Archive for the 'Leaders' Category

Why does the West love the Dalai Lama?

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on February 18, 2010
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From BBC News Magazine:

A US president is again choosing to meet the Dalai Lama despite Chinese opposition. But why is this Tibetan spiritual and political leader such a popular figure in the West?

To the Chinese government and to many of its people he is an inciter of violence and a defender of a brutal, backward, feudalistic, theocratic society.

But to many politicians and people in the West, the Dalai Lama is a kind of smiling, spiritual and political superhero.

His monastic robes, beaming countenance and squarish, unfashionable glasses are the stuff of a thousand photo opportunities. To some he is in a league of international personalities that contains only one other person – Nelson Mandela.

He is well-known for his contact with Hollywood supporters like Richard Gere and Steven Segal. More:

The dream of an intellectual marketplace

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on February 18, 2010
in Economy, India, Leaders and People
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Ashok V. Desai on Dr K.N. Raj in The Telegraph, Calcutta:

I went first to Delhi in 1966 to be a corporate economist, and then moved over to a research institute. But when I decided to take a chair I was offered in the University of the South Pacific in 1973, Raj sought me out and said, “Ashok, you should not go; we need people like you in this country.” I was touched, and would have listened to him if it had not been for financial compulsions. Five years later, when I was in Sussex University, Raj again came to me and said, “I have now started a new centre in Trivandrum; come and join me.”

I listened to him and went. I saw something unique. Raj had got hold of Laurie Baker, who built him a beautiful, low-cost campus. He bought cheap bricks, and soaked them in water for a couple of days; if they did not disintegrate, he used them. He made large windows with wooden shutters; they gave ample cross-ventilation in the local humid climate, and obviated the use of glass. He scattered a few buildings on a hill; the woods separating them gave them a sense of privacy. And he built a tower to house the library; one could find a seat with a breathtaking view of the surrounding valleys, and get lost in books. Being on the campus, I could walk to the library at any time of the day or night. We could talk economics and much else in any of the many cosy corners. Students would walk into my home whenever they wanted sustenance, material or intellectual. The place was ideally designed for debating and creating economics. It was the DSchool model in a different environment. More:

To ward off evil, Zardari kills one black goat a day

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on January 28, 2010
in Culture, Leaders and Pakistan
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From Dawn:

A black goat is slaughtered almost daily to ward off ‘evil eyes’ and protect President Asif Ali Zardari from ‘black magic’. Does this, and the use of camel and goat milk, make the beleaguered president appear to be a superstitious man?

Well, not to his spokesman. “It has been an old practice of Mr Zardari to offer Sadqa (animal sacrifice). He has been doing this for a long time,” spokesman Farhatullah Babar told Dawn on Tuesday. More:

Gandhi and women

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on January 27, 2010
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Mohandas Gandhi held India back when it came to women’s rights — and his own behaviour around them could be bizarre, writes Michael Connellan in Guardian’s Comment is Free

Courtesy: Outlook India

Mohandas Gandhi whose death anniversary falls on Saturday, was an amazing human being. He led his country to freedom and helped destroy the British Empire. Little wonder India worshipped him, and still worships him, as the Mahatma – “Great Soul”. In the west he is viewed as a near-perfect combination of compassion, bravery and wisdom.

But Gandhi was also a puritan and a misogynist who helped ensure that India remains one of the most sexually repressed nations on earth – and, by and large, a dreadful place to be born female. George Orwell, in his 1949 essay Reflections on Gandhi, said that “saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent”. If only.  more

The Afghan leader’s hat

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on January 27, 2010
in Af-Pak, Afghanistan, Culture, Design, Fashion, Leaders and Politics
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From the New York Times:

Known as a karakul hat, and made of the pelt of fetal or newborn lambs of the karakul breed of sheep, traditionally it was something worn by Tajiks and Uzbeks from northern Afghanistan. When Mr. Karzai, a Pashtun from the turban-wearing south, took office in 2002, the karakul hat was part of his attempt to devise a wardrobe that was Afghan rather than ethnic or regional.

It was a move widely praised at the time, in Afghanistan and abroad. The American designer Tom Ford called the Afghan president “the chicest man on the planet.” Afghans looking for national symbols after decades of ethnic strife inspired a brisk trade in the hats, made of lambskins from Mazar-i-Sharif in the north and fashioned by Kabul’s hatters, whose shops lined both sides of Shah-e-do Shamshera Wali Road.

