise but expressed it, “I say, you guys really indulge in corruption and can get anything”.

His reply was as classic as that of TTE Srivastava. He said, “Bhai Sahib, hum to apni mehnat ki kamai khaate hain. Corrupt to hamare bade sahib hain jo ghar baithe hi paise bana rahe hain” (Brother, we (TTEs) only enjoy the fruits of our labour. Corrupt are the big bosses in railways who get the money sitting at home”.

These two are mere examples of our (voyeuristic?) attitude when we see yet another example of corruption in public life. The “bigger fish” always seems to get away whilst poor people like us who do indulge in petty corruption (either in giving bribes or receiving chai-paani money) are always made scapegoats.

What do you think shocked us about corruption in recently concluded CWG deals? Well, not the fact of the corruption but the sheer scale of it.

Laxman’s cartoon, many years back, about big time corruption was most telling. In this a policeman is seen taking a handcuffed petty thief to the Police Station and telling him, “Your fault is that you stole five bucks. If you had stolen fifty crores I could have been your security guard”.

Corruption at higher levels does affect the morale of the people at lower levels. And when we hear about increasingly more stupendous and brazen corrupt cases, we see one holy bastion or the other crumbling. Over a period of time our perception is that politicians, bureaucrats, engineers, doctors, film stars (casting couch, avoidance of income tax et al), religious leaders, railway TTEs, personnel in government departments from peon to boss, shopkeepers and tradesmen, cricketers and policemen are not only corrupt but have earned the right to be so. We publicly hate them for it. But, if we have to marry our daughters, we find these as the most eligible bachelors. In my last posting in the Navy before I retired, a sailor from Haryana wanted his daughter to be married to an ASI in the police. He was asked to pay rupees ten lakhs in dowry “considering the earning capacity of the ASI and hence the ability to keep your daughter happy”.

We resignedly accept corruption even in the judiciary. But when the last bastion of upright behaviour, that is, armed forces too display signs of corruption a la booze-colonels, fake-encounter-for-medal COs, Tehelka expose’ big-wigs, land and housing scam generals and admirals, we tend to bemoan that there is “total lack of moral values in Indian public life”. How can these jokers be trusted in war when they indulge in such immoral acts? Isn’t esprit de corps the hallmark of defence forces? How would their men have trust in them when they indulge in such things? How could they stoop so low? How could they shamefacedly make such statements that they did not know that the land belonged to the military or to the war-widows?

Seven years back I was asked to conduct a major investigation into endemic corruption at Navy’s Material Organisation at Mumbai. This was a prelude to trying by Courts Martial all those found involved. Gradually it came out that everyone from the top (Material Superintendent) to bottom was involved and that the case, just like the Adarsh Society case, should be handed over to the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation). Indeed, a Navy Order exists to the effect that with such large scale corruption it is mandatory to hand over the case to CBI. But, did we hand over? No, the Navy was jealously guarding its reputation. Hence, there was only one officer, that is me, conducting the entire investigation. I was posted as Director of an operational unit, the Maritime Warfare Centre, and I conducted this large investigation single-handedly. Whilst my own officers and others used to return home at 5 PM I used to continue until 10 or 11 PM and worked on Saturdays and Sundays too for the next eighteen months.

Many a time even the organisation refused to support me. The original C-in-C and his Chief of Staff who ordered the Courts Martial got transferred and a new lot took over. The present C-in-C, who complained about the Adarsh Society, became the Chief of Staff and happened to be a course mate of the chief accused, the Material Superintendent. The witnesses (vendors who had given the bribes) were being threatened by the accused officers not to appear in court. One day, when out of fear not a single witness appeared, I approached him for assistance. He bluntly told me that I was by myself. I approached the original team too who either refused to take my call or pretended not to receive mail from me.

