A contrarian world

Tamil Christians and Tamil Sangams.

2012-02-14T22:53:00.002-05:00

A friend posted a comment on Facebook wondering why Tamil Christians in USA do not show interest in Tamil Sangams despite showing enthusiasm in establishing Tamil churches in USA and worshipping in Tamil. One time North Carolina Tamil Sangam did not have a single Christian member.

Language is a powerful coagulant. As immigrants we love to congregate together on linguistic basis if we could or under some denomination. In USA given the large number of Tamils it is possible gather under the "Tamil" umbrella. Christianity being an organized religion, congregants, especially those who take efforts to establish vernacular churches, make it a point to meet at least twice a month and hold services in Tamil. This gives an outlet for what Tamil Christians miss as being away from Tamil Nadu. As much as Tamil Sangam members or some enthusiasts might disagree this is pretty much the same desire that is fulfilled by Tamil Sangams. So what more can a Tamil Sangam that a Tamil Christian does not get in a Tamil Church? Sangam members might point to cultural festivals, Tamil literary events (though sparsely attended by non-Christians themselves) etc and wonder "can they not come for the sake of Tamil?". No they cannot.

I grew up in a very unique Christian home thanks to a very liberal, very open and accepting father who shaped us to be open minded. We lived amidst Hindus of all castes, friendships with those families spanned generations. When all the kids in the neighborhood enjoyed bursting crackers we were told it's ok to join and we even got new clothes. Respecting our mom's wishes we celebrated Pongal complete with tying a turmeric around the cooker for Pongal and a kolam too. As a lover of literature my father savored Bharathi mini-epic of Draupadi and his songs of Krishna. We had Rajaji's "Mahabharatham" and "Ramayanam", a Bhagvad Gita, Silappathikaram etc. I inherited a love for Sivaji Ganesan, especially the movie 'Karnan' from my dad. My mother and wife both wear a bindi.

In most Christian households most or almost all of the above are taboo. Tamil literature, Kamba Ramayanam, wearing a bindi, a kolam, pongal etc are considered blasphemous by Christians. Tamil culture or whatever that gets called 'Tamil culture' is seen as 'Hindu Culture'. Ironically the Tamil Bible and Tamil Christian Hymns (especially those by Vedanayaham Sastriyaar) are replete with Sanskrit words and Hindu philosophy. Tamil Christians have not created anything in Tamil, besides the Bible and Hymns, that could be called 'literature'. The only feeble attempt is by an immigrant Veeramamunivar (Thembavani). The same could be said of Islam too. Islam had its own language too for all its members, rich or poor, for worshipping. Tamil Christians had only Tamil and English. Going to an English Church is considered more prestigious than going to Tamil church. The socio-economic divide between Tamil and English is very evident in the churches too. English Churches, especially in Madras, are invariably rich.

Before Tamil Sangam members take issue with looking at Tamil literature as 'Hindu' literature they would do well to introspect a good number of their own members who proudly claim allegiance to Dravidian political ideology. Annathurai made a career out of lampooning Kamban as a pornographer. In any other language a poet like Kamban would be celebrated, it is Kamban's misfortune that he was born in Tamil Nadu and he wrote in Tamil. Silappathikaram, written by a Jain, replete with Brahminical influences was held up as 'literature of the Tamils' by the same Dravidian ideologues without batting an eyelid that whatever they decried of Kamban could be said of Ilango. E.V.Ramasamy Naicker (some refer to him as 'Periyar') was an equal opportunity offender who relished lampooning all and sundry. With no knowledge of literature, worldwide or provincial, he ridicules Kural, the darling of his ideological progeny, along with the rest. Poor Tamil literature, some detest it for not being secular, others lampoon it on ideological basis.

When Tamil Unicode was being decided many Tamils, especially non-brahmins, in Tamil Nadu and USA worked themselves into a fury over the inclusion of a few letters, called "Grantha letters". Propaganda poured forth to protect Tamil against 'sanskritisation'. Tamil Bible is filled with Sanskrit word, Tamil Christian hymns cannot be printed in so called 'chaste' Tamil. By the way, no Tamilian, can actually write or speak 'chaste' Tamil. Good luck building a bridge then.

On a fine Deepavali day I wished an uncle of mine, "Happy Deepavali". Being a staunch DMK person he said "oh I do not celebrate Deepavali its all Aryan propaganda, I only celebrate Pongal which is a pure Tamilian festival'. Another shibboleth of Dravidian ideology is Pongal. Pongal is just harvest festival and is common to many cultures, Telugus celebrate it as "Makara Sankranthi". Food is cooked in a ceremonial manner and is offered to the Sun god. Pongal is not complete without a visit to family deity. There is nothing secular about Pongal for Christians to celebrate.

Tamil New Year is also not observed by Christians. Thanks to Karunanidhi now amongst those who celebrate Tamil New Year there is confusion. Tamil Sangams celebrate Pongal, Deepavali, Tamil New Year. On the contrary Tamil Sangams, to my knowledge, do not celebrate Christmas or Ramzan the two major functions of non-Hindu religions.

Nothing is secular about India. The India Day Parade in NYC for Aug 15th is dominated by an overtly Hindutva flavor (not just Hindu but Hindutva) that presence of Indian Muslims is practically nil, observed rediff.com. Is there a Tamil Culture apart from Hindu culture?

Unfortunately there are parts of Hindu culture that Tamil Christians have retained while refusing the finer aspects. That's the caste structure. A Tamil Christian asserted on Facebook "not a single Brahmin converts to Christianity, only non-brahmins convert and that is in order to escape caste oppression in Hinduism". The latter is false partly. A long serving Catholic Bishop in Tanjore was a Brahmin convert, so was the Bishop who presided over my marriage and a colleague I met in US. Both Christianity and Islam promised a casteless society that attracted especially the Dalits who were oppressed by every other community. However Dalit Christians continue to be discriminated by other Christians, who for the sake of quota are classified as Backward. Amongst Tamil Christian societies dowry remains a pernicious evil in proportions that are shameful.

Romney, Obama and the 'empathy' debate

2012-02-13T19:50:00.000-05:00

A South Indian poet said his heart bleeds whenever he sees a starved sheaf of corn. Another poet admonishes that all learning becomes moot if one cannot internalize the suffering of another. 'Empathy', it is reiterated, across ages and cultures, is one of the defining characteristic of being human. Christ, echoing similarities in Hinduism, asked that we treat every person as if we served the Lord himself. Given America's penchant to simplify a lofty philosophy, a question posed during Presidential elections is "amongst the candidates who would you like to have beer with?" another variant is "who would you prefer to have as your neighbor".

When FDR's cortege wound it's way through Virginia seeing a common man weeping inconsolably a reporter asked him if he knew FDR personally. The commoner replied "I did not know him but he knew me". Gandhi, the leader and empathizer par excellence, not only dressed and led the life of the poorest of Indians but his instinctive knowledge of suffering has spun its own tales of legend.

Romney appearing in a morning interview on CNN said, with a straight face, "I am not worried about the poor, they have a safety net, I am not worried about the rich, they are doing just fine. It's the middle class I worry about". All networks immediately relayed "Romney says he is not worried about the poor". People who call themselves conservatives to the bone cringed because according to deep conservative beliefs everyone should progress economically. Romney's comment fed into a double narrative, first that conservatives are cold and do not care about the poor, second a rich republican does not really care for the poor.

Obama held a youtube town hall where a woman asked him if he would consider reducing H1B visas in view of highly skilled Americans being unemployed. Her husband, a semiconductor engineer, remains unemployed. Obama's response was "It is interesting".

During the 2008 primaries one criticism that kept hurting Obama was that he does not 'connect' with blue collar voters. Hillary herself was characterized as "cold" until she shed a tear on live telecast in New Hampshire. When Hillary, after a long string of defeats, defeated Obama decisively in Ohio and Pennsylvania primaries again a collective chorus of "Obama does not connect" went up. Hillary supporter and PA governor Ed Rendell said Obama has an "appalachian problem". To make matters worse Obama was recorded as saying that "people cling to their guns and religion". That fed into the conservative narrative that liberal look down upon simple folks and their faith. Obama's allies, especially Afro-americans, bristled at this characterization of him being 'aloof' and not empathetic. His allies pointed out indignantly that Obama's mother raised him on food stamps.

On the day of 9/11 carnage Bush appeared on live TV and let tears roll down freely. Bill Clinton let his tears roll down receiving the caskets of US soldiers killed in Somalia. Presidents need to reflect a nations grief and they need to do it spontaneously.

President's also need to channel a nation's outrage and anger when enemies strike. When Bush said, about Osama Bin Laden, "there is an old poster out west that says 'wanted:dead or alive'" some in the press demurred at such language. But Americans nodded that their President understood them. Many democrats, in private whispered, "thank God Gore is not president he would be wooden".

Bill Clinton was very famous for being connected. It is said that if you stood in a room full of people and Bill Clinton talked to you for a minute he would make it appear that you were the only person in that room and he was intently listening only to you.

Obama is known to shun hobnobbing dinners and rope lines. Bill Clinton's oxygen was being connected. Gandhi, FDR, Nehru were all born rich. Both Clinton and Obama were born into poor homes. Whether somebody is rich or born poor has little to do with a person's ability to empathize.

What about empathy amongst common men in their daily lives? That's for another day.

Romney is Kerry redux and 2012 is 2004

2012-02-08T19:05:00.000-05:00

Its beginning to look a lot like 2004. Democrats are famous for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The GOP is doing its best to outdo the democrats and return the favor in 2012. Lets rewind to 2004 to relive how Kerry helped Bush get re-elected.

Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" a political documentary that made no pretensions of the filmmakers bias grossed $100 Million at the box office. The documentary had more satire than facts, its a Moore documentary, enough said. At the theater I watched the audience gave it standing ovation. The country was in turmoil over the Iraq war. Iraq was front, left and center in the election. The Orlando Sentinel, a key newspaper in a key battleground state, endorsed John Kerry. It was the first endorsement by that paper of a democrat pin 40 years. The Economist endorsed Kerry over Bush in its cover story titled "Incomprehensible Vs Incompetent". The Sentinel's endorsement of Kerry was a resounding snub to Bush detailing Bush's policy failures beyond just Iraq. So how did Kerry lose?