Now, a tainted presidential election later, and with efforts to make a truly multiethnic government foundering, the sheen is off the shimmery fur headwear.

Young men no longer wear it; Mr. Karzai’s opponent in the aborted election runoff, Abdullah Abdullah, a northerner, preferred a hatless suit-and-tie ensemble. All but 12 of the hatters shops have closed on Shamshera Road, also famous for its shrine covered in pigeons. Those remaining say they are lucky to sell a hat a day. More:

The art of dying

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on January 22, 2010
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As in life, Jyoti Basu was astoundingly lucky in death. Sandipan Deb in Open:

As in life, so in death. The timing of his death is Jyoti Basu’s parting shot to all his critics, the final proof that, communist or not, he was born under some very powerful stars. In the nine years since he stepped down as CM, the Left Front in West Bengal has steadily crumbled under the weight of his political, economic and social legacy. Buddhadeb’s downfall has been the direct result of his trying to loosen the state from the Gordian knots Basu had tied it up in, so that the people of West Bengal could have a better quality of life. But the knots had been secured over 23 years, and won’t come off that fast, for Jyotibabu had changed the very mentality of a race, turning a progressive people into frogs in the well. Yet, no criticism was ever directed at him as he rested at home. More:

Jyoti Basu: 1914-2010

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on January 18, 2010
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Jyoti Basu, who ruled Bengal for a record 23 years but was stopped by his party from becoming Prime Minister, died today minutes before noon after a 17-day battle with pneumonia. He was 95. As he had wished, his body will be donated to the medical school. [Full story here]

Below, from The Telegraph, Calcutta:

Born to charm

Sunanda K. Datta-Ray in The Telegraph:

Manmohan Singh once adapted a famous comment about Britain’s R.A. Butler to say that Jyoti Basu was the best prime minister India had never had. The prime minister may long ago have outgrown that personal view privately expressed before he held a governmental position; but there is no denying that Basu had a panache that never failed to impress. This writer too waxed eulogistic about the former chief minister in an anthology published about 15 years ago. It’s only when West Bengal is compared to other states that doubts about Basu’s long stewardship creep in.

People who worked with him in his early years in politics say he strove to model himself on Bidhan Chandra Roy, his hero. If so, the main resemblance was in his relationship with his party. Basu towered over his comrades as Roy had done over other Congressmen. He also had a broader perspective than other Bengali Marxists. Legend had it that he was on first-name terms with Indira Gandhi, whom he had known as a student in England. Others (P.N. Haksar, Bhupesh Gupta, Mohan Kumaramangalam) had also fallen under Rajani Palme Dutt’s spell and returned to join either politics (Congress or communist), law or the civil service. But surrounded by sycophantic civil servants, Basu was intolerant of independent appraisals. More:

Master of the politics of feasibility

Ashok Mitra, a younger comrade, pays homage to Jyoti Basu.

India is to be without Jyoti Basu. The new reality will not sink easily into most minds. For most of the past half-a-century, the man had filled a crucial spot in the country’s political landscape. It was a movable spot since circumstances were evolving all the time, but the picture would never be complete without this man’s position and point of view. Allies, permanent or temporary, would be there to seek his counsel. Adversaries, too, would be aware of the differences and the weight of his views. The general feeling of a lack of coordinates, which has accompanied the announcement of his passing, is therefore understandable. This vacuum of feelings will, however, be different from person to person. That too owes to the magic of his persona. He had a way of interacting on the individual plane with whomever he met.

And this is perhaps what charisma is about. After Subhas Chandra Bose, Jyoti Basu was the next idol the Bengali masses created and clung to. More

A patriarch remembered

Gopal Krishna Gandhi, till recently the governor of West Bengal:

“See my condition,” he said, “I have to meet you like this, sitting on my bed.” It was the day prior to his 95th birthday. “I can’t hear in one ear, and can’t see in one eye.” “You are not missing much,” I suggested, “there is so much around us one doesn’t want to hear and so much one does not like to see.” He smiled a wan smile, a variant of the dry smile of his that has been the photographer’s despair. I am not sure he had heard me.

When I went to call on him again on December 13, 2009, a day prior to my demitting office, he was weaker. He started the conversation by saying, “I cannot see, I cannot hear…” More

CPM’s Vajpayee? More like CPM’s Advani

And in The Indian Express, Saubhik Chakrabarti:

The biggest scandal in 30-plus years of Left rule in Bengal (of which two-thirds saw Basu as CM) is not poor industrial progress but the fate of the aam aadmi. There are tons of statistics. A few will make the point.