With all this, I was responsible for putting oneCommodore and one other officer behind bars and others were given lighter punishments. So, how was I rewarded for my efforts? Well, it was the Judge Advocate who was awarded a Vishisht Sena Medal (VSM or Medal for Distinguished Service) specifically for his efforts in the investigation and courts martial! Many years later, for two consecutive years, I was recommended for Ati Vishisht Sena Medal (AVSM or medal for Very Distinguished Service) for operational reasons but not awarded since neither me nor the C-in-C who recommended it had friends at the right places. Just before retirement I too was given a VSM as if doing me a great favour.

I have, therefore, first hand and officially recorded experience with large scale corruption in the Navy. But, we in the Armed Forces tend to still regard ourselves as holy cows smug in our knowledge that it is only a miniscule percentage of corruption in civil life.

I agree that corruption in public life should be rooted out and that it is really letting down the countrymen when even armed forces big-wigs indulge in it. But, what do we do other than to watch, complain, compare, tweet, accept and observe a holier-than-thou attitude? What can we do? Should we act like the corrupt politician who, when the case is going on and knowing that it would last for years, confidently says: “Let the law take its own course“? This same politician when he is finally convicted by the court says: “This is a political vendetta” or expresses his sheer contempt for the judiciary and says: “Iska faisala to ab janata ki adalat hi karegi” (I await the verdict of the people).

No, we should never be like the corrupt politician finding excuses for our aberrations.

I think the first thing that we can do is to put our own house in order and not be like the government babu in a Khushwant Singh joke who berated his son for having stolen his classmate’s pencil thus: “Shame on you for having stolen your mate’s pencil. Next time when you require a pencil tell me and I shall get you from my office”.

Like Jesus in the Mary Magdalene case, the first stone should be cast by the one who has not sinned.

The second thing is to remember that there is no small or big corruption. Corruption is corruption whether in small or big things; period. I am reminded of an English gentleman in a train who suddenty lowers his newspaper and addresses the only other passenger in the compartment, a lady thus: “I say you are a pretty lady and I have fallen for you. I would like to spend a night with you….no, please don’t be shocked. As you can make out I am really very rich. I shall give you a million pounds for the act”.

The lady is taken aback during the conversation but the million pounds makes her think. She quickly gets over her confusion and scruples and mutters, “Well, I think for a million pounds I will go through with it”.

At this the English gentleman says, “Okay, then how about having it with me on that seat now for 5 pounds”.

The lady is clearly enraged and shoots back, “What do you think I am?”

He says, “That we have already decided, ma’am; we are only haggling over the price”.

So, that’s really the crux: Are we really honest when we point a finger at others or are we just haggling over the price in the same manner as we do it with a policeman or railway TTE or the babu in the office?

The third is the advice given by former President Dr Abdul Kalam when I invited him to deliver a talk at the College of Naval Warfare whereat I was the director just before retirement. He was asked what do we do to stop staggering corruption in India. His advice: “Begin with yourself and extend it to your family; if every man or woman and family becomes honest we can still have India free of corruption”.

In 1969 when corruption in Indian public life had still not become endemic and institutionalised Mrinal Sen’s movie Bhuvan Shome was released. Utpal Dutt played the title role and is a strict disciplinarian, a dedicated civil servant in railways who is fanatic about rooting out corruption. When he visits a remote town in Gujarat, a TTE there, played by Sadhu Meher, is chastised by him for taking bribes. Gradually, the tough nature of Bhuvan Shome is worked at by Suhasini Mullay, who is Meher’s fiance’. In the end, with his hardness having been cracked, Bhuvan Shome allows Meher to be transferred to a bigger station. The movie ends with Meher breaking this “good news” to his wife, “Meri ab transfer bade station mein ho gayi hai. Aur bade station ka matlab samjhati ho? Jyaada paisa” (I am now transferred to a bigger station. And do you know what bigger station means? More money)

So, that is another thing that we can do: not to let our bigness and senior rank translate into more perks, privileges and underhand gratification.

Is it that we are honest only because we have not got the opportunity to be otherwise?

