The Olympic Torch Relay

This pre-Olympic event of the Olympic torch making its journey though the major countries of the world signifies the uniting spirit of the games. In the past the event has taken place in full and free public glare. Crowds have lined up streets to watch their favorite stars from the sporting and non-sporting world run with the torch. The celebrities who were nominated for carrying the torch considered it an honor and ran with pride.

This time around everything has been different. The Tibetan rebellion has caught authorities off guard. The torch relays were disrupted in London and Paris and this set the somber tone of what was to follow. Curtailed routes amid highest security with no public participation became the prescribed modus operandi. So much so the media unanimously declared that Delhi had become the Forbidden City of China during the relay there.

In India the officials compounded the problem. The eternal “foot-in-the-mouth” sports minister Gill pompously announced to the media that non-sports celebrities had no business to carry the torch, a statement that the Indian Olympic Association boss, Kalmadi, immediately had to correct. But the damage was done. There was a backlash from celebrities of the stature of Amitabh Bachchan. Ex-cop Kiran Bedi and Bollywood actress Soha Ali Khan backed off from the relay. Though they cited other reasons it is being circulated that Gill’s statement put them off. Sachin Tendulkar too cancelled his participation citing injury as the reason. This led one scribe to remark that the two steps Sahin would have to take would do him no harm. But to be fair to Sachin he may not have known that the run was severely curtailed.

There was glamour present at the run. The tennis duo of Paes and Bhupati took center stage. It is amazing that despite the bitter personal differences between them, they never fail to come together when the country calls. Hats off to them. Theirs is an example all should emulate. Bollywood was represented by the enigmatic Amir Khan and Saif Ali Khan. When quizzed whether he supported the Tibetan struggle he said that he stands by his country’s stand and his country has not said anything against China.

It is a view that this farcical run should have been called off. Perhaps calling of the run may have been a greater loss of face. It was a damned if you do and a damned if you don’t situation. But one thing is clear. The resistance from Tibetans was far greater than anyone had imagined. It was intense and it was universal and it was planned. And the world was forced to sit up and take notice.

Rahul Gandhi for Prime Minister

Recently the HRD Minister Arjun Singh and certain allies of the Congress proposed that the Congress fight the next elections with Rahul Gandhi as the proposed prime minister. Immediately Sonia Gandhi called Arjun Singh. If we believe Jayanti Natarajan, the Congress spokesperson, it was to admonish Arjun Singh for his sycophantic remarks. But the fact remains that Rahul Gandhi is being projected as a future prime minister. Only we do not know whether it would be in the next Lok Sabha or the one after that.

Is Rahul Gandhi capable enough to be the prime minister in the next Lok Sabha? I think not. He has been in politics for long enough and he has shown neither initiative nor innovativeness. He still appears to need the shelter of his mother. His performance as an electoral leader in the Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat polls has been pathetic. He would be even more of a puppet prime minister than Manmohan Singh. That is my view. However it is the view of Sonia Gandhi that will count.

Sonia Gandhi is an astute lady. She will announce Rahul Gandhi’s name ahead of the elections only if that announcement will fetch the Congress electoral gains. Those who are committed to the Congress would anyway vote for the Congress. Similarly those who are committed elsewhere would anyway not vote for the Congress. Therefore Sonia Gandhi has to assess how an announcement of Rahul Gandhi’s candidature for prime minister would affect the fence sitters. On the negative side is the fact that many fence sitters have been impressed by Manmohan Singh’s performance and would not look too kindly at him being replaced. Another negative is Rahul Gandhi’s lack of caliber discussed earlier. On the plus side is Rahul Gandhi’s youth, which is an attraction to the young voting population. The process of attracting the youth has already begun by inducting young blood into the cabinet.

The major reason in favor of Rahul Gandhi does not have anything to do with electoral gains. If Sonia Gandhi allows Manmohan Singh one more term then he may get entrenched so strongly that she may be unable to replace him later. Musical chairs has been a favorite game of the Gandhi household since the time of Indira Gandhi. Unfortunately for Sonia Gandhi there are no other candidates and therefore Sonia Gandhi may have to take a chance with Rahul Gandhi even though he is not yet ready for the top job. But then the announcement will come after the elections, assuming that the Congress is the lead party in forming the government. That is the reason Sonia Gandhi does not want a premature announcement. Being against sycophancy has nothing to do with it.