Kerry, like Hillary Clinton, had voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq but facing a stridently anti-war party he tried to do amends that earned him the sobriquet "flip-flop". Kerry did his best to strengthen the narrative and his worst moment was when he voted down an appropriations bill to pay for military in Iraq. He had earlier voted for it and reversed his vote in the final amendment. When criticized for voting against the armed forces in harms way Kerry responded, very famously, "I voted for it before I voted against it". Eager to lure gun owners, a traditional GOP bloc, Kerry went duck hunting and had a photo that made him look ludicrous. Having earned the "flip-flop" label Kerry provided Bush with the perfect photo to go with it. Against the advise of his consultants Kerry went wind surfing and the photo promptly went into GOP ads. Also a millionaire candidate going wind surfing did not help while his VP candidate, John Edwards (a millionaire trial lawyer) was screaming about "two Americas, one for the rich and another for the poor". Kerry, born rich and married rich, was criticized for being 'out of touch'. John Edwards before he made millions was poor and used to go to Wendys to celebrate his wedding anniversary. During the campaign Edwards took Kerry to Wendy's, Kerry could not eat there.

Given the Iraq war backdrop Kerry staked out his candidacy on just one issue, that he could be better commander-in-chief. Kerry is a genuine war hero, unlike Bush whose dodging of draft was laughed about. Kerry served in Vietnam and earned three Purple Hearts and was discharged. He was in-charge of the 'swift boat' division. Out of nowhere sprang Vietnam vets who criticized Kerry as 'unfit to lead' (an eponymous book also was helpfully published) based on nothing but lies. Disillusioned by America's fate in Vietnam Kerry became anti-war, testified in the congress, threw his medals. At the convention when he came on stage Kerry said "I am John Kerry and I am reporting for duty" with a salute. The next day New York Times cribbed that his almost hour long speech had just 3-4 lines about his decades long service in the senate.

While Obama is not as hated as Bush was in 2004 there is lot of disgruntlement and after the drubbing that democrats got in 2010 2012 was supposed to be the year of GOP candidates. Kerry was not the best Democrat to contest in 2004. The best, especially Hillary Clinton, decided to sit out thinking they would have a better chance in 2008 when the electorate would be thirsting for a change from 8 years of a Republican President. Likewise the most looked up to GOP candidates decided to sit out 2012. Out of a weak field emerged Mitt Romney.

Just like Kerry Romney too is staking his claim to the Presidency on just one agenda. Romney makes the economy as the only criteria to elect him. After Bill Clinton's legendary thumping of Bush Sr in 1992 based on "it's the economy stupid" it has become customary, especially with soaring unemployment, to cite that. Conservative columnist William Kristol acidly wrote "its not only the economy, stupid". Romney will learn that when he watches Obama coast to an easy victory.

Romney like Kerry has a penchant for landing his foot in his mouth. Like Kerry Romney is now labeled a flip flop. Like Kerry Romney is mocked for not having a "core". Romney and Kerry both hail from Massachusetts, a very liberal state. Romney is now mocked by his GOP detractors as being a RINO (Republican in Name Only). Only a RINO can get elected as GOP governor in Massachusetts. No Texan or Georgian republican can ever get elected in MA. GOP senate candidate Scott Brown shook the political world by winning what was called 'Ted Kennedy's seat' and he is pretty much a RINO too though he was once a tea party darling.

Kerry was fully heroic in his service in Vietnam and even more heroic in his denunciation of that war later. But the GOP slander machine worked over time to discredit him. Bob Dole, 1996 GOP Presidential candidate, archly said "three Purple Hearts and no injury" (Dole has a permanent injury from his service and Kerry had none). Romney has not done a single illegal dealing as businessman and by all accounts was a good boss, made money for his investors and helped create some good iconic American companies. Yet the Democrat slander machine is now working overtime (and including his GOP rivals) in circulating highly debunked documentary "Romney: King of Bain". Kerry was inarticulate in defending his anti-Vietnam protests, Romney is completely incapable of defending his work at Bain. Kerry had his duckshoot, Romney has his gaffe on being afraid of pink slips and more gaffes on how his earnings from speeches, $340K, was 'not much', '$10,000 bet' etc.

Romney has been compared to past presidential contenders, always the comparisons were with losers. When Kerry staked his candidacy on being a better commander-in-chief the Iraq war was raging hot. Seeing the unemployment drop in January a commentator mused on this danger of Romney talking like the only reason people need to elect him is his ability to fix the economy, "if the economy fixes itself by November, what is Romney's rationale for asking people to vote".

Romney will lose to Obama. If, and this is a very big if, Romney wins it would be ranked a more thrilling win than what Truman had over Dewey.

Mitt Romney would lose against Obama. Here's why.

2012-02-06T20:03:00.000-05:00

I'd like Mitt Romney to be the next President of USA but here is why he would lose to Barack Obama in Nov 2012 if he is the nominee. Before that let me state that if Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum become the nominee due to some death wish of the GOP then Obama can take a long holiday and wake up to a landslide re-election.

New York Times ran detailed profiles of Mitt Romney focusing on his days at Harvard and his days as Governor of Massachusetts. The portraits that emerged was of a very hard realist, honest and decent guy. If dirt was hidden there Newt Gingrich would have dredged it up now. Romney, remains a flawed candidate not just because he is rich but because he is not the instinctive politician like Obama is. North East moderate meets hard knuckle Chicago politician. Good luck with that.

Often elections are characterized as being important in a generation 2012 is the mother of all generational elections. America is at crossroads, the world economy is in shambles, Europe is staring at abyss, China is girding its loins, reams of newsprint are devoted to swan songs of America's pre-eminence, America confronts a burgeoning debt that is threatening to swallow its very economic muscle. Rarely in politics does hyperbole become a factual statement. The role of government versus role of individual, a 200 year old debate reaches its sharpest focus. How much does an individual owe unto society? Democratic Senate candidate for Massachusetts flatly stated "no man became rich on his own". That is echoed by Obama and his advisors. If a man owes his riches to society does he hold his income at the pleasure of the society? What is the fair share that a society is entitled to of a man's salary? These are questions usually discussed in the passing in politics and passionately in the halls of academia but in 2012 ballots will decide that.

This election is a conservative's dream come true. This is time for an Ayn Rand, time for William F. Buckley Jr, time for Barry Goldwater, time for Milton Friedman and yet none of them are alive and no GOP candidate has their intellectual gravitas to call out Obama's lies and deceptions.

Obama and left's new mantra is "millionaires and billionaires should pay their fair share". Obama stated that in his recent State of the Union speech. The deception is worse in the next immediate line where Obama assuages all about whose tax will increase "if you have less than $250,000 annual household income your taxes will not increase". Hooray. But wait did he not talk about millionaires and billionaires in the previous line so why is he now saying that if my household income is less than $250,000 I need not worry. THAT is the Chicago politician talking from every end of his mouth. Obama's plan increases taxes for anybody whose household income is above $250,000. By the way for working couples in high tax states like NJ, NY, CA, CT that is really not much. The President invited Steve Jobs's widow as his guest during the SOTU speech. How I wish to hear Jobs's opinion on that he did not get rich alone. I am sure the reply would be, to put it mildly, unparliamentary expletive filled language.

One common fallacy among the population is that business people understand economics. Worse yet we assume economists know philosophy. A businessman, or any common man, understands economics in a very limited sense. Sure, Romney, a Harvard MBA, can explain intelligently how to manage money. Rarely have I seen businessmen understand macro-economics. Why has no businessman written a book explaining economics? Thats why we have economists. Has any economist, barring a notable few like Hayek and Friedman, explained why capitalism is the only sensible economic system that best lifts the poor. Why was Ayn Rand compelled to write, as recently as the 50's a book explaining the philosophical necessity of capitalism? The book was aptly titled "Capitalism: An unknown ideal".

Contrary to popular opinion it is bad for rich people to have Mitt Romney speak of any of the above. "Conflict of interest" the populace would yell. Never mind that he earned every penny of what he has through hard work.

Romney's Jeremiah Wright moment came when his tenure at Bain Capital, a private equity firm, came under attack. When during the 2008 primaries stories of Obama's pastor, Jeremiah wright, broke out Obama did a very bold political gamble. News channels were showing in endless loops Wright's invective filled anti-American sermons. Voters were aghast wondering what is Obama's ideology as a 20 year congregation member of Wright's church. Voters wondered how much does Obama share Wright's criticisms of USA and hallucinatory indictments of USA. Obama said he would address the nation. In an eminently forgettable address, nothing that is remembered today, Obama faced the voters and said he disavows it all and for good measure asked America to buy into his hope and dream of becoming a better nation. More than the speech it was the gambit that paid.

I do not foresee Romney getting up on a lectern and explaining the proper function of 'private equity' or how 'creating jobs' is never the primary goal of any business and that that is not a bad thing.

Mitt Romney is not an instinctive conservative in the tradition of William F. Buckley and that showed in his stupid comment "I am not worried about the poor, they have their safety net, the rich are doing just fine, its the middle class I am worried". The statement is factually true. In India or USA too its the middle class that's an orphan. Veteran conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer zeroed in on the fallacy that a conservative typically worries about everyone's economic progress. A conservative primary goal is to unleash the individual and ensure that the economic pie grows enough for everyone. A democrat envisions a static pie and is worried more about distributing that static pie.

It does not take intellectual finesse to tell a majority that all their problems stem from the conduct of a minority. Thanks to Obama today the commentary on deficits is focused on how much more the rich 1% should pay. Even if Obama gets his wish to tax the 1% (actually he wants to tax the entire top 10%, remember $250,000 above) the revenue gathered would be only around $500 billion over 10 years. The deficit is $14 TRILLION. Obama own commission appointed to study cutting the debt, the Simpson-Bowles commission, advised a dual strategy of tax hike and spending cuts with the emphasis on the latter. America has a spending problem NOT a tax problem.

It would take an intellectual giant with phenomenal political gift, like a Clinton, to tell the majority that the party is over and making Romney or Buffet pay 30% is not going to fix it. Romney is sheepish about it. He does talk of cutting spending but he dare not say "medicare" or "medicaid".

Romney repeats like a parrot that he will repeal Obamacare. Till date he has not given any proposal of what he would replace it with. Saying glib phrases like "return the money to the states" or "let it be decided at the local level" will not wash.

Romney has not made out the intellectual case for Wall Street. He is shivering to his boots when he proclaims deceptively boldly "I earned it". He lets Obama team slam him for opposing the Detroit bailout. When Obama claims, falsely, credit for bailing out Detroit I do not see Romney sticking it in that it was Bush who bailed out Detroit.When Obama accuses Romney of willing to let the auto sector die its a classic case of misleading. Death of GM or Chrysler would not mean the death of auto industry, Ford would still be there, Honda, Toyota, BMW etc manufacture heavily in USA now.