A warning first. Whenever Bengal’s data is assessed it is useful to remember Kolkata (Calcutta during Basu’s days in office) is an outlier, being by Bengal’s standards far richer and more modern than the rest of the state. To understand Bengal, one should look at its other 18 districts.

Consider, for instance, that Bengal’s official Human Development Report estimates that over 78% of Purulia’s population is below the poverty line. This is a shocking statistic for a state ruled for 20-plus years by a progressive moderate CM, whose policy centrepiece was agrarian change. Overall poverty levels in Bengal are better only compared to states like Bihar, UP, MP, Orissa and Jharkhand.

Bengal does poorly in schooling — its dropout rates for primary students are worse than all states save Bihar and some North-eastern states. Assam has more schools per lakh people. Himachal Pradesh has a better teacher-student ratio. More:

George Fernandes: Inheritance wars

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on January 16, 2010
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The fight over George Fernandes’s financial assets between his estranged wife Leila Kabir and son Sean on one side, and his high-profile companion of three decades, Jaya Jaitly, is out in the open. Vandita Mishra in the Indian Express:

On one side of this sad and tangled tale are George’s estranged wife Leila Kabir Fernandes and their only child, Sean, who lives in the US. On the other, primarily, Jaya Jaitly, his long-time colleague and confidante, and Richard Fernandes, one of his four brothers.

At the centre, both sides maintain, is the imperative to provide the best possible care to the ailing leader. Accusations fly about a power of attorney given and revoked and alleged secrecy about land deals running into crores.

The fight over George spilled over into the public domain on January 2, when Sean Fernandes, then on a visit to India to see his father, filed a complaint at Tughlaq Road police station, asking the police to provide security to the immediate family — George, Leila, Sean, his wife and their 10-month-old son — and instructing guards not to let anyone enter the house without the immediate family’s authorisation. More:

And more here:

From Outlook: Richard claims George was whisked away to a hospital when he was briefly away from the house. The doctors wouldn’t let him meet his brother, nor can he get in touch with George’s main attendant, who has been a member of his household staff for the last two decades. He is convinced now that his brother is being used by Leila and Sean to get back at Jaya. “She’s getting a raw deal,” he says, pointing out that Jaya was the only person whose visit George looked forward to every morning. “From changing his diapers to giving him his medicines, she was everything to him. In the 20 years I’ve seen them together,” he says, “I’ve never seen any friction between them.” And now, he points out, “George was being used as a stick to beat Jaya with.”

USAID chief Rajiv Shah’s crisis management skills

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on January 16, 2010
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From the Washington Post:

Rajiv Shah

Five days into his new job, Rajiv Shah found himself in the White House Situation Room, seated four chairs from President Obama and overseeing the U.S. government’s response to the earthquake that has devastated Haiti.

As Obama’s designated “unified disaster coordinator,” the 36-year-old doctor has been working to deploy relief workers, brief Cabinet secretaries and serve as a spokesman for the administration’s rescue and recovery efforts — all while on little sleep and lots of Diet Coke.

Shah, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, has wowed the White House and State Department, with top officials in both places praising his steady leadership and command of the evolving operations in Port-au-Prince. More:

Click here to read Rajiv Shah’s profile.

From INC to Congress Inc.

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on January 12, 2010
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It was a party of educated professionals once, and Rahul Gandhi wants to make it so again. But his father before him had tried, and he will succeed only if he finds a new way to do it. Jatin Gandhi and Hartosh Singh Bal in Open:

Indeed, as an organisation, the current Congress faces the same challenge any family-run business faces—how to bring about greater professionalisation while retaining control. The need to do so is not in doubt, spelt out as it is by the first of Ramachandran’s working hypotheses: family businesses with a higher level of professionalism practised both in business and by the family are likely to perform better and perpetuate their success over a longer time frame.