Cricket: the Seniors vs. the Juniors Debate

After good performances by Dravid, Laxman and Ganguly some of the print media tried to rekindle the seniors verses the juniors debate. I find this controversy demeaning both the senior and junior players. It was started by the print and electronic media to increase circulation and TRPs.

The ODI World Cup is in 2011. The seniors will be around 40 years and less fit than they are today. If they are then not found fit enough, which is a likely outcome, the Indian ODI team will be very inexperienced. In order to create a core group of players and give them the experience of playing together it was essential to exclude those seniors who are unlikely to figure in the World Cup 2011. Also in the ODI format of the game it is imperative to add those 10 extra runs by converting the singles into twos and to prevent the opposition from adding the ten extra runs by restricting their singles opportunity to singles. The younger and more athletic players are able to effect this 20 run difference, which the senior players were not able to do.

In test cricket there is no world cup target. Also in test cricket experience counts for a bit more and athleticism for a bit less as compared to ODI cricket. Therefore the seniors are still playing test cricket.

And to those who have raised this issue again I would like to add that it was the 40 run last wicket partnership between Shreesant and Ishant Sharma that won us the test match more than the good knocks by the seniors. This partnership not only gave us 40 runs less to score but mentally and physically drained the South Africans.

Supreme Court rules on OBC quotas

The Supreme Court has given its verdict and the reservations have come to stay. The OBC reservations of 27% and the SC/ST reservations of 22.5% total to 49.5%. The arguments for and against reservations have been flogged to death and I am not going to repeat them. In contentious issues someone has to take a call and no matter what there will always be an aggrieved party. Exclusion of the “creamy layer” along with a clear definition of the “creamy layer” is a very welcome step and one that I am sure will mitigate many a heartburn.

If I may compare this issue to the treatment of a disease then the reservations is like administering a painkiller. It cannot be construed as the treatment of the disease. What I am afraid will happen is that the pain killer dose will keep on increasing and no one will bother about the treatment of the disease. The percentage in due course may go up beyond current levels. The reservation policy may become applicable to an increasing category of educational institutes. I wish the executive and the judiciary had taken steps to preempt this from happening.

One step that immediately needs to be implemented is to ensure that the percent never increases beyond current levels, no matter what the proportion of the beneficiaries be in future populations. In fact there is a pressing need to legislate that by the end of fifty years the percentage will be reduced to half. This means that from 2018 the combined reservations would be reduced to 45%, from 2028 to 40% and so on. The government meanwhile has to treat this malaise. The whole idea is to bring the backward classes on par with the others and not to subsidize them for eternity. The constitution has to be amended suitably.

The reservation policy will actually benefit a miniscule proportion of the backward classes because after all the size of the pie is miniscule. Therefore a mechanism needs to be put in place to ensure that the same families are not benefiting again and again. This is not an easy task but it must be done in order to ensure that the benefits are as widely spread out as possible. Some possibilities come to mind and I would like to share them here. Once a person has availed of a benefit under this scheme, he or she should not be eligible for any other benefit given to SC, STs or OBCs. I would even go as far as stating that such benefits should not accrue to the descendants of persons who have been given a benefit under this policy. Such steps are essential in the interests of true social justice.

Rakesh Roshan caught copying music for Krazzy 4

The Roshans versus Ram Sampath copyright case has brought to the fore once again the rampant plagiarism present in Bollywood. I have seen sequences copies frame by frame from Hollywood movies. Copying of stories is common. And copying of music is even more so. Therefore it is great that the owner of the copyright of his music challenged one of the biggest production houses in court and won.

Rakesh Roshan used some jingles created for ads and owned by Ram Sampath for his latest movie Krazzy 4. It is sad that Rakesh Roshan was the man on the receiving end because he has a reputation for integrity. According to him he thought that Sony owned the copyrights and even has a No Objection Certificate from them, which Sony now claims was given in error. Where Rakesh Roshan went wrong was despite there being sufficient evidence of his having copied the music, he claimed in court that the music was created by his brother Rajesh Roshan. He probably did this on bad legal advice in an attempt to evade the copyright infringement charge and lost his reputation along with the case. Sampath asked for a stay on the release of the movie. The court gave Roshan the option of releasing the movie without the disputed tracks. This would spell disaster for the movie. Nor was Roshan prepared to delay the release. Hence he had no option but to fork out the Rs 2 crore ($500,000) demanded by Sampath.