When Obama talks of how Dodd Frank regulates banks Romney has not shown pugnacity in putting to rest that fraud. Just saying "I'll repeal Dodd-Frank" only tells a voter that Romney is on the take from Wall Street (By the way Obama's biggest donor in 2008 was Goldman Sachs). Dodd-Frank is a monstrosity that is choking the life blood of the economy larded with useless rules that do nothing to avoid a repeat of 'too big to fail'.

I do not see Romney making a vigorous case against the myth of "free market" in USA. THERE IS NO FREE MARKET in USA. When I say "free market" I am not talking about a 'free for all' economy. Let us understand that government agencies and policies do skew market. The EPA, Fannie and Freddie, regulations all have an impact on how the economy is shaped.

Romney curls his lips and says "the government should not pick winners and losers". True but he has never gone beyond that explained succinctly how EPA rules, often brought in the interest of consumer, end up making cars more expensive for all. When a multi-millionaire rich guy says "I want the government out of the way of business" an ill-informed voter hears "I'll let the market trample you without protection". Romney has not explained how regulations hurt consumers, how government hurts people.

Above all where most see capitalism as a "necessary evil" Ayn Rand saw it as the only rational system that has the ability to uplift millions. Romney is failing to make the moral case for capitalism.

Alexander Pope said "a people gets the government it deserves". America deserves only Obama.

Ben-Hur's lesson for life: Neither a Messala nor a hypocrite be

2012-01-11T19:24:00.000-05:00

Ben-Hur was a rage in India in the 60's when big budget classics were made in Hollywood. I watched it in Tanjore in the 90's when a re-release ran. The mention of Ben-Hur always evokes an awe due to the most famous racing scene in movie history, the chariot race. The splitting of Red Sea in 'Ten Commandments', Cleopatra's grand entry into Rome in 'Cleopatra', a screen full of flowers in the opening credits of 'My Fair Lady', the burning of Atlanta in 'Gone With the Wind' all became landmark scenes. In 60's India, that too Tamil Nadu, such colossal budget scenes were a big draw. The context and overall greatness of each movie enhanced and made those highlights pertinent.

Messala and Ben-Hur were childhood friends. When Messala comes to Judea as consul Ben-Hur is happy for him. Messala asks Ben-Hur to betray his Jewish friends who continue to voice dissent. The scene is classic. Messala pleads with Ben-Hur, "the emperor is looking at us" and asks Ben-Hur to help him squash rebellious Jews. Ben-Hur is aghast at how Messala talks of the Roman emperor "like he is God". Messala contemptuously gestures, "he is God not this". Messala's "this" refers to non-corporal Yahweh of Jews.

In what can happen in fiction, Ben-Hur a slave in a Roman galley ends up saving the life of a Roman general.Ben-Hur returns to Judea and asks, his friend-turned-enemy, Messala the whereabouts of his mother and sister. Messala finds that Ben-Hur's mother and sister have been afflicted by leprosy in imprisonment. Messala tells Ben-hur that they are dead. Seeking revenge Ben-Hur enrolls in the famous chariot race. In those chariot races, Ben-Hur is told, anything goes. Ben-Hur could engineer an accident and kill Messala.

Ben-Hur wins the famous race and the Roman governor summons him later. Ben-Hur is told that the Roman general who saved his life and adopted him as son has ensured that Ben-Hur becomes a 'Roman'. Becoming a 'Roman' makes Ben-Hur a Jewish slave a freeman. Ben-Hur turns it down with gravity. The governor is amazed and feels insulted. He asks 'why'. Ben-Hur replies that Messala was not a bad guy to begin with but it is 'Rome' that turned him into a monster.

Ben-Hur correctly identifies that a normal behaving childhood friend was power drunk and the corruption is rooted in Roman culture of imperialism. I am reminded of how Hitler's Nazi regime and Stalin created their own 'Messala's'.

Though we are individuals we are all part of a larger unit in daily life. We belong to churches, organisations, companies we work at, families we are born into, countries of birth or immigration and so on. Depending how deep the ties are to the larger unit and how our economic and emotional interests are intertwined we do take on some characteristics of the larger unit. That awareness itself would help us be on guard.

'Inside Job', an Oscar winning documentary that eviscerated Wall Street for the Financial crises, raised a valid point about whether professors of Economics in Ivy League universities preached de-regulation and unfettered markets since they were on boards of companies like AIG which benefited from such policies. In other words was Glenn Hubbard, dean of Economics in Columbia and on the board of AIG, interviewed in the documentary, a "Messala".

As much as we should watch out for becoming a 'Messala' we should not become hypocrites either. A blogger who works for a big bank rails relentlessly against Wall Street and then excuses himself as "well we all are part of some hypocrisy in life". No. We are not. He has a choice to quit the industry that he so loathes, he can still do what he does in so many other industries in USA.

Pausch's 'Last Lecture'and Jobs's biography: Death and Memoirs

2011-12-14T00:04:00.000-05:00

Before Steve Jobs there was Randy Pausch. Pausch and Jobs share eerie coincidences and yet both are very different persons. Carnegie Mellon had a lecture series titled "Last Lecture" and invited professors to give a lecture as if it was their last lecture. Pausch, professor of human interaction and computers in Carnegie, identified by Time as one of the 100 most influential (like Jobs), was called too to give a last lecture in 2007. Just a month prior to that lecture Pausch learned that he had terminal stage pancreatic cancer, a cancer similar to Jobs. Pausch persisted with giving his lecture except he made a small change. Pausch did not talk computers he talked about "Really achieving your childhood dreams".

The lecture was reported by a Wall Street Journal reporter as a compelling life story. In the youtube age the video went viral. As I type this the video has been viewed 14 MILLION TIMES. Randy Pausch uprooted his family to quiet suburbs in Virginia. Given his popularity now he was asked to write a book. The book 'Last Lecture' became a runaway bestseller. Pausch worked for Xerox from where Jobs got the idea for a 'mouse' and 'window'. Pausch, after a childhood of loving video games and Disney World, went to work for Disney. Jobs's turnaround of Pixar that he later sold to Disney is corporate folklore.

For all the similarities of how they lived and died Pausch and Jobs were completely different persona and in many ways opposites. Of course Pausch and Jobs functioned at completely different level with the latter being considered a sheer genius in the mold of Edison. Jobs practically commissioned his biography. Walter Isaacson, former editor of TIme and author of bestseller biographies of Einstein and Benjamin Franklin, was sought out by Steve Jobs to write his biography. A stunned Isaacson asked Jobs why he was chosen, he even poked Jobs about the fact that his previous biographies were about Einstein and Franklin, "do you see yourself in that order by having me write your biography". Pausch's biography is so heartwarming that it is now stocked in the 'self-help' region in book stores (groan!!!). Jobs, knowing full well that his biography will be published after his death, is irascible and completely ungracious about his famous rival Bill Gates. Even Isaacson is stumped by how ungracious Jobs was. Pausch recounts learning humility, learning how sending a thank you note is important, learns how Disney World workers say "park is open till 10 PM" when asked by a visitor "when does the park close". Both books are good counterpoints and well worth the read.

The tragedy that unites Pausch and Jobs is the very public dying they had to endure. As much as Jobs aged in front of millions so did Pausch on a far lesser scale but equally watched. Pausch died a year after his last lecture in 2008 and it was front page news. Jobs, after resigning as CEO, died slowly in front of his family. Its really tragic to think that both Pausch and Jobs had very young children practically watching their dad die. Pausch had a 2 year old. Pausch and Jobs were deeply motivated by leaving behind some memories for their children. Jobs told Isaacson that wants the biography to explain to his children why he was not there for them like other dads. Jobs desired his children to understand that their father was trying to create a new and better world ever since he knew his diagnosis instead of sulking home and living of his past accomplishments or wealth. Pausch ruefully thinks that his youngest child would have no memory of him as dad.

Pausch and Jobs were dads dying in public glare who felt they needed to leave behind some voice of their own for their kids. On the other end of the spectrum are dad's writing out of grief for dead children. Harold Khushner, a Jewish Rabbi lost his son to progeria at 6. Khushner out of his inconsolable grief wrote a runaway bestseller, "When bad things happen to good people". Khushner, as a Rabbi, is deeply troubled by how a loving omnipotent God could allow such illness to fell innocent children. Going into a pediatric cancer ward can melt the hearts of even the most stoic. John Gunther had an equally anguished book "Death be not proud" written after his son died. Joan Didion, American writer, mourning her husband wrote "The year of magical living" and in an unprecedented tragic sequence also wrote "Blue Nights" mourning her daughter who died soon after her own father died.

Death and the philosophical musings of what life means is endless. An obituary that remains etched in my memory is columnist Roger Rosenblatt's column in Time, "The Measure of A Life", about John F. Kennedy Jr's tragic death. JFK Jr died in a plane crash with his young wife. Rosenblatt mused if there ever is such a thing as timely death. Given JFK Jr's youth the first words in every obituary was "untimely death". "In some way, a life ended in youth may be superior to a prolonged existence subject to revisionism and conspicuous error. Death turns "potential" into realization; what one could have done becomes in effect what one did". Biologist and educationist Lewis Thomas, author of classic 'The lives of a cell, told Rosenblatt that "the true measure of a life is that it be useful". Rosenblatt concludes, "When a man dies, a civilization dies with him. Whatever constituted his being--his gait, manners, tone of voice, political opinions, appearance, his particular use of language, philosophy, sense of beauty, sense of style, his personal history, ambitions, his smile--all go".

Caldecott, Newbery Prizes and Children's Books

2011-12-04T22:50:00.000-05:00

America has a very deep intellectual culture that is best epitomized by the plethora of prizes awarded in so many fields, especially books. The Pulitzer's are the most widely known prizes. There are others too like the 'National Book Award', 'National Book Critics Circle Award, 'PEN/Faulkner Award', "Bancroft Prize' and much more. Of course each carries different prestige with the Pulitzers being ranked highest. New York Times book review is a treasure for any bibliophile. A few years back NYT started a separate section to review children's books. Children's toys, movies and now books are money spinners. During summer movies for kids hit the screens raking in hundreds of billions of dollars. Only after coming to America I realized that there are really kids movies made for kids. As a kid in Tamil Nadu we had watched a few pathetic children's movies that were replete with club dances (that movie also received a tax exemption categorized as 'kid friendly'). Other than Amar Chitra Katha that peddled mythologies as comics there was simply no child friendly literature. One poet Valliappa, labeled 'children's poet', wrote some eminently forgettable verses. As an obsessive visitor of book stores I am well aware of wonderful books for children in US book stores. The county libraries offer library cards for tiny tots. However a recent discovery has made me yet again say, like Tim Russert's dad Big Russ, "what a country".