This, though, is easier said than done. Within the Congress, the idea has been in the making since Rajiv Gandhi’s ascent to power. But what was then a limited initiative to bring in a few friends with professional qualifications has now given way to a far more ambitious approach. Already, in the transition from Rajiv to Rahul, Sonia Gandhi has managed to implement an important step. She has placed a ‘professional CEO’ such as Manmohan Singh in charge of what managers call a ‘key result area’ (KRA): governance. Since 22 May 2004, Manmohan Singh has wrought professionalism across several governance functions, but his party itself has remained much the same. More:

[Image: Open]

Panditji’s pundit

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on January 12, 2010
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Aravind Adiga in Hindustan Times:

There are, it must be conceded, legitimate grounds on which Shashi Tharoor may be attacked. The hair, for instance. It isn’t the 1980s, dude: get it cut. The ultra-posh accent. And I’m talking here of his English accent. One shudders to think what his Malayalam must sound like. And we haven’t yet started on the most sensitive issue — the novels. Has anyone managed to finish Riot?

Since the man has so many soft spots, it’s puzzling that his ill-wishers are attacking him in the one place where he is invulnerable: his attitude towards Pandit Nehru’s foreign policy. Some years ago, Penguin India issued a series of small, handsomely-bound biographies that re-introduced us to the nation’s founding fathers. The best of this series was the one on Pandit Nehru, and it was written by Shashi Tharoor. This book, Nehru: The Invention of India, deserves to be quoted in the context of the present controversy, because it is probably the finest short book written on Nehru’s legacy. More:

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, a physicist, a biologist and a Chemistry Nobel Laureate

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on January 4, 2010
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In an interview with Shekhar Gupta on NDTV 24×7’s Walk the Talk. From The Indian Express:

Tell us about your journey in science — you started off as a physicist.

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan: I originally thought I might go to medical school. And I got admitted to the Baroda Medical College , but I also appeared for the National Science Talent exam. That was at the encouragement of my mother. I made a deal with my father — that if I got the scholarship, then you shouldn’t force me to do anything. He wanted me to be a doctor. I got the scholarship, and while he was away, I transferred my admission from medical college to study physics. The clerk thought I’d made a mistake, and I actually meant the other way round.

For our generation, the first choice was medicine. Next was engineering. If you failed in both, you went for the IAS.

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan: One thing that motivated me was that a group of professors, some of whom had come back from the US, had completely modernised the curriculum. 30 years later, my son studied basically the same curriculum at Harvard. So that was a motivation for me to go into physics. Somewhere along the line I realised that I was not going to be a good physicist. I would just be doing some boring calculations and not have any real insight. I believe physics is on a difficult plane, because to make truly fundamental breakthroughs in physics is very hard now. At the same time, molecular biology was blossoming. It seemed every week there was an important discovery being made.  More:

The Jinnah cap

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on December 22, 2009
in Leaders, Pakistan and Politics
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The Jinnah cap has long symbolised Pakistan’s national ideology and the wearer’s political aspirations. Qurat ul ain Siddiqui in Dawn:

One piece of attire has long symbolised Pakistan’s national ideology: the Jinnah cap. Technically known as the Qaraqul cap, for it is made from the fur of the Qaraqul breed of sheep, the hat is typically worn by Central Asian men (presently, Afghan President Hamid Karzai is rarely seen without his). But in Pakistan, the hat has been firmly identified with the Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah for decades. This affiliation has ensured that others who sport the cap are understood to be making a political, rather than fashion, statement. Indeed, as Pakistan’s democratic fortunes have waxed and waned over the years, the choice by certain politicians to don the Jinnah cap has revealed much about political aspirations and the public mood.

The Jinnah cap was first initiated into national politics in 1937, when Jinnah sported it at the Lucknow session of the All India Muslim League on October 15. The cap was part of a complete change in Jinnah’s wardrobe; he surrendered his Saville Row suits in favour of a sherwani and Qaraqul cap meant to signify his commitment to the idea of a separate nation for the Muslims of South Asia.

Interestingly, at that point, many regarded the Jinnah cap as an answer to the hand-spun cotton cap which Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru used to wear, and which had come to symbolise the Congress Party’s ideals at the time. More:

One Pakistani institution places his faith in another

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on December 22, 2009
in Business, Economy, Education, Leaders, Pakistan and Society
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Syed Babar Ali, 83, a veteran businessman who helped create the Lahore University of Management and Science, wants to restore merit to Pakistani society. Sabrina Tavernise in the New York Times:

Mr. Ali is an institution in Pakistan. He has started some of the country’s most successful companies. But perhaps his most important contribution has been his role in creating the Lahore University of Management and Science, or L.U.M.S., begun as a business school but now evolved into the approximate equivalent of Harvard University in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s biggest problem, he believes, is one of leadership. A corrosive system of privilege and patronage has eaten away at merit, degrading the fabric of society and making it more difficult for poor people to rise. The growing tendency to see government positions as chances to profit, together with the explosion in the country’s population, has led to a sharp decline in the services that Pakistan’s government offers its people.