The last is contained in the lines of the song I heard when I was small:

“Vo buraai karen, hum bhalaai karen, nahin badle ki ho bhavna” (Let them do the evil and let us do the good; and yet we should never be vengeful)

It is because in Eugene O’ Neil’s words: “No man’s guilt is not yours; nor is any man’s innocence a thing apart.”

A few years back my brother travelled by a British Airways flight from Delhi to London. Those were the days when India faced terrorism on regular basis, most of it Pak sponsored. But our protests, frequent proofs of terrorist camps in POK and in Pakistan, and refusal to talk to Pakistan unless it reined Jihadis engaged in cross-border terrorism, fell on deaf years. The reason was that the West was not yet at the receiving end of terrorism. My brother said that the British crew was so put off by the “stringent” security checks before departure at Delhi that immediately after take-off the Captain made an announcement apologizing for such “unnecessary” checks.

Cut now to the present day scenario post 9/11 and the liquid bomb scare. The Time magazine cartoon of the year 2007 showed a man having waded through 7 hours of security checks and having been asked to remove everything. Finally, he had only a boarding pass to cover his manhood. As a final mortification he was asked to show his boarding pass just before boarding the plane.

This only goes to show that the West ignores threats that other countries like India face until they too are exposed to these. After that they go overboard and paranoid with their own measures to protect their own citizens. It goes to such an extent that people are hounded in flights if they have beards or are overheard by flight staff in having “suspicious” private conversations.

Does the West feel that lives of their citizens are more precious than those of, say, Indians?

After 9/11, since America had faced spectacular terrorism at home it engaged other nations in a Global War on Terror. President Bush Senior declared immediately after 9/11 that not only the terrorists but those who “harboured” the terrorists were enemies of the United States. It conveniently forgot that Jagjit Singh Chauhan (or Chohan), the original founder of Khalistan movement, who was openly seditious against India and indulged in terrorist acts, was “harboured” (given asylum) by the United States in 1989 even when the Indian government had cancelled his passport. Why such double standards? Why is one country’s terrorist another country’s “freedom-fighter”? I am not going into the merits or otherwise of Chauhan’s case. But, the fact was that the United States harboured a proclaimed offender of the Indian government.

How would the United States have felt if some country had to give asylum to Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden?

When the global leader indulges in double standards and does exactly what it accuses others of doing, it sounds most preposterous. Two incidents come into my mind; one, terrorism related and the second related to economy. The first is in Jul 2006 when the then Indian Home Minister LK Advani mooted the idea of hot pursuit into POK to flush out terrorists carrying out bloody and fatal attacks against innocent Kashmiris in India. Even though our government and nation did not have the guts to carry this out and it was only an idea, the kind of opprobrium that we earned put a brake on any such “adventurism”. Once again, cut to present day Drone attacks by the US into Waziristan. It has been argued by the United States that these are legal and legitimate in exercise of right to self defence. Some American think-tanks have even put up results of their “research” that civilians in Waziristan actual welcome such attacks. How ironical that India does not have the right to exercise self defence with its irresponsible immediate neighbour but Americans can do it thousands of miles away from home when their civilians are not even directly threatened by the Jihadis?

The second event is about American exhortations to countries like China to end protectionism of their financial institutions and to allow “free flowing” financial transactions. However, post recent recession which started in 2007, mainly caused by Americans’ greed, when the Federal Bank came to the rescue of American banks in trouble, one of the economic writers wrote in the Newsweek that at that stage there was nothing to choose between China and the US.

That brings us to the question of this post: Is America losing legitimacy of power? It is the sole superpower; the global leader militarily, technologically and financially. But, is it losing the moral right to be the leader of the world?

When the decline started two years back, Fareed Zakaria published his thought provoking book ‘The Post American World’. It talked about there being three power shifts in the world in the last 500 years: the first one being the shift of power to the West during the Renaissance; the second being the US becoming the sole superpower after the breakup of USSR; the third is emergence or re-emergence of other powers like China and India.