Caldecott Medal is given to children's picture books, not illustrated, just 'picture books'. This being Christmas season such books are stacked as 'gift ideas'. Of course there will be people who will see this as 'commercialization', or 'money making'. My reply, "take a hike" or "get a life". One medal winner I saw was a picturisation of the time worn tale of "Lion and Mouse". There were no words just luscious drawing in vivid colors. The image that stuck in my mind was the lion looking forlorn through the net as it sees the mouse nibble the thick braids of the net. Note, children's books, does not necessarily mean only Aesops fables and fairy tales. A 'National book award' winner illustrates charmingly what "life cycle" mean. There are books on symbiotic relationships of organism, idea of 'time', the book 'What to do with a tail like this' details regenerative organs.

Intrigued by this genre of prizes I looked further and learnt of the Newbery Medal which is awarded for the best in children's literature since 1920.A few weeks back I had bought Hendrik Willem Van Loon's "The story of Mankind". I remembered Will Durant writing about that book, "adults bought Hendrik Willem Van Loon's 'Story' for children and surreptitiously read it themselves". The book is a riot to read. Books deal with delicate subjects of Civil Rights too. Van Loon, I was delighted to learn, is the first recipient of Newbery Medal in 1922. In 1918 Pammal Sambanda Mudaliar had written the incorrigibly stupid play titled 'Sabapathi' about a country bumpkin. Sambanda Mudaliar is hailed as the first Tamil novelist. With such a beginning Tamil literature went nowhere in the decades after.

Both Caldecott and Newbery are administered by the "Association for Library Service to Children". The wikipedia for ALSC threw a huge surprise listing 10 prizes awarded for various categories in Children's literature plus notable listing of books for each year. NYT too just released the best children's books for 2011. The ALSC website, http://www.ala.org/alsc/ , has a plethora of resources for teaching children (http://www.ala.org/gwstemplate.cfm?section=greatwebsites&template=/cfapps/gws/default.cfm ).

Last week we attended our daughter's parent-teacher conference. The ways in which a first grade student is evaluated is simply amazing. The learning atmosphere, how the concepts are introduced and ingrained, the web resources etc only mades us, as parents, feel so good about her educational prospects. I've absolutely zero hesitation in bringing up a girl child in USA. In fact we feel comfortable that she is NOT studying in India. Recently I heard that a premium convent in Chennai has classrooms divided on caste basis with students, not even in teens, trade remarks on caste and talk about reservation quotas. For those who keep bringing up teen pregnancy, dating etc, my reply is "look beyond and grow up". Also let me note that we often forget that the India we left behind is not there. There is a new India that is practically living the American 60's sadly taking only the vices of that age not its institutional virtues like Caldecott and Pulitzer's.

As the Tsar went so goes Trotsky

2011-11-27T22:34:00.000-05:00

Not much in this world is as veritable treasure of contradictions, cruelties, ironies and stories as USSR and communism. During my usual treasure hunting at an old bookstore I found "Trotsky's Diary in Exile 1935" by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky, for those who do not know, was considered second only to Lenin himself in the Revolution. Trotsky was respected as a great intellectual. In later years Trotsky fell out with Stalin and was exiled from USSR. While living as an exile in Mexico Trotsky was assassinated by a Stalin agent.

Trotsky's entry for April 9th is chilling. One of the mysteries of the Revolution was how the Tsar's family was murdered. Every member of the Romanov family was killed in a cellar, or it is said. The story of Anastasia, the missing Romanov princess, inspired a Hollywood movie starring Yul Brynner and the undoubtedly beautiful Ingrid Bergman (Kollywood robbed the movie to make a Rajni+ Sri Devi starrer 'Adutha Vaarisu'). Trotsky narrates a tale in his diary. It needs to be quoted in full:

" Talking to Sverdlov, I asked in passing: "oh yes, and where is the Tsar?",he answered, "he has been shot"." "And where is the family?""and the family along with him." "All of them?" I asked, apparently with a touch of surprise. "All of them" replied Sverdlov. "And who made the decision?" I asked. "We decided it here. Illyich believed that we shouldn't leave the Whites a live banner to rally around..".

Trotsky then continues remorselessly, "(and) considered the matter closed. Actually the decision was not only expedient but necessary." The prize for Freudian slip that shines a light into the darkest corners of these so called revolutionaries goes to this:"The severity of this summary justice showed the world tat we would continue to fight on mercilessly, stopping at nothing. The execution of the Tsar's family was need not only in order to frighten, horrify, and dishearten the enemy, but also to shake up our own ranks.

What makes the reading of that diary page so gripping and spine chilling is it is written by a man who is fleeing for his dear life from a blood thirsty tyrant who also was interested in " frighten, horrify, and dishearten the enemy". The irony reaches biblical portions when one reads just a few days before that Trotsky worries about his own family, including his first wife, left back in Moscow. Stalin promptly sent all to the Gulags and then dispatched an assassin to kill Trotsky. Trotsky was struck by an ice-axe and died a few days later. I am not sure if he thought how Stalin would characterize this killing as "not only expedient but necessary"

Most anti-communist literature focuses on the atrocities of Stalin. Very few know that Lenin himself was a monster. Lenin, according to Soviet archives recently opened, would draw up lists of doctors and educated people to be killed. Maxim Gorki, who had a love hate relationship with Lenin, would plead with Lenin to go easy on the killings. David Remnick, author of Pulitzer winning "Lenin's Tomb" on the downfall of communism, wrote in his essay on Lenin for Time's 100 greatest Leaders in the centenary issue, "Stalin was a lamb compared to Lenin". Lenin and Trotsky were not fated to live long or at the helm and only that fate saved millions from their hands and delivered the millions to Stalin instead.

The Soviet Union was a terror machine more to its own citizenry than to others. Communism killed mostly its own citizenry. Nazism in a perverse logic declared a section of its own people as not German and THEN killed them. Che Guvera sitting in Cuban jungles would dispense Trotsky's "summary justice" horrifying even Castro.

Tatyana Tosltaya, great niece of Tolstoy, in her "Pushkin's Children" muses on this blood lust by communes revolutionaries and the Tsar's before them. Her theory is that Russians have a streak of violence interwoven in the culture and it spills over.

The diary itself is an interesting read. Trotsky's biggest complaint against, Emma Goldman, an American communist and highly respected revolutionary, was that Emma was an "individualist". Trotsky goes for a hair cut in France and his barber talks to him about Charlie Chaplin.

Is Steve Jobs A Model C.E.O.? Level 5 Leadership.

2011-11-23T00:20:00.000-05:00

Steve Jobs remains the flavor more than a month after his passing. A manager in a Fortune 500 firm gifted a copy of Steve Jobs's eponymous biography by Walter Isaacscon to each one in his team. I do not know the exact reasons as to why he did it. I surmise he felt enamored about Jobs's life story and felt his team could learn a thing or two from that eventful life and career. True there is much to be learnt from Jobs and there is much more to be wary off too.

Jobs was a classic iconoclast. His obsession over design and simplicity are all now regurgitated endlessly (including yours truly). Just last week I was looking at a Sony laptop and the word that came to my mind was "ugly". I had been using Macbook Air for over 3 weeks. Other laptops were grotesque. The good old PC towers are declining now its mostly the "all in one PC" made famous by the iMac design. Steve Jobs has a patent for the glass panels he designed for his flagship store in New York. He also holds a patent for the unique staircase in that store. He would not hesitate to delay a product release if he was not satisfied. He rejuvenated Apple and brought it back to life from near certain death. Apple is now frequently trading places with Exxon as the most valuable company on Earth on market capitalization terms. Jobs has upended decades worth understanding of consumer behavior. A college dropout was feted by Ivy League universities. Yes, there are lessons to be learned there. But, how often do we learn the correct lessons? Jobs had another side that could be summed up in one word "JERK".

Let us overlook quibbles like whether he was less than generous to Steve Wozniak or his friends. Many subordinates recall one trait of Jobs. Whenever an employee offered an idea mostly Jobs would call the idea stupid and the employee an idiot (laced with expletives of course). Two weeks later he would come back and repeat the idea like it was his own. The employee would have to meekly agree. For a man who threatened to go 'thermonuclear' with Google over Android OS, that he called stolen from Mac OS, its strange that he would shamelessly palm off ideas. He was a genius but not above swiping an idea.

During Jobs's first stint at Apple he had to be bridled by a person recruited to be CEO. The CEO's prime responsibility was to baby sit Steve Jobs the irascible genius whose very genius was threatening to derail the company he had founded. Later in a coup, one tailor made for a movie, the CEO and the board joined hands to oust the founder.

At Pixar, another company Steve Jobs resuscitated from the brink, Jobs would run up huge expenses insisting on arcane coloring of machines. The furniture and architecture ran up bills that any CFO would not just lose sleep but bring in the board to rein in. Again his genius revived the company but his passion also came close to destroying it.

No management book would endorse Jobs's actions as manager, much less as CEO. With all due respect Jobs died too soon before his time. Android phones have overtaken iPhones. MacOS is still a minuscule market share. iPod's are being threatened. Can we place Apple in the league of Coca Cola or IBM or GE? Not just yet. Coca Cola and IBM are around for 100+ years. It takes more than one individual to build a company like that.

Jim Collins, guru in analysing companies and author of "Good to Great", wrote in Harvard Business Review about what kind of a CEO delivers great results. The article's title sums it up "Level 5 Leadership: The Triumph of Humility and Fierce Resolve". Collins wrote "our discover of Level 5 leadership is counter intuitive. Indeed its counter cultural". Collins brushes past celebrity CEO's like Jack Welch, Lee Iacocca and offers, 'shy, awkward, shunning attention' Darwin Smith, CEO of Kimberly-Clark. Level 5 leader, Collins sums up, "builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical combination of personal humility plus professional will". Level 4 leader is one who "catalyzes commitmment to and vigorous pursuit of a clear and compelling vision; stimulates the group to high performance standards".