“Nobody is bothered about the masses,” Mr. Ali said. More:

The making of a Field Marshal

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on December 18, 2009
in India and Leaders
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S.K. Sinha, a retired lieutenant-general and former Vice-Chief of Army Staff, in the Asian Age:

I had the privilege of serving under Sam Manekshaw in all the ranks that he held from Lt. Col. to Army Chief. He had a tremendous capacity for work and was a brilliant professional, contributing immensely in every appointment. He combined all this with a great sense of humour and ready wit. As a senior staff officer at Army Headquarters in 1971, I saw how meticulously he planned for the coming war during the nine months preparatory time he had managed to obtain. The resounding victory in that war was the crowning achievement of the foremost military leader of our Army.

I was functioning as adjutant-general, the Army’s chief of personnel, in January 1973 and had to work out his entitlements in his new rank. I went to his office to congratulate him and found him examining the badges of rank in cloth that had been prepared by Bastani Brothers, the tailor in South Block. Apparently Sam had been informed of his promotion a day or two earlier. To maintain secrecy, his personal staff told the tailor that a Nepalese field marshal was to come and his badge of rank had to be stitched. Sam told me that an investiture was to be held two days later at Rashtrapati Bhavan and I had to work out all the details with the government. I replied that it would be both an honour and a pleasure. However, I told him that the cloth badges of rank would be of no use, he would have to be in his ceremonial uniform for which he would need metal badges of rank. Moreover, the badges of rank made by the tailor were not correct. The Ashoka Lion at the top of the wreath had to be in miniature and touching the top of the two loops in one badge of rank. He asked me how I knew this. I replied that when Field Marshal Auchinleck used to visit the Operations Room in 1946, I used to closely watch his badges of rank and ribbons. He said he saw more of Auchinleck than me but was not sure what I said was correct. He wanted something authentic. I went back to my office and tried to find some written authority, but nothing was available. I rang up our military attaché in London. He told me that the War Office was closed for the Christmas holidays and he would not be able to send me anything for a week. I then thought of looking up the Encyclopedia Britannica. I was happy to find a colour picture of a field marshal’s badges of rank. That satisfied Sam. I said I would get them fabricated at the Army workshop in Delhi Cantonment. Working round the clock, our electrical engineers made a good job of it and completed the task within 24 hours. More:

How to mend fences with Pakistan

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on December 10, 2009
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Asif Ali Zardari, the president of Pakistan, in the New York Times:

asif_ali_zardari4Now that President Obama has recommitted the United States to stand with Pakistan and Afghanistan in our common fight against terrorism, extremism and fanaticism, it would be useful for Americans and Pakistanis to consider what has brought us to this point — and what the conflict’s true endgame must be.

Despite the noise created by an often hyperactive press in Pakistan (an essential and preferable alternative to the censorship that prevailed during my country’s military dictatorships), and the doubts expressed in America, Pakistan’s democratically elected government is unambiguously on the right path toward establishing a moderate and modern nation.

Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani and I are working closely with our national assembly and our military and intelligence agencies to defeat the Taliban insurgency and the Qaeda-backed campaign of terrorism. Simultaneously, we are pursuing policies that will re-establish Pakistan as a vibrant economic market and finally address the long-neglected weaknesses in our education, health, agriculture and energy sectors. This isn’t just rhetoric — it is an active policy with new budget priorities and a reoriented national mindset. More:

Also read in NYT: ‘Obama needs a ‘Plan B‘ by Anatol Lieven, a professor in the War Studies Department at King’s College London and a senior fellow of the New America Foundation, and Maleeha Lodhi, senior fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center and a former Pakistani ambassador to Washington and London.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari

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on November 23, 2009
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Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is the eldest child of the late Pakistani politician and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari, the current President of Pakistan. His Wiki profile says he is studying History at Christ Church, Oxford. His speech in Urdu is doing the rounds for the accent.