Sampath too has been blamed for harassment by many Bollywood sources. Though Sampath did not do anything illegal they claim his action was immoral. The music was released two months ago, but Sampath waited till the movie was due for release before making his move. He thus left Roshan with no option but to pay up. Had Sampath acted earlier Roshan, in the worst case, could have changed the music and Sampath would be left with nothing. All is fair in love and war and I do not find fault with Sampath for getting the best deal for himself.

I have no idea whether Sony’s act of issuing the invalid NOC is illegal. Perhaps not, because they only gave their no objection and not their permission. But if Sony can be taken to court I would like to see it done because their carelessness is the root cause of this mess.

The Indo-US Nuclear Deal

In India the per capita power consumption is about 600 Kilowatt Hours. Nations like France, Germany and the United Kingdom average more than 6,000 Kilowatt Hours. This alone is sufficient to give a big picture of India’s electricity needs. Without getting involved with costs and resources it is evident that India’s electricity needs cannot be met without exploiting nuclear power, especially in view of exploding oil prices. And this is where the Indo-US Nuclear Deal enters the scene.

Without the Indo-US Nuclear Deal India cannot increase its nuclear power capacity. Because without the Indo-US Nuclear Deal access to know how, access to raw material and access to reprocessing of spent fuel will be denied to India. Therefore all political parties realize the necessity of the deal. However political parties not in the government, and this includes the opposition and those supporting from outside, are not willing to publicly accept this fact, and understandably so. Political parties need to create their own political space and consolidate their own vote bank. They cannot do this by agreeing with each other. It is essential to have a disagreement. The issue is very similar to brand positioning in the market place.

Two of the main opponents of the nuclear deal are the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Communist bloc (the Left). The BJP is not opposed to an Indo-US Nuclear Deal. They are opposed to the deal that the Congress Party has negotiated. They say that this deal compromises India’s sovereignty. If it does, then that is a cost India has to weigh against the benefits. Unfortunately it would be political suicide for a political part to acknowledge that. Therefore the Congress has fought back on a different front. They claim that the deal that NDA government, under BJP’s leadership, had negotiated was even more harmful to India’s interests. They say that the restrictive covenants of the deal will anyway exist. Unfortunately for the people of India any public debate immediately shifts to vociferous rhetoric rather than staying the course of sensible argumentation.

The Left on the other hand is opposed to any deal with the US, nuclear or otherwise. The US is the Left’s traditional imperial enemy. The Congress and the Left disagree on many issues and are on the same side for the sole purpose of keeping the BJP out of power. The Congress is not bothered about responding to the Left’s criticism. All they say is that they are trying to convince the Left.

So the million-dollar question remains. Will the Indo-US Nuclear Deal go through or not? For the time being let us ignore the requirements imposed by the US election year and the steps yet to be completed before the deal can go through. Can the Congress afford to sign the nuclear deal? The Congress can sign the deal without the Left’s support but it cannot get the deal ratified by Parliament without the Left’s support. The Left cannot support the deal without risking erosion of its core vote bank. Hence the cold fact is that this government cannot make the nuclear deal a reality.

But this does not mean that Congress has nothing to gain by signing the deal. If Congress wants to precipitate early elections all it has to do is sign the deal and compel the Left to withdraw support. So the question boils down to whether it is in Congress’ interests to force early elections. The answer seems to be “no”. Congress has suffered severe setbacks in recent state elections and its image has taken a beating. It has started a consolidation process with a populist budget, a cabinet reshuffle and with Rahul Gandhi’s offensive. But it needs time to see the consolidation process through. Therefore it is not likely to do anything in a hurry. The next stop is the election in Karnataka. If the results are spectacular for congress then, maybe it will take the plunge.

But I doubt it.

Indi China and Tibet

One controversy that rears its head every now and then is whether India should be pro Tibet or pro China. With the Tibetan protests going vociferously global in the prelude to the Beijing Olympics the Indian government has been caught between the proverbial devil and the deep sea. On one side is the Dalai Lama who has been given sanctuary in India, whose religious heritage is inextricably linked to our heritage and whose present independence movement strikes a chord with our own. On the other side is China whose military power we can never hope to match and whose economic power is essential to our own growth.