Isaacson often refers to Jobs's "reality distortion field" referring to Jobs's ability to make people do what they thought was impossible for them to accomplish. Jobs is clearly Level 4. Nothing beyond. Level 5 leaders are those who took their companies to great, delivering "cumulative stock returns at or below the general stock market for 15 years, punctuated by a transition point, then cumulative returns at least three times the market over the next 15 years". Apple has had a great decade after the turning point what lies ahead in the next 5 we don't know yet.

Even Jack Welch the most celebrated CEO is being re-evaluated and many wonder how much of GE's growth was due to him and how much to the overall economic climate which was the most prosperous period in post war USA. Jack Welch's divorce papers showed a typical greedy arrogant CEO who had bargained for outlandish benefits from an awe struck company that thought he was God.

Jobs could afford doing the unthinkable reschedule of a major product release chasing perfection. Facebook CIO says she does not have the time for perfection and in her line of business its better to bring a 'good enough' feature quickly to market. This shows the pitfalls of learning about Jobs without carefully considering his context. That pitfall applies any exercise in analogy. Failure to analyze and map two situations clearly to test whether they are analogous is the most common folly of all.

For a man who felt scarred for being given up to adoption as a baby Jobs was remorseless about abandoning his first girl friend and his daughter. Jobs paid for her education and tried to make amends but she in turn bore the scars he himself carried.

Much is made of Steve Jobs's famous address to Stanford grads advising them to remain "foolish and hungry' going after their passions. Once addressing a classroom of Stanford students he asked the girls how many of them are virgins and he asked the class if they had done drugs. As a self confessed LSD taker he felt that such rebelliousness, losing virginity or taking drugs, is what makes them different and become a creator. About his famous rival, Bill Gates, he would stingingly say that Gates "had no imagination" and would ruminate that Gates might have made better products had he "dropped acid". All of that makes good reading but if followed would be dangerous. Millions have lost their lives doing drugs and millions of teenage women have ruined their lives due to teen pregnancies. College grads chasing dreams with no plan B end up as wastrels or in Occupy Wall Street shrieking inane leftist bromides.

Steve Jobs practically commissioned this biography, primarily, so his young kids would know their father after he is gone. He knew very well that he would not live to see his book. Isaacson interviews Bill Gates several times especially about the famous Jobs-Gates rivalry. Gates had beaten Jobs in the market yet Gates is gracious in his admiration for Jobs. Jobs on the other hand is in no mood for grace, he rubs it in that Gates was uncomfortable in technology and is now 'comfortable doing philanthropy'. Even Isaacscon notes the absolute lack of grace. Jobs wanted to reach from his grave and rub dirt onto Gates's nose.

Learn from Steve Jobs, but very carefully.

Friedman's India Kool-Aid

2011-11-08T23:42:00.000-05:00

I first came across Thomas Friedman in 2001 when I read “The Lexus and The Olive Tree”, an excellent primer for understanding globalization. When globalization was bursting into policy circles there were few books that explained the new order so lucidly. Ever since I remained a big admirer of Tom Friedman and eagerly lapped up his wonderful columns in New York Times. Then he wrote “The World is Flat”. It was the very first time in my life I sold back a book I had bought. The book was a bestseller and every American CEO who had not heard of Bangalore grabbed a copy of the book for in-flight reading before they reached Bangalore to negotiate offshore contracts. The book was panned by serious scholars. Yes he shone a nice light on little known aspect of India. Friedman’s book, the outsourcing phenomenon, the massive influx of H1B’s (including me) changed America’s perception of India for the better.

Friedman, however, painted another extreme picture of India. He portrayed an India that was ready to snag Nobel Prizes by the dozens, rock the world technology with innovations, math crazed students, students who took to science like ducks to water and so on. During an interview he was asked why he interviews only CEO’s and never the common man for his books and articles on globalization. Friedman replied “only CEO’s can explain the emerging order”. I was aghast at the hubris and could clearly see how he was losing touch from his days as reporter. His book “From Beirut to Jerusalem”, which brought him fame, was filled with tales of common men. His books on globalization, on the other hand, start and end with Nilakeni, including his latest column in NYT titled “India’s Innovation Stimulus”.

Friedman writes, “just when your mind tells you that this crush of people will surely overwhelm all efforts to lift the mass of India out of poverty, you start to notice a pattern: Every few miles there’s a cellphone tower and a fresh-looking building poking out of the controlled chaos. And the sign out front invariably says “school” — engineering school, biotechnology school, English-language school, business school, computer school or private elementary school. India is still the only country I know where you can find a billboard advertising “physics degrees.”

I did not have the stomach to continue. Friedman thinks flying First Class on a Jet, driving around in a Mercedes, staying at Marriotts and playing golf with Nilakeni gives him a picture of India. Silly guy. Nowhere else in the world he would see a billboard advertising “physics degree” because nowhere else in the world would degrees be sold like popcorn. I saw those boards during my last trip to India and told my dad that it reminded of the inverted V shape boards in front of Udipi hotels saying “today’s special”.

Only in India can a doctor purchase both MBBS+a P.G. degree for a package deal of Rs 1-2 crores. Only in India would MBBS students protest that the passing limit should be brought down by 50%. The much vaunted IIT’s do not even figure in the top 200 universities in the world. The research output of Indian professors, let alone students, is pathetic. I bet that most students do not even know what a ‘peer reviewed journal’ is. Of course not all of America’s students are Feynman’s but the system ‘encourages’ the excellent. An American 12th grade student sits for a 4 hour SAT exam. A medical school aspirant in USA sits for a 7 hour endurance test taking MCAT. In Tamil Nadu politicians and demagogues take pride in abolishing entrance exams. The student in Tamil Nadu is taught to fear exams, the student is taught to abhor merit, the student is taught that he/she is entitled to a college seat.

When the outsourcing phenomenon hit the airwaves, thanks to Lou Dobbs 'Exporting America' program on CNN, the death of IT industry in US was predicted. Friedman and his ilk enthused ‘there is nothing that cannot be digitized and sent to India for completion”. Friedman kept repeating that India graduates a million engineers every year.

Outsourcing is here to stay but the predictions of sending high level jobs never happened. A chief challenge was the quality of Friedman’s graduates. Duke University and McKinsey analysed India’s graduates by including a criterion, ‘employability by a MNC’. The number of qualified Indian graduates fell exponentially. Wall Street Journal ran a detailed report on how woefully inadequate the Indian graduate is. I've worked in the biggest investment banks and have seen at first hand how outsourcing experiments have failed chiefly due to lack of quality work.

Fareed Zakaria wrote in Time magazine, “I went through the Asian educational system, which is now so admired. It gave me an impressive base of knowledge and taught me how to study hard and fast. But when I got to the U.S. for college, I found that it had not trained me that well to think. American education at its best teaches you how to solve problems, truly understand the material, question authority, think for yourself and be creative”. Note, Zakaria is being polite about the education he received in India. I can vouch that most colleges in Tamil Nadu are not fit to be called colleges at all. That any of us turned out any good is despite the colleges we had been through.

If Indians want to progress they should stop drinking from Friedman’s kool-aid. (Drinking the kool-aid is an American expression to say somebody is buying into an idea blindly and is actually dangerous)

IBM Shatters The Glass Ceiling

2011-11-06T22:48:00.000-05:00

On October 25th Virginia Rometty, 60, was chosen to be the CEO of IBM. She is the first woman CEO of IBM in its 100 year history. It came shortly after HP, another venerated tech giant, chose Meg Whitman as its CEO, its second actually after the unceremonious ouster of its first woman CEO Carly Fiorina.

Ginny, as Virginia is referred to, joins a select club of woman CEO's. Indra Nooyi, Indian born, at Pepsico; Ursual Burns, first Afro-American and second woman CEO to head Xerox, Xerox has had two women CEO's in succession with Anne Mulcahy as the first; Ellen Kullman heads the bicentennial giant Du Pont, a first in 200 years of that company's existence. Compared to corporations the supposed guardians of progressive politics, the universities, are slow to move. Princeton got its first woman president, Shirley Tilghman a molecular biologist, in 2001. Harvard appointed Drew Gilpin Faust a Civil War scholar to its presidency in 2007 shattering the proverbial glass ceiling after 350 years.

Sam Palmisano, the outgoing CEO of IBM, is quoted by NYT as rejecting the notion that gender played any role in selecting Rometty. Palmisano was full of praise for Rometty. No nation on earth is free of prejudices and biases that disadvantage sections of the population but how they evolve from it is what differentiates the substantive from the chaff.

The rise of women, by merit, in US is irreversible and marks a progress that is substantive. Drew Gilpin Faust illustrated how women outgrew their traditional roles in the crucible of the civil war in her book "Mother's of invention". When men had to leave for battlefields it was the women who stepped out and filled in the shoes of men. Teaching, seen today as a woman's profession, was out of bounds for women in pre-civil-war era in USA. In the decades after women were assigned to traditional jobs like nursing and teaching. Many other occupations were out of bounds for women. Especially Science and Math. Faust herself faced jeers from male professors as a student. Faust had completed all requisite coursework for her PhD and the work that remained did not need her to be at the university. Newly married Faust asked her professor if she can complete the thesis from remote as she had to accompany her husband. The professor sneered that as woman she was only focused on marriage. When many women won Nobel Prizes in science in 2009 I wrote http://contrarianworld.blogspot.com/2009/10/2009-nobel-prizes-stellar-year-for.html and emphasized that women started entering top research positions only in the 80's and their researches are only now coming to notice and that this is only a beginning.

The incident in Faust's life illustrates a key difficulty for women. I remember reading an article in Harvard Business Review citing IBM studies that women lose 7 years in their career life due to child bearing and bringing up children. Corporate America has been negligent in this regard. In an age when jobs are being sent across oceans allowing women to work from home where the function can afford it is still in the minority. Corporate America is stuck in the 60's when it comes to workers and work practices.

Corporations are rarely, rather never, given credit for ushering in social change, politicians corner it. IBM has been a leader in ushering in social change. As an employer of hundreds of thousands over decades its policies are an illustration of how Corporations are often painted with the same brush and very unfairly. IBM's President Thomas Watson, in 1953, sent out a letter to his employees that IBM needed the best people irrespective of color. He also sent notices to two southern governors that IBM will NOT have a segregated workplace. Only those who know the race politics of US would appreciate the monumental courage for a company CEO to do that. IBM is rated highly for its support of Gay and Lesbian rights. When Atlanta natives demurred over a function to honor Martin Luther King Jr who had won the Nobel Peace prize Coca Cola threatened to walk out of Atlanta if the city did not honor its most famous son. A note, both IBM and Coca Cola were thrown out of India when Janata Party came to rule, George Fernandes broke coke cans in the streets.