Simultaneously we had authors like Kishore Mahbubani of Singapore writing about ‘The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Power to the East’.

But, I think the book or the concept most relevant to our poser is 1992 book ‘The End of History and The Last Man’ by Francis Fukuyama. It was written at a time when the USSR was collapsing and end of Cold War was in sight. Fukuyama was emphatic about the ascendancy of Western liberal democracy when he said, “What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government”.

Simultaneous with Fareed Zakaria’s book, Robert Kagan published his seminal work ‘End of Dreams, Return of History’. It bemoaned the autocracies in various parts of the world especially China as being the biggest threat to Western liberal democracy. The interesting point that it brought out was that such order that exists in the world today is not because of goodwill of people but because of foundation laid by American power. He said, “People who believe greater equality among nations would be preferable to the present American predominance often succumb to a basic logical fallacy. They believe the order the world enjoys today exists independently of American power. They imagine that in a world where American power was diminished, the aspects of international order that they like would remain in place. But that’s not the way it works. International order does not rest on ideas and institutions. It is shaped by configurations of power”.

I tend to compare this with the final chapter of Fareed Zakaria’s book in which Zakaria gives guidelines to the US in the post American world. It talks about not just Legitimacy of Power but brings out that Legitimacy is Power. Zakaria exhorts America to maintain excellent relations with everyone, rather than offset and balance emerging powers.

I think America has done, in the last nine years, exactly opposite of that. This has made people all around the world take notice that if this is what can be achieved through Western liberal democracy, why is it better than autocracies and military rules? Lets not forget that both Bush Senior and Tony Blair hoodwinked their respective democracies about WMDs in Iraq against all evidence and intelligence.

In the light of discussions so far, let’s sum up how America has lost Legitimacy of Power:

• Curiously the US has found it easier to do business with autocracies and military rules than with democracies.
• The kind of double standards that it has followed on many issues including the most overwhelming issue today of terrorism have tarnished its image.
• At one time, pre 9/11 era, America was regarded as a “benign” colonial power. Presently, it has put itself in a position where it is being detested not just by the Islamic world.
• The reason that it is being detested is because it seems not to care for lives of people other than the Americans. For example, at the time of writing this, Wikileaks has brought out how tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed post 9/11 due to US operations. This is something similar to carpet bombing of Iraqis at the end of Kuwait war.
• In AfPak region, it demonstrated that it does not even care much for the lives of its own soldiers because it paid the Pakistanis for killing them; the only country in the world to have paid the enemy to kill its own people.
• Any number of its think tanks have brought out that Pakistan is the biggest exporter of terror in the world. However, the US rewards it by more and more funds to – hold your breath – “fight terrorism and extremism”.
• It made the pretence of helping Pakistan in flood relief since it is a poor country that cannot afford relief material but simultaneously sold them more F16s. Even Pakistan’s own intelligensia has questioned it. How will F16s be used in fighting terror is anybody’s guess.
• The criticism that disasters, crises and terror attacks tend to aid American arms and homeland security industries has now started to stick.
• The great American balancing act, much against Zakaria’s guidelines, now extends to over half the globe from Russia, to Iran, to AfPak, to China.

Dear Obama, as you step on Indian soil for your first official visit, we ask you to take stock of degenerative illegitimacy of power that America enjoys today. Much was expected out of you to right the moral balance after the Bush eras; but, you have failed us. We love the Western liberal democracy; ours is as messy as yours, but, we still love it. We love Americans and we want to be like them. But, the fact is that America has done enough to promote love-hate relationship not only with us but also with many other countries. Your country has coined a catch-phrase: “to protect American interests”. Are you really?