If one tries to locate the root cause of this mess one can go back to the British Empire when arbitrary lines were drawn on the map of Asia and treaties imposed on people without their acceptance. China-Tibet, India-Pakistan-Kashmir and Israel-Palestine all have their genesis in the above. But the more immediate causes were two events took place in the late 1940s. India became independent in 1947 and around the same time Mao’s People’s Army took over China. One of the first acts of the Communist regime in China was overrunning Tibet. Though India sympathized with Tibet it sided with China by recognizing China’s new regime and using its influence on Tibet to compromise with their new situation, thereby giving the Chinese aggression legitimacy. For the next decade, China continued its demolition of the Tibetan culture and India continued to support China with misplaced naivety. “हिन्दी-चीनी भाई भाई” was India’s slogan under the policy of Panchsheel, a slogan that eventually made India a laughing stock. In 1959 the Tibetan rebellion in Lhasa was crushed and under American protection the Dalai Lama fled to India. India was compelled to give him sanctuary in Dharamshala. India discovered that China had built roads deep inside Indian territory. China refused to accept the boundary drawn by the British and accused India of sheltering an enemy of China. This led to the Sino-Indian War of 1962. The confused Indian policy on China can be traced back to its inconsistent reactions to the events described above.

This inconsistency was the result of one man who put his desire for international accolades above the interests of his country. He refused to take strong steps and sought a peace on submissive terms – a peace that could not endure. Nehru’s policy on China was not the only policy that was faulty. His declaring cease-fire in Kashmir when the Indian army was on the verge of occupying the whole of the state was nothing but hankering for praise from the West. That cease-fire gave rise to Pak Occupied Kashmir, which is the cause of problems today.

Mani Shankar Aiyar loses Sports portfolio

The cabinet of the Government was reshuffled yesterday. Cabinet reshuffles once in a while are good if they weed out the bad and provide an opportunity to the able. In the run up to the elections cabinet reshuffles can be a vote catching gimmick. Like this one reached out to the youth of India with the induction of two young ministers.

But what was really sad about the reshuffle was that Mani Shankar Aiyar was divested of the Sports portfolio, which was given to M.S.Gill. Aiyar was a voice of sanity and credibility in the mad and selfish world of Indian politics. He could envisage and plan. Gill, the former chief election commissioner, is at best an administrator, who may be able follow a given road map but can definitely not create one. His induction into the ministry stinks.

India does not need a Sports Ministry. There are far more serious issues that the government needs to handle. But if there has to be a Sports minister, one like Aiyar is needed. He tried to free the various sports federations from the almost proprietary control the federation chiefs exercised, by holding up the funds allotted to the federations for want of planning and accountability. In the recent past Aiyar had taken Suresh Kalmadi, the president of the Indian Olympic association, head on over the financial requirements for the Commonwealth Games to be held in Delhi in 2010. The amount demanded by Kalmadi was preposterous according to Aiyar, who asked for a justification. Clearly Kalmadi has more clout than Aiyar in the corridors of power and Aiyar was shown the door.

The Commonwealth Games of 2010 is a huge financial pie and there are many who were in line for slices. You can bet they did not want the size of the pie to come down. Maybe Aiyar was holding out for a share himself. But I would not like to think so. When this government was formed in 2004, Aiyar was given the Petroleum Ministry. Then he had a confrontation with none other than the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family, Rahul Gandhi himself. Rahul Gandhi had wanted a Petroleum Research Institute in his constituency, but Aiyar put his foot down stating that there were no activities related to petroleum in that constituency to merit such an institute there.

Introduction

India is a “happening” place. No doubt that there are other happening places on the globe but India is my country. And is a country of a billion others. And then one cannot ignore the Indian diaspora scattered all over the world who are increasingly viewing with pride India as the country of their origin.

Where such diversity exists there will be divergence of views. This divergence if handled improperly will lead to controversies - controversies over cricket selections, controversies over the Rama Setu, controversies over Jodhaa Akbar. New controversies are born every day. Some die an instant death whereas some rage for weeks fanned by the electronic media.

If the diversity is handled properly it leads to fusion. Kipling said, “East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.” But they have met in India - in the Hare Krishna movement, in dosas with Western fillings and pizzas with Indian toppings, in the NRI-Bollywood amalgam.

So this blog will be about the controversies and fusions of India, the achievements and despairs of India and above all about the path ahead. India can be praised or criticized but not ignored.