When Time magazine chose to highlight whistleblowers for their courage to speak truth to power, not coincidentally all three that were chosen were women. Michael Lewis in his latest bestseller about the crises sweeping Europe, "Boomerang", writes that maybe Wall Street would not have been so reckless if there had been more women at the helm. Testosterone driven men drove Wall Street off the cliff. Michael Lewis, I could say with my tongue in my cheek, has not heard about Jayalalitha or Indira Gandhi and has forgotten Imelda Marcos.

American politics is still chauvinistic. When Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama dueled for the Democratic party nomination a WSJ poll said more Americans were ready for a black president and not yet for a woman president. The poll was taken about a hypothetical without referring to Hillary or Barack. However I am sure people responded with those two in mind and it certainly skewed the results. Hillary is the first woman to 'win' votes in a primary. She gave many a sleepless night to Obama. When Hillary spoke at a rally in New Hampshire two guys stood at the back of the crowd with t-shirts that said "come do my laundry". Obama never faced such a racism at close quarters those such comments surfaced in commentary. Hillary finally lost due to her own mistakes. However today she is the most admired cabinet member of Obama with a Time magazine cover story this week gushing over her work. She is the third woman as Secretary of State.

Many men who swear by gender equality still betray traces of male chauvinism. I've seen this especially amongst Tamil Nadu men, particularly those who dislike Jayalalitha. Jayalalitha's marital status is often fodder for jokes and snide remarks. That she was an actress adds fuel to the fodder. As Elizabeth, the Virgin queen, was mocked for her supposed virgin status so is Jayalalitha mocked.

Hillary Clinton suffered many an unkind remark about her pant suits, her girth, her make up, how she dressed, if she dressed conservatively she was stuffy, if she dressed with an open neck she flaunting cleavage, if her eyes had dark lines she had a bad night dreaming of losing, if she had her makeup perfect perfect she was 'unconnected and distant'. Damned if she did it, damned if she did not.

After Iowa when blacks realized that Obama is not Jesse Jackson and rallied to him in a historic candidacy women refused to do the same for Hillary. Oprah chose race over gender. Hillary plowed on and won 18 million votes in primaries and later referred to it in her concession speech as '18million cracks in the glass ceiling'.

That women of high merit are chosen because of their merit is what makes these breakthroughs as admirable. Drew Faust is a sheer scholar. Rometty is a high achiever. They are not, to be blunt, affirmative action cases or quota cases. In a not too distant future a woman would certainly become the President of USA.

iTunes and A.R.Rahman; iPad and Ayn Rand:Lesson's in Capitalism

2011-10-12T23:56:00.000-04:00

Growing up in Tanjore in the 80's and early 90's one of the pastimes in our family was to procure cassettes (yes, those tapes) of Tamil film songs. Often time we would make a list of just the songs we wanted and take it to a shop where they would look up their repository of collection and say which ones we could get. For like Rs50 we could get our own collection of songs. Sometimes the collection would have a theme like "Songs with Moon" (Nila Paadalgal), al the songs would be centered with moon as analogy for the theme. Copyrights were unheard of. Mostly Ilayaraja songs. Ilayaraja reigned supreme in 80's Tamil film music. This practice was common all over Tamil Nadu. Street corner tea shops would have cassettes like that and blare the latest hit songs early morning. Ilayaraja commanded a princely sum for scoring the music but earned literally zero from all these sales. He would not even have known that such a thing is possible. Hollywood Screen Writers get, I read, a dollar from the sales of each DVD in addition to their fee for writing screen play. Imagine the accrued earnings for a block buster movie.

Today A.R.Rahman earns in crores, sums which Ilayaraja would not have dreamt of. When the soundtrack of Rajini's last mega blockbuster movie, scored by Rahman, was released it burned the charts on iTunes. From the day he scored for 'Roja" in 1992 Rahman has come a long way. Now he signs contracts with recording companies like Sony at unheard of sums. Sony, no doubt, factors sales from iTunes and I'd guess Rahman's lawyers, if they are good, put in clauses for royalties from online sales. The Rajini movie is now almost a year old but even today if I bought the song revenue is shared between Apple and the record label and I am sure the music composer gets a share too.

Steve Jobs took capitalism to areas where only crony capitalism existed. An invention in America, product made in China (with South Korean and Taiwan parts), enables an obscure Indian musician to earn money through a Japanese recording label. Yes today too infringements of copyrights like I narrated would certainly take place in India but Rahman's avenues to earn money have expanded making him a global brand. If this is not progress I'd love to know what is. Seminars on economics can be woven around this.

As a bibliophile I watch with sadness as book store chains disappear. Today I read that the last remaining book store chain (Barnes and Noble) faces a possible bankruptcy. Apple's iBook (an app originally created for iPad) and Amazon.com's Kindle are the key drivers. Tennyson in his 'Idyll's of the King' wrote beautifully, "the old order changeth yielding place to new...lest one good custom should corrupt the world". Yes, a good custom left undisturbed for long will corrupt. Book selling and reading is undergoing an epochal change. I've a dog eared copy of Ayn Rand's epic "Atlas Shrugged" bought for $7. I've read the 1000 page tome several times. Yesterday 'Atlas Shrugged' was released for iPad as an app complete with rare videos of Ayn Rand's speeches, graphic laden biographical time lines, trivia quiz, multimedia presentations etc. This book published in 1954 is being repackaged and republished for the 21st century 50 years later. Cost $14. Worth every penny. 9How I wish some Tamil Classic was rendered thus but....OK why go there). Children's books are the best. Those books come with read along option with each word being read out and highlighted as they are read out.

As with iTunes store it was the app store that unleashed a torrent, not just of creativity, but very importantly of capitalism. With the core principles of free market such as copyrights, revenue sharing, ratings, comments and more app store democratized capitalism to an extent unseen in centuries. Today a college student sitting in a dorm can 'create' something, sell it and call it his 'earning'.

Steve Jobs never made anything cheap. He did not donate anything to anybody. Microsoft and Intel partner together in donating computers (of course with Windows and Intel chips) to schools. Microsoft products are far cheaper than Apple products. Microsoft and Intel really ushered in the PC era though affordable PC's. While reams of newsprint hail Jobs' business acumen in churning out products that sold at premium and sold in blockbuster numbers what is generally glossed over is a big business failure of Jobs. Jobs refused to unbundle his software (Mac OS) and the hardware. Bill Gates, very shrewdly, did the opposite and created the PC era with IBM.

Steve Jobs never subscribed to anything 'free'. Freeware was anathema to him. However iTunes serves as a platform for Ivy League universities that disburse classes free. MIT's 'Open Course ware" is very popular. MIT posts classes by its professors online through iTunesU (iTunes University). I once downloaded a physics lecture on Snell's law and practically relearnt everything that my teachers pathetically failed to teach at school and college. If colleges, in Tamil Nadu, just had internet connections and students only watched these lectures they would learnt twice as much as they learn from those who roam in the colleges calling themselves as lecturers.

That Steve Jobs is mourned so much today is not only because he produced entertainment products that millions use. Users, especially of iPhone and iPad are not just passive users. The iPhone and iPadiPad in turn become an extended identity of the owner. One can never say that of Microsoft office or a Bose audio system. Ayn Rand's biggest agony about industrialists and innovators was that they lacked the philosophical framework to appreciate what they were achieving. Likewise Apple users, mostly unknown to themselves, take part in a quintessential free market ecosystem that is the bedrock of capitalism.

The ultimate principle of capitalism is 'individualism'. The individual is the building block of capitalism. One commentator highlighted how Jobs and his products enabled individualism on a scale that no innovator or product had achieved before. Ayn Rand's in her novella 'Anthem' depicts a collectivist society where the word "I" is banished and its usage is punishable by death. Apple products are all prefixed with 'i', iPad, iMac, iPhone, iPod.

Time magazine's "Person of the year" in 2006 was "YOU". The cover featured a Mylar strip in the place of a computer (an iMac) screen reflecting the person who is reading it. In an age of twitter, Facebook, blogs where every person expresses himself Steve Jobs and his 'i's just fit in. He cashed on an era of individualism by making his users feel that the products they use are an extended identity.

The Apple product we bought is not a one time money-earner for Apple. The product serves as a channel for continued revenue. A PC sold by HP is one time money-earner. An iPad continues to earn money for Apple beyond the initial sales. Everytime we buy a song or an app a share of the cost goes to Apple as much as it goes to the creator of the app or the record label of the song. Let me be clear, I've the deepest admiration for business strategies that are innovative in creating revenue streams for companies. Anybody can choose never to buy an Apple product or having bought they can choose not to spend on apps etc and use it without paying one cent more to Apple.

There is a dark lining though amidst this sunny aspect of capitalism that is enveloping millions. Sociologists often talk about 'digital divide'. 'Digital divide' refers to the gulf between those who have access to internet and digital technologies and those who do not. My daughter plays piano on the iPad, listens to wide array of music, watches excellent shows, plays with innovative apps that teach physics and math. She loves to construct bird houses within a budget and test them for sturdiness. This learning experience is possible only because I could afford a pricey digital product. Some rich counties in USA are using iPads in classrooms. A kid from lesser fortunate circumstance would miss out on this. This is deepening the digital divide.

Before the critics of free market pounce on that let me caution do not take it for granted that nobody else would come along with a cheaper and better product. When Steve Jobs signed a exclusive arrangement with AT&T for iPhone AT&T's chief competitor Verizon used all their innovativeness to stanch the migration of its customers. Jobs could hold that exclusive deal for only 4 years. AT&T network was plagued by heavy data usage of iPhone customers. Finally as iPhone subscription reached a saturation point with AT&T Jobs then expanded the availability to Verizon in early 2011. The latest iPhone is available on Sprint too thus increasing the iPhone carriers to 3. Another big factor in expanding the availability is the success of Android phones.

Customers unsatisfied by the monopolistic attitudes of Jobs went to Android. Android, developed by Google, is sold to phone makers. Google, after a short disastrous stint, got out of the business of making phones. So its the classic DOS vs Mac OS fight retold as Android Vs iPhone. Android app store is more liberal unlike the control freak Apple in approving apps. Android phones now surpass iPhone sales. As Jobs said 'this is life in the technology lane'. So there might come a competitor to obliterate iPad soon enough and THAT's the charm of free market.