Garden murder that sparked a Delhi pogrom

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on October 31, 2009
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India’s progress has confounded those who predicted chaos after Indira Gandhi’s death. Ian Jack in the Guardian:

indira_gandhiTwenty-five years ago today Indira Gandhi was assassinated in the garden of her residence in Delhi. Two of the Indian prime minister’s security guards, both Sikhs, shot her as she walked towards an early morning interview with Peter Ustinov, who was filming a British television documentary. Some reports say that more than 30 bullets were taken from, or had found their way through, her body. The assassins were exacting retribution for the destruction of the Golden Temple in Amritsar four months earlier, when on Gandhi’s orders the Indian army had bombarded and then invaded the Sikh shrine to expel militant Sikh separatists. Hundreds of Sikhs had died in that operation, and now, in the days following Gandhi’s death, hundreds more met the same fate in the poorest suburbs of Delhi.

It was a vengeful cycle of action and reaction. Over several years as a reporter in the subcontinent I’d witnessed violent demonstrations, sometimes brutally put down, and read brief newspapers items about “communal disturbances” in remote (to me) provincial towns. But Delhi was my first full-scale communal riot. Pogrom might be a better word. To belong to the 8% or so of the city’s population which was Sikh was to know terror during those days in late 1984; in terms of civilian bloodletting, India had seen nothing like it in almost 40 years. Not to be known as a Sikh, not to be bearded and turbaned, not to be carrying a ceremonial dagger, not to be wearing orthodox underpants; all these negatives made you safe. More:

The Idea of Indira

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Shekhar Gupta in the Indian Express:

Time magazine cover (November 1984) on the assassination of Indira Gandhi.

Time magazine cover (November 1984) on the assassination of Indira Gandhi.

What makes it even more challenging to understand a personality like Indira Gandhi even 25 years after her passing is the fact that you are not talking about one person, but three. Or, to put it more accurately, not one prime minister, but three. Indira Gandhi had two spells in power, but in fairness you have to break her first tenure (1966-77) also into two, with a changing of chapters at the end of the Bangladesh war in December 1971. This gives us three reigns of almost equal length, 1966-71, 1972-77 and 1980-end 1984. In each one, it was the same personality in office but a different prime minister. Mrs Gandhi was no doctrinaire figure, with all her wisdom or ideas inherited from her father. She changed and evolved, often for the better, sometimes not quite so. To that extent, she was an original among leaders who serve long tenures. Think of her, in fact, as a complete opposite of another titan of her times – and one she shared so much mutual fondness with – the unchanging Fidel Castro. Remember that wonderful picture of their joyous hug at the Non-Aligned Summit in New Delhi in 1983?

Unlike her son Rajiv, subsequently, Indira was not a reluctant politician. Even when Lal Bahadur Shastri stepped in after Nehru in 1964, many in the Congress saw her as a successor soon enough. She was already the minister for information and broadcasting, but, just like Rajiv, she was fated to be catapulted to prime ministership, unexpectedly with Shastri’s sudden death in Tashkent. Her first tenure, therefore, reflected some of that under-preparedness and diffidence. This is what persuaded Ram Manohar Lohia to use for her the description, “goongi gudiya” (dumb doll). She made the entire opposition pay for that over her “three” tenures in power. And how. More:

The original Mrs G

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on October 30, 2009
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Pratap Bhanu Mehta in the Indian Express:

Indira Gandhi on Jan. 28, 1966 cover of Time

Indira Gandhi on Jan. 28, 1966 cover of Time

Her assassination and the brutal massacre of Sikhs that followed were, in different ways, profoundly tragic events. But both traced their origins to a politics that Indira Gandhi had tolerated, if not positively encouraged. In many ways, the Punjab crisis, of which these two events were the violent denouement, embodied the worst aspects of her legacy. The Congress consistently fished in troubled communal waters in Punjab, using sectarianism rather than rising above it. The state first let the crisis develop through sins of omission and commission, and then when pushed to the brink responded with brutal force. The legitimation of the violence that followed was premised largely on the deification of her persona. Only in the context where her party members believed that “Indira is India” could the massacre of three thousand people be so easily justified. Even the political shock troopers of the Sikh massacre, most of whom have since become icons of political respectability, were products of a violent street politics she had done little to curb during the Emergency. It was almost as if the context in which her assassination came to be embedded made it difficult for her death to achieve the status of martyrdom. The Congress will be doing itself a disservice by remembering her assassination as a day of martyrdom. Instead it is a day to recall how democracies can become vulnerable to their own worst tendencies. More:

Raj Thackeray: The nephew also rises

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on October 23, 2009
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In Mint, Niranjan Rajadhyaksha profiles Raj Thackeray, whose fledgeling party Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), a breakaway faction of his uncle’s right wing Shiv Sena, won a dozen seats in the state election.

rajthackerayMumbai: There are two political events in Mumbai where crowds do not have to be hired and trucked in to create a false show of strength: the death anniversary of B.R. Ambedkar on 6 December and the annual Dusshera rally addressed by Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray. These are the two days when loyalists come on their own in packed trains, alight at Dadar railway station and then walk another 15 minutes to reach the Shivaji Park area where the city’s big political rallies are traditionally held.