India has been a poor country – a very poor country. Suddenly, in the last decade or so, because of our spectacular GDP growth and probably because of the US need to balance China, India started being talked about as a country with great future..a great regional and global power. The fact is that GDP growth is and for a handful of people; the majority of the people has not gained by it. We have more poor in India than all in all the 26 countries of Africa. Our general quality of life and our infrastructure rank amongst the worst in the world. We are amongst the best for wrong reasons like corruption.

Ours was a Punjabi family but I spent all my childhood in Himachal because my father was posted there in the horticulture department. My schooling was entirely in Himachal and after the schooling I was amongst the first batch of students to have got a Pre-Engineering degree from the newly established Himachal University in 1970-71.

The second language in our school was Urdu. In the Government School, Chamba, our Urdu teacher was a very hard taskmaster and looked for any opportunity to cane us on our hands. We used to cringe more because of receiving this chastisement in front of girl students than with the physical torture. Indeed, we had made various jokes and couplets about what we would do to Urdu, the teacher and the school, if given a chance. Our favourite was, “Ain gan (Urdu alphabets) school dhale tanh mundya nu chan” (Ain gan, if the school would collapse, boys would be relieved).

Little did I know at that time that I would be in love with the language. I was just stepping into boyhood and the language seemed to me the answer to my emotional needs and curiosity. I discovered that Urdu had a way of expressing feelings that no other language can match. Many other languages are direct, in-your-face, but, Urdu’s lehza (style) is to always express things indirectly. We had a joke about the effrontery of Punjabi or Hindi or even English in something as routine as introducing one self in comparison to an Urdu person who would say, “Khak dar khak, khuda-e-pak, khuda ke bande ko Akhtar miyan ke naam se pukarte hain“. An Urdu person won’t directly claim to be Akhtar but that he, the insignificant being, is called by that name.

No one can beat the humility of an Urdu person. He is a ghulam (slave) and his abode, however ostentatious it might be, is always the gharib-khana (the poor house).

However, the aspect in which Urdu really excels is in expressing matters of the heart. For example, “Mujhe tumse mohabbat hai magar main keh nahin sakta” (I am in love with you but I cannot say it!)

Literal meanings of words are never necessary when you use the language of the heart. One would say ‘Silence’ and ‘Khamoshi’ have the same meaning until you hear:
“Rafta rafta bujha jaata hai chirag-e-aarzoo,
Pehle dil khamosh tha, ab zindagi khamosh hai”
(Gradually the lamp of my desires extinguishes; first my heart became khamosh, now my life has).

You can say things in Urdu that would sound so rude in other languages. Take this from Ghulam Ali’s ghazal:
“Shaam ko subhe chaman yaad aa’ii;
Kiski khushboo-e badan yaad aa’ii”
Translated crudely (and I am not even attempting to do it) it would evoke the tease that perhaps she should start using better deodrant.

Being a language of the heart, Urdu writers and poets normally plunge deeper than in other languages. Taste this of Mehdi Hassan:

“Ik zara sa gham-e-dauran ka bhi haq hai jis par,
Maine woh saans bhi tere liye rakh chhodi hai.
Tujhpe ho jaaoonga qurbaan tujhe chahoonga,
Main to mar ke bhi meri jaan tujhe chahoonga;
Zindagi mein to sabhi pyaar kiya karte hain”
(Rather than giving full meaning, suffice it to say that the poet conveys that many people love in their lives but I shall love you even after I die. In the last breath people normally remember their Maker, but even that breath I have saved for you).

Here is my own (infantile) attempt:

Khud ko mujhse itna bhi na tu door samajh,
Apne parwaane ko itna bhi na majboor samajh.
Main agar chahoon to itni bhi hai taqat mujh mein,
Yaad ko teri main ik tu hi bana sakta hoon.
Ik to tu hai meri har baat ko samjhe vehshat,
Apni us tu ko main har ik baat suna sakta hoon.
Gham nahin gar tu lakh bhi roothe mujhse,
Apni us tu ko main jab chahe mana sakta hoon.
(Once again no full translation but the thought that: ‘My love, do not think you are that far from me or that I am totally helpless. I have the power to turn your memory into you! This ‘you’ will always be mine’).