While Steve Jobs is being mourned by all and sundry there is little awareness of how he furthered the cause of capitalism and I wish Ayn Rand wrote his obituary. From Adam Smith to Ayn Rand with Edmund Burke, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman in between praise Jobs for his signal service to capitalism and free markets.

Steve Jobs: Posterboy for Capitalism, Ayn Rand and Genius

2011-10-10T00:34:00.000-04:00

In early 1980 Gorbachev's deputy showed him an Apple computer and said "Look, this is a revolution' (David Hoffman's Pulitzer awarded 'Dead Hand').

A saga and an epoch that has changed lives, created jobs, destroyed jobs and, most notably, introduced us to desires we did not know existed within us, has ended. No one book, let alone one blog or one column can do justice to the life that Steve Jobs lived. Wikipedia gives a good short hand biography of Jobs so I shall not regurgitate either arcana like his being an adopted son etc or recite his well known trajectory of being famously fired from a company he founded and later rejoining it to take it to stratospheric heights. Though many in US are broadly aware of Steve Jobs, his obsession for design, creating computers and software that even computer novices could use with ease, only a moment like his passing away would bring into sharp focus features of his life that we did not know.

Steve Jobs did everything that Bill Gates did, except for Gates' philanthropy yet it is Jobs who is mourned affectionately. Jobs filed patent violation lawsuits with glee, shut down charity programs at apple (Apple is the richest company on earth today), borrowed ideas (windows and mouse from Xerox corp), took what existed and improved them vastly (iPod, iPhone, iPad), complete monopoly over his products, censors what can be done within app stores (no adult content or Gay rights), when his product has an issue he would scald his competitors and use graphics to show they are no better, he would scold customers (iPhone 4 death grip affair) yet he remains the most loved.

Steve Jobs never ran focus groups to know what customer wants, he said "It’s not the consumers’ job to know what they want.". Howard Roark, Ayn Rand's architect protagonist in 'Fountainhead', could not have said it better. Roark gets his first commission to build his style of home. When the customer first sees it he enthuses that Roark had thought of the customer in every minute decision. Roark denies, "I haven't thought of you at all. I thought of the house, Perhaps that's why I knew how to be considerate of you". Roark would never include in his designs anything that was not logically flowing out of the needs of the home. Whether its the choice of tables in Apple showroom or demanding that the thinnest laptop have a full keyboard Jobs was all about perfection. A columnist noted that the worst insult Jobs could offer to a person was to say "you have no taste". That's vintage Howard Roark. Apple products are famously friendly to users. Businessweek summed it up in an article titled "Steve Jobs and design: Beautiful gadget, no manual necessary".

The more I read of Jobs only two characters came to my mind. Howard Roark and Hank Rearden from Ayn Rand's two mega selling classics, bestsellers for 50+ years. Jobs had been to India in search of, enlightenment but returned disillusioned and went on to found Apple. When I read Jobs's statement that "Thomas Edison has done more for the world than Karl Marx and Neem Kairali Baba put together" I felt a thrill, it was the core of every thing that Ayn Rand wrote for over 30 years. Jobs as innovator and visionary understood that creating products that enhance lives is the best philanthropic act. He briefly ran a charity fund and later closed it. An associate remarked, "he had no time for it". The words could not have been better said of Hank Rearden who thought his inventing a rare steel that mankind should thank him for and had no rights to ask for more.

Time and again Jobs, specifically after his comeback, stood up conventional economic theories on its head. While the country reeled from a dot com bust and a terror attack Jobs unveiled a very pricey iPod. Then he married an innovative concept of running a store, iTunes, making iPod the music device to be seen with. iTunes is buggy, I've found that oftentimes it cannot match appropriate artwork for CD's when Windows media player could. But the device and simplicity of the store fed each other.

A columnist gushed that Jobs is the Henry Ford of our age. Wrong. Dead Wrong on many counts. In an era when profit sharing was unheard of Ford implemented profit sharing for every single worker of his factory. He wanted his car to be affordable to all. Jobs, as Hank Rearden, had no such desires. All of Apple products are priced well above equivalent products in the market. Apple devotees would argue hard about the value for money but its a hard case.

Little attention is also paid to how Jobs is disruptive to economy. If any economics professor wanted to illustrate the 'creative destruction' aspect of capitalism the best illustration is iPod. Last year Jobs removed the CD image in iTunes logo, "CD is an anachronism". Millions cheered. Thousands lost their job in factories that manufactured CD's and Walkmans. Sony discontinued its iconic Walkmans several years ago).

Jobs with his bestselling iPod exercised his muscle into browbeating the recording industry into lowering prices for songs. Recording industry preferred to deal with iTunes rather than Napster and keeled over to Jobs.The customers were happy. Note this is exactly what Walmart does and its the most hated big box retailer in the world. Walmart squeezes its suppliers for every cent and passes on the savings to the customer giving 'low prices'. The award for that is partisan documentary titled 'The high cost of low prices'.

Jobs with his innovative App store for iPhones created a new industry and wiped out a few. Best Buy and Circuit City were the top two electronics retailers in USA. Circuit City closed out a few years ago leaving just Best Buy in the scene. We would expect Best Buy to become arrogant and indulge in price gouging. No luck, they are fighting for profits. App store kept them honest. Today bar code apps and QR code scanners tell a shopper inside the store, immediately, what is the cheapest price is for a 65" HDTV on Amazon or some Internet retailer. Best Buy would match the price. Customer walks out grinning and Best Buy just lost a pretty penny. Best Buy puts in a store assistant, trains them, give him benefits etc and here is the customer forcing the corporation to match prices given by an Internet retailer than has lower costs than Best Buy.

It is said that Jobs' most outstanding product might be the iPad. Between Jobs's ebook store and Amazon today the publishing industry is at a cross roads. Borders, the second largest book store chain, closed out in part due to flagging CD sales (iTunes) and books (ibooks). Barnes and Noble, the only remaining large book seller, today resembles a toy store than a book store. iPad is one product that took iPhone to a much new plane of unleashing consumer creativity. Again note that iPad is changing parts of the economy. iPad creates and destroys jobs. The jobs it destroys are the lower paying ones. The jobs were it helps a professional become better is a higher educated worker. Remember as books go out of fashion printing presses, layout artists and so many others lose jobs. If books can be delivered wireless who needs trucks, who needs union bound truckers, who needs to take insurance for cargo, who needs able-bodied employees to unload and reload cargo. Books are now written to exploit iPad's capabilities but none of the above who lost their jobs can aspire to play a role in that. When Jobs said Edison did more for humanity than Marx what he meant was how Edison's product unleashed individual productivity and lifted millions out of poverty. Its the IPad that is increasingly written about for somebody employing it for a very novel idea. Autistic and learning disabled children respond to apps that were made possible by iPad.

Reams of newsprint is already spent on Jobs the visionary and his iconoclasm. Jobs, a college dropout, drew upon his calligraphy classes to invent 'fonts'. When IBM's Watson jeered "what is the need for a PC", Jobs saw the future. The genius of jobs is that he saw not only saw the future, he helped shape it.

The past few weeks have seen mass protests in USA against Wall Street called "Occupy Wall Street" led mostly by youngsters, many toting Apple products. Little do they realize that Apple and Steve Jobs are poster boys for capitalism.

Time magazine, in a cover story titled "Striking it rich: A new breed of risk takers" highlighted how raising Capital gains tax, a pet peeve of Obama, would hurt raising capital for innovators like Jobs. The article gushed that Jobs "single handedly created the PC industry" and is now "worth over $140 million" (in 1982). Jobs would appear on Time magazine cover 12 times.

Jobs was an intensely private person, he was monk like in his pursuit of making lives better through technology. He lived in a modest house. Nothing was flashy about him personally. Every obituary writer drew attention to the fact that Jobs was the ultimate showman. Apple is notorious for its secrecy around products and particularly product releases. Many columnists pointed out that Jobs manipulated the media and the media loved him back. One obituary wrote tartly that Jobs would not give access to journalists unless he had a product to sell.

After the iPod triumph a scandal relating to stock options briefly appeared to knock down Jobs. Apple, with Jobs as CEO, was accused of back dating stock options. SEC inquiry cleared Jobs of personal wrongdoing yet it was a blip. If Bill Gates had done it, Microsoft would have gotten a black eye and people would have grunted "capitalist".

Steve Jobs slapped lawsuits on Microsoft alleging patent violations. Then in 1981 with Apple teetering on the brink of collapse, Jobs did what was sacrilege to his flock of devotees. Jobs asked Gates for help. Bill Gates invested in Apple giving it a lease of life. When Jobs introduced Gates at a Apple event Gates was booed. Jobs got irritated that the audience showed disrespect to the man who saved what they all loved. But Jobs himself loved to throw barbs at Gates and Microsoft. Jobs protects his patents with a zeal that would make Ayn Rand proud of him. Apple would file prolific lawsuits against competitors especially after iPad variants hit the market.

Some obituaries compared Jobs to Thomas Edison. The publisher of tech books, Oreilly (not Bill Oreilly of Fox) demurred that some adulation is going overboard. Edison did not hire an army of geeks and lord over them. Jobs's successes have his finger prints all over but they share prints with a few others, most notably, Jonathan Ive the designer.

Every obituary of Jobs had the word "ego maniac". Jobs is notorious for not suffering fools and for verbally lacerating his people if something went wrong. Jobs's ego mania came into full view when he sparred with users. Users can freely write to Jobs and sometimes he would reply. A few weeks after iPhone 4 was released there were lot of complaints over the so called "death grip". When the phone was gripped a certain way the signals faded. Jobs retorted "don't hold it that way". The furore refused to die down and Jobs backed down finally but in a way that was, well what to say, classic Bill Gates.