So old timers in Maharashtrian-dominated area took notice of the fact that this was happening all over again when Raj Thackeray held a political rally. It was an advance warning to other political parties that the leader of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) had struck a chord with his growing band of supporters, even as his divisive political acts threatened Mumbai’s famed cosmopolitan culture and made him the man many love to hate. More:

Obama’s Diwali message

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on October 18, 2009
in Faith and Leaders
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The hallmark of a true professional

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on October 16, 2009
in Books, Innovation and Leaders
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Saritha Rai in the Indian Express:

subrotobagchiSubroto Bagchi, born and raised in small-town Orissa, and educated in government schools in the vernacular medium, is not your usual, garden variety technology entrepreneur-CEO. Bagchi is not a techie by either education or qualification. He holds a degree in political science. He does not act or speak like a techie. Rather than industry outlook or quarterly results, he prefers holding forth on multiple intelligences. He can talk eloquently and with insight about the vulgarity of amassing wealth or about Pakistan. For instance, he prophecies that Pakistan cannot come anywhere close to India in technology capability even in the next 500 years because it is a feudal society.

And now with his book, the Hollywood-ishly titled The Professional – his third in as many years – Bagchi proves yet again that he is singular. His prose is more appealing than that of most techies. How can a full-time top executive find the time to write so prolifically? He writes columns and management journal pieces frequently too. Bagchi explained tongue-in-cheek recently, “I don’t play golf.” More:

The 10 wackiest U.N. speeches ever

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on October 14, 2009
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Krishna Menon

Krishna Menon

From Foreign Policy:

Indian Diplomat Filibusters Himself to (near) Death

Year: 1957

Quote: “The Security Council regards this as a dispute. It is not a dispute for territory. There is only one problem before you … that problem is the problem of aggression.”

Impact: With this epic filibuster during a debate on Kashmir, Indian U.N. envoy Krishna Menon holds the record for the longest speech in the history of the U.N. Security Council. In total it lasted over eight hours. Menon actually collapsed from exhaustion partway through and had to be hospitalized. He returned later and continued for another hour while a doctor monitored his blood pressure.

Others on the list: Castro, Krushchev, U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Arafat, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Libyan Leader Muammar al-Qaddafi.

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Obama wins Nobel

Published
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on October 10, 2009
in Leaders and Movies
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Unny in the Indian Express

obama_unnySeven people who should have won, but didn’t

From Foreign Policy:

mahatma_gandhiMahatma Gandhi: History’s most famous pacifist is probably the peace prize’s most famous omission, and the Nobel Foundation has even a Web page explaining its side of the story. Gandhi made the Nobel short list three times: in 1937, 1947, and then posthumously in 1948. In 1937, the committee’s advisor criticized Gandhi’s dual role as a peace activist and political leader of an independence movement, writing that he “is frequently a Christ, but then, suddenly, an ordinary politician.”

Also read “The Nobel and the audacity of hope-giving: Siddharth Varadarajan in the Hindu

Parag Khanna at TED

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on October 7, 2009
in Economy, Innovation and Leaders
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From TED:

Political scientist Parag Khanna travels the world with his eyes open — and has become a trenchant critic of the standard wisdom about the second and third worlds. Khanna’s recent book, The Second World: How Emerging Powers Are Redefining Global Competition in the Twenty-first Century, looks at the epic political manipulations of nations struggling to end up at the top of the global heap. Esquire calls Khanna one of the 75 people who will influence the 21st century, precisely because it’s these smaller countries that will shape the world’s future.

Khanna argues that we’re entering a time of apolarity — when the traditional centers of gravity (US/Europe/Russia/China) will no longer hold. He sees a 21st century that has much in common with the feudal 16th century, where non-state actors have as much influence on the course of world events as countries do. His next book will explore this new medievalism and its effect on the diplomatic-industrial complex.