All those who are ruled by the heart find a natural bonding with Urdu.

Remember Mirza Ghalib? Here goes:

“Dil-e naadan tujhe hua kya hai,
Aakhir is marz ki dawa kya hai?”

There is no cure; but who the hell wants to be cured?

Urdu is for those whose hearts beat in love even after life.

Causing unwanted noise is the worst way to intrude on other people’s privacy. It is like blowing smoke into a non-smoker’s face. And yet, over the last few years, ‘noise’ has become a menace far greater than many others such as indiscriminately thrown garbage, defecation and urination in public places, traffic violations and tarnishing historical monuments with such informed graffiti as ‘Kallu loves Tarunnam.’

Much of the noise is generated during the festival season that is fast approaching. The most ironical thing is that unlike other ‘unlawful activities’ against which the authorities protect you (or pretend to protect), when it comes to noise, the same authorities take a stand that time deadline for causing noise should be extended in order “to respect people’s sentiments”!

Could it be that the gods are in a deep slumber and need to be woken up with such aural bursts of our devotion? No it cannot be. Our scriptures are full of tales whence gods got annoyed with people for noisily disturbing their meditation and even slumber and ‘punished’ the intruders with curses (‘shraap’).In our times, I know for sure, that majority of us who are trying to sleep or study or simply doing our thing, cringe with irritation when the noisy procession passes our way.

Why are we like this? Were we always like this? Shashi Tharoor, writing about Amartya Sen’s book ‘The Argumentative Indian’ in Newsweek of 24 Oct 05, brought out an interesting observation. “Sen”, he wrote, “is particularly critical of the Western overemphasis on India’s religiosity at the expense of any recognition of the country’s equally impressive rationalist, scientific, mathematical and secular heritage. According to Sen, “That scientific spirit of inquiry can also be seen in ancient India.” His book cites 3,500-year-old verses from the Vedas that speculate skeptically about creation, and details India’s contribution to the world of science, rationality and plural discourse – fields generally treated by Orientalists as ‘western spheres of success’.”

I too spoke with an Acharya, a PhD in Vedas, who told me that a great country like ours was not just named after Shakuntla’s son ‘Bharat’ but that Bharat is a combination of two words ‘Bha’, that is, ‘Intellect’ and ‘Rat’, that is, ‘Absorbed in’; thereby depicting the people of a nation ‘Absorbed in Intellectualism’. This is certainly far removed from the ‘sentiments of the people’ hogwash given to us by the authorities and trumpeted by the westerns who are fascinated by our lack of intellect and hence, the ability to compete with them.The Acharya told me that when Chinese pilgrims Fa-Hein and Huien-Tsang visited India in the 5^th and 7^th centuries AD (during the Gupta dynasty), they were impressed by the scholarly pursuits of our people and Brahmins.Indeed, Baidyanath Saraswati has brought out in ‘Swaraj in Education’ how Kashi (now Varanasi or Benaras) grew into a great seat of learning surpassing other civilisational centres of the world including Rome and Mecca.

Thus, even though our scriptures bring out the virtues of ‘scholarly pursuits’, ‘a quiet mind (maun) and ‘meditation’ (samadhi and dhyan), we are becoming increasingly noisier. We, arguably, make more noise than most other people.Other than the religious processions, let us consider a few examples of how we express these ‘sentiments’:

• We express our glee at the traffic lights turning green by collectively honking; those who are farther from the lights honking louder than those who are closer.
• We announce to the whole world our daughter or son’s marriage by joyously bursting crackers and beating drums; beating drums being an ancient art-form we imported from the jungles of Africa as their only means of communication.
• During election time we make all our tall promises through loudspeakers since we are convinced that our countrymen, like we ourselves, are hard of hearing.
• Whilst driving we honk profusely at anyone who dares to cross our way.Indeed, it is rumoured that many of our countrymen consider it an emergency when their vehicle horns break down but don’t mind such ‘small’ defects as brakes and indicating lights not functioning.
• We never deprive our immediate neighbours and indeed the entire neighbourhood of the healing benefits of our ‘quality music’, whenever we throw a party. If they don’t come to know that ‘it’s the time to disco’, we feel that we haven’t done our public duty.
• Whilst watching our favourite TV programme we notice that the volume automatically goes up when the ads appear so that we don’t miss out on the essential reasons for televising a programme.
• In public debates we win most arguments by lung power. Indeed, ‘the bigger the better’ is not merely a male fantasy with us. Creator of bigger noise, male or female, is automatically considered more powerful.

So, in the coming festive season, let us express our joyous sentiments more silently, rather than making these into a ‘tamasha’.Let us awaken God within us rather than without through conches, cymbals, drums, crackers and loudspeakers. Let’s us not automatically include others in our revelry but respect their privacy as much as we want others to respect ours. Let’s not give a new meaning to the expression, “Lend me your ears”!

Recently, when we watched the movie ‘3 Idiots’, we were entranced by the song ‘All Is Well’. We not only liked the song but also identified with its theme. We do believe that things and the situation we are in would improve and we won’t have to worry too much if we assumed ‘All Is Well’. Reminds me of the time when we were kids and we used to get scared of ghosts we used to hide our faces in the quilt; if we could not see the ghost, how could he see us!

In our country, we did not actually have to see the movie to sing ‘All is Well’. Ask our politicians, for example. Farmers may be committing suicide on a regular basis in their constituencies; people may be dying of hunger; there may be no water, electricity, medical help, and epidemics may have hit the villages, but, the politician would tell you and indeed sing like Aamir Khan, “Ahl izh bell, whai are dey kum planning?” Last year when the news came that India is now 144th in the world in human growth index, our politicians again sang ‘Ahl izh bell’.

Arun Shourie once wrote, “One sure way for evil to last or survive is for good men to do nothing about it.” And, how do we decide to do nothing about it? Well, by assuming all is well. In the vernacular it is roughly translated into ‘chalta hai’. We’d naturally identify with the song since by doing nothing we want the situation to resolve by itself or better still by divine intervention.

Here is a short list of things where we feel all is well:

· Our countrymen are happy, well fed and clothed and contented lot.
· Our roads, particularly our highways, are in good condition.
· We are very close to being number one in the field of sports.
· Our education system is world class.
· Our cities are clean, hygienic and really liveable.
· The corruption in the country will sort out by itself.
· Our country is free of natural disasters and in case one strikes our local government would take care of those who struggle to survive.
· Our judicial system delivers correctly and with urgency each and every time.
· Our teachers, doctors, engineers, industrialists are the committed lot who always think of the country.
· People fall head over heels to pay taxes.
· People at large detest crime and criminals and such people are singled out. Indeed, we have no difficulty in separating the law abiding from the criminal.
· Our trains and air services are always on time and in case once in a while these get late, people are not put to inconvenience because of a could-not-care-less administration.
· Our religious leaders and beliefs promote amity amongst people.
· We care for those who sacrifice their life for the country, that is, the armed forces personnel.

I think I will stop here. Suffice it to say that when we sing, “Chachu all is well’ it merely reflects a fantasy we have of utopian India – a dream world. Therefore, the first step towards the journey to make a better world is to assume that all is not well. A chalta hai, populist attitude is a good box-office formula. But, it must not be taken as a national policy!

Negativity? Well, in this case, the ‘Ahl izh bell’ statement has a negative outcome! People die and continue to live in poverty. Whereas ‘Ahl izh naut bell’ will certainly have a positive harvest depending upon our resolve and efforts to set it right.

So next time you hear ‘Ahl izh bell’, don’t just clap your hands and go unconcerned. All is really not well and we need to do something about it.