Obituary: Norman Borlaug, who led Green Revolution

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on September 13, 2009
in Leaders and Science
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Largely because of his work, countries that had been food deficient, like Mexico and India, became self-sufficient in producing cereal grains. From the New York Times:

“More than any other single person of this age, he has helped provide bread for a hungry world,” the Nobel committee said in presenting him with the Peace Prize. “We have made this choice in the hope that providing bread will also give the world peace.”

The day the award was announced, Dr. Borlaug, vigorous and slender at 56, was working in a wheat field outside Mexico City when his wife, Margaret, drove up to tell him the news. “Someone’s pulling your leg,” he replied, according to one of his biographers, Leon Hesser. Assured that it was true, he kept on working, saying he would celebrate later.

The Green Revolution eventually came under attack from environmental and social critics who said it had created more difficulties than it had solved. Dr. Borlaug responded that the real problem was not his agricultural techniques, but the runaway population growth that had made them necessary.

“If the world population continues to increase at the same rate, we will destroy the species,” he declared.

Traveling to Norway, the land of his ancestors, to receive the award, he warned the Nobel audience that the struggle against hunger had not been won. “We may be at high tide now, but ebb tide could soon set in if we become complacent and relax our efforts,” he said. Twice more in his lifetime, in the 1970s and again in 2008, those words would prove prescient as food shortages and high prices caused global unrest. More:

Nehru, Jinnah responsible for partition of India: Jaswant Singh

Published
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on August 21, 2009
in Books, Heritage, India, Leaders, Pakistan and Politics
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Karan Thapar interviews Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Jaswant Singh on his book ‘Jinnah -- India, Partition, Independence‘ on CNN-IBN. Jaswant Singh has been expelled from the Hindu nationalist BJP for praising Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah, considered in India the architect of the partition. Authorities in the BJP-ruled western Indian state of Gujarat have banned the book for its “defamatory references” to Vallabhbhai Patel, India’s first home minister.

Karan Thapar: Mr Jaswant Singh, let’s start by establishing how you as the author view Mohammed Ali Jinnah? After reading your book, I get the feeling that you don’t subscribe to the popular demonisation of the man.

Jaswant Singh: Of course, I don’t. To that I don’t subscribe. I was attracted by the personality which has resulted in a book. If I wasn’t drawn to the personality, I wouldn’t have written the book. It’s an intricate, complex personality of great character, determination.

Karan Thapar: And it’s a personality that you found quite attractive?

Jaswant Singh: Naturally, otherwise, I wouldn’t have ventured down the book. I found the personality sufficiently attractive to go and research it for five years. And I was drawn to it, yes. More:

[The other parts of the interview are on YouTube.]

And below, Jawed Naqvi in Dawn:

But Jaswant Singh is not quitting politics, much less the country. In fact an endorsement of his quest will be palpable as early as this weekend when Ramazan, the month of fasting for Muslims, begins. In Lutyens’ Delhi, the hub of India’s power dynamic, the circus of feasts will see robed clerics from diverse Islamic clusters getting invited to the prime minister’s house to break bread. Government ministers, party leaders, MPs, power peddlers, middlemen, in a nutshell everyone who lives by the 13 per cent Muslim vote in India or those who need to flaunt their secularism will take turns to rustle up an appetising Ramazan menu. Of course, only a minority of India’s 150 million Muslims are mullahs and so a few of the less pious variety would also be given a slot in the meandering queue to rub shoulders with the high and mighty.

Had Jinnah had his way, there would be no need for the pathetic lottery of Ramazan invitations. There would be no need for the Justice Sachchar Committee, set up to investigate why Indian Muslims continue to be economically and socially backward six decades after independence from colonialism. More:

Two conversations with history

Published
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on August 13, 2009
in Leaders
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John Kenneth Galbraith

Economist John Kenneth Galbraith looks back and reflects on the art of writing, U.S. policy toward the Third World during the Cold War, political leadership, and on his intellectual contributions. Galbraith was US ambassador to India under Kennedy. He became an intimate of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and extensively advised the Indian government on economic matters.

Amartya Sen

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, Lamont University Professor, Harvard University, for a discussion of the interplay of economic theory and political philosophy in his work on public choice, development, and freedom. Sen recalls his own intellectual odyssey, commenting on some of the factors that shaped his thinking.

Pakistan’s got talent

Published
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on August 10, 2009
in Leaders and Pakistan
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From All Things Pakistan: “Gen. Pervez Musharraf may or may not be the one leader who did the most good (or bad) for Pakistan, but he may well be the one who sings the best.”