How Jobs steam rolled AT&T into giving him a carte blanche for developing iPhone is industry gossip. Verizon refused to give him that. Later Verizon, in a shining example of capitalism, fought tenaciously to prevent its users from jumping to AT&T just to get the new craze in town. When Jobs attempted the same techniques in Europe he was rebuffed. European commission frowned on Jobs giving exclusive rights to one carrier thus robbing the consumer of choice. Note, yet again, if Gates had done something like tons of antitrust law suits and scathing articles would hit him.

iMac's are the only PC's today that do not have a Blu-Ray DVD option. I bought a High definition camcorder and started testing it out. I used canon's own software, provided only for Windows, and burnt DVD's of the recordings I made. It was wonderful. There was no software for Mac be causes Mac's famously come with Apple software, like iMovie, that can handle any product. Finally I burnt a DVD from Mac. The quality was crappy. I spent 2 hours in a Mac store and finally figured out that the iDVD software, notoriously never updated by Apple, is crappy and introduces interlaces. Its not that Windows DVD burning is superior but possibly Canon's software removes the wrinkles. No luck for Mac because Jobs brushes off manufacturers from writing anything specific for Mac. The techie asked me "why do you need to burn DVD's, you can stream them to your TV". I said "can I stream it to my parents in India". He had no answer. Apple store employees will rarely accept that their product has shortcomings. They have drunk from the corporate koolaid that they can do no wrong.

Apple products carry the personality stamp of Jobs. iPhone and iPad do not support 'flash' the most widely used software on the web for presenting videos. Jobs got into a mud fight with Adobe refusing to support what is the de-facto standard in Internet. Again, traces of Hank Rearden and Roark. Sort of, this is my product, I define what goes into it, I'll not bend to the market, I define the market.

As an admirer of Ayn Rand and Capitalism I am happy to see the life of Jobs being celebrated. It is gratifying to see somebody whose products are priced at a premium being mourned by his consumers like they lost a loved one. Jobs life is unique at many levels. During the iPhone 4 flap one commentator astutely observed that slowly Apple is facing the consumer ire akin to what Microsoft used to face when its products failed. Apple was not longer the underdog compared to a greedy behemoth Microsoft. Apple was loved by its fanatically loyal user base primarily because they made great products and equally because they were underdogs. No longer. This year Apple crossed Microsoft as the most valuable tech company and is now threatening the status of Exxon Mobil as the most valuable company in earth. His cancer affliction and his slow death smoothed the rough edges that are inevitable for a billionaire CEO. Incidentally, he earned every penny of his wealth. So when a left wing commie says that the top 1%, the billionaires in USA, take 40% of US income please remember that every single one has earned every single penny and that it includes Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs will be remembered forever, to use what is now a cliche, for 'changing our lives'. His life is worth studying for the sheer number of lessons so many can learn.

9/11 And The Vietnam Albtaross: The story of George Coker

2011-09-27T22:03:00.000-04:00

America's engagement in Vietnam is a sordid saga of venality and war crimes. It was an age and time that makes current partisan discord look like exemplary brotherhood. The civil rights struggle, the anti-war movement, military drafts, a president assassinated, the air thick with conspiracy tales, America was a cauldron. When many rushed to scold US on 9/11 with a thinly disguised criticism of its foreign policy what drove most were the memories of Vietnam, especially of a little girl running naked, screaming, when her village was napalmed.

Nothing has weighed heavily on US foreign policy as Vietnam. The nation's psyche was wounded for decades. US never again got into a full fledged war until the Gulf War of 1991. In fact Saddam had calculated that America with its aversion to seeing soldiers return in body bags would not venture into a war. That US had scurried out of Somalia in between Vietnam and Gulf War emboldened not just Saddam but Osama too.

Robert McNamara, LBJ, Nixon are the three most culpable individuals in what turned out to be America's shame ranked probably only next to the original sin of slavery. That they were not indicted as war criminals is not indicative of any exclusive power of America but symptomatic of how weak the world bodies are in prosecuting any such person. If those deserved to be prosecuted they should very well be along with so many others.

While most of the above is common knowledge what is less known is how America got dragged into this body quagmire. Eminent historian and two time Pulitzer winner Barbara Tuchman, author of bestseller 'Guns of August', traces how America slid into this mess that was not of its making in 'The March of Folly". During the days of World War II the Allies had an uneasy relationship which on some counts was even blatantly hypocritical. Churchill was calling for the defense of liberty while he jailed Gandhi and declared that he had not become "his majesty's first minister to preside over the liquidation of the British empire". De Gaulle while mourning the loss of France and yearning to be its leader again was clear that France will remain a colonial power. Stalin, as historian Robert Conquest labeled him, was the 'breaker of nations'. The least guilty in this was US led by FDR. FDR would plead with all three, Churchill, Stalin and De Gaulle to be fair to nations in their post war plans.

What is now known as Vietnam used to be Indo-China. It was the playground of the French, the Japanese and Chinese. The French ruled Vietnam with an iron fist and in true colonial fashion. Try watching the movie "Battle of Algiers" to get a sample. With Ho-Chi-Minh in saddle North Vietnam slid into the deadly embrace of communism. In a conflict that drew a wide array of nations and competing agendas Vietnam became America's "Bloodland", to adopt the phrase of a historian. America went headlong into Vietnam when the French sowed chaos and sought to exit out. With the passage of time what remains in most people memory is only the carnage that US left behind and that is married to notions of a superpower trying to bludgeon a country of bicycle riders under the pretext of saving them from Communist stranglehold.

If one traces the role of countries in Vietnam its mindblogging to separate friend from foe. In what is characteristic of wars at various junctures both US and China had allied with the murderous regime of Khmer Rouge in the background of the Vietnam war.

With such stories to be told Hollywood was not far away. The anti-war movie "Hearts and Minds" was highly critical of US policy in Vietnam. A scene featured a Vietnam veteran, George Coker, saying "If it wasn't for the people, it was very pretty. The people there are very backwards and primitive and they make mess out of everything". The movie in Hollywood style omitted to mention who Coker was. Wikipedia notes aptly that this was a propaganda movie. Not surprisingly it garnered an Academy Award. What the movie omitted was George Coker has been prisoner of war in the notorious "Hanoi Hilton". Coker had suffered inhuman torture that would make water boarding and Guantanamo look like five star facilities. Wikipedia details:

"While in a facility on the outskirts of Hanoi known as "The Zoo", he was forced to endure a torture called "the wall", in which he, as well as other prisoners, was forced to stand facing a wall in his cell with his hands above his head from the time a gong sounded at 5:30 in the morning until it sounded again at 10:00 at night. After two weeks, the knee injury he suffered when he ejected had worsened, and he was taken to a hospital where the infection was drained. After a two day respite while he recuperated, "the wall" torture continued for two more months. Coker called this "probably my worst experience in Vietnam".^[1

Another Prisoner of War who was famously incapacitated due to torture in Vietnam is Arizona Senator and former GOP Presidential candidate John McCain. While critics of US foreign policy breathlessly recount tales of My Lai and napalming of villages the narrative becomes too stilted and blatant propaganda when it completely ignores the brutal realities of tortures by Vietnamese.

In what can be the very epitome of irony today US and Vietnam are close allies. John McCain and Hillary Clinton have visited Vietnam. Vietnam is a major outsourcing hub for software. Ultimately it was the market that triumphed. The victorious North Vietnam gobbled the south and the united country plunged into socialist abyss until recent times. The US failed to save South Vietnam unlike South Korea. South Korea under American tutelage (or hegemony as the critics remind us) became an economic power house. TOday South Koreans, thanks to American soldiers still dying in the DMZ ( I met a veteran wounded recently in South Korea), enjoy a free society that they can organize marches decrying US hegemony. The icing on the Vietnam-US detente is Vietnam requesting US help to stave of Chinese threat in the seas, New York Times, reports, quoting Nguyen Manh Hung, director of the Indochina Institute at George Mason University in Virginia, "Vietnam worries about Chinese in the South China Sea and America worries about interference in freedom of navigation,” Mr. Hung said. “Because of this, the strategic interests of Vietnam and the United States converge.”

The more and more I read on US foreign policy the angrier I get at the shibboleth of citing US foreign policy as reason for 9/11. That girl running naked with burning skin from a Napalm attack had more reason to be angry at US than the polygamist turned fundamentalist Osama Bin Laden and his thugs ever had. China, Japan, all of Western Europe, Philippines, India, Simgapore, Vietnam, South Korea are all beneficiaries of US economic policies and many owe their prosperity to US. It was US leadership, or hegemony, that saved Western Europe from Stalin. Communism laid waste continents and impoverished millions and it was US to the rescue almost always. What prompted Bin Laden was not any articulation of high liberal principles but sheer religious fundamentalism that was unique in that region. After the July 2004 London subway bombings Granta magazine ran an issue titled "the rise of British Jihad". That and about the apologists for terrorism in my next blog.

Road to 9/11: Harold Pinter's Anti-Americanism

2011-09-19T22:23:00.000-04:00

On September 11th 2001 while America mourned several parts of the world mourned and in the same breath muttered "you had it coming". Sujatha wrote that the days USA's "gun boat diplomacy" are over and like a good father sent his son to USA to live and become, I guess, an American citizen. Aijaz Ahmed, living in USA, writing for Frontline divined that the 19 hijackers were thinking of the so many past injustices of USA.

When people complain of US foreign policy I hear the usual litany starting with Vietnam meandering through the past as far their erudition goes, perhaps the coup Teddy Roosevelt engineered to build the Panama Canal, to every present day conflict weaving an ugly tapestry of a hegemony run amuck. Yes, as in Vietnam, there are very justifiable blemishes on US foreign policy. No country in history with the economic and military size of USA could have an unsullied record. But to place America in the company of Nazi Germany or malign the US army like they were murderous blood lusty terrorists alone only betrays the pathological hatred of such opinion holders.

In spring of 2002, while the fires were barely put out and WTC was just mangled steel with 2500+ bodies still buried, Granta magazine asked eminent intellectuals across the globe to share their thoughts for an issue titled "What We Think of America". Orhan Pamuk, Ramachandra Guha, Amit Chaudhuri and many more including Harold Pinter.

Orhan Pamuk and Harold Pinter, both Nobel Laureates, perfectly bookend the range of emotions most feel about America. Pamuk, coming from Turkey, has a gentle portrait of USA told through a story of his childhood involving an American boy. Pinter's essay was an address he delivered On Sep 10th 2001, a day before 9/11. Pinter said the address is still relevant. Pinter eviscerates USA for the NATO bombing of Serbian forces of Milosevic. Pinter called the USA a 'rogue state', 'a fully fledged, award-winning gold plated monster...it knows only one language-bombs and death". Doris Lessing, another Nobel Laureate, wrote a meandering piece, "America, it seems to me,has as little resistance to an idea or a mass emption as isolated communities have to measles and whooping cough".

Harold Pinter scolded the USA for the NATO bombings in Bosnia and went on to organize funds for Slobodan Milosevic, need I add a word after that. Doris Lessing was a communist, a typical worshipper from afar who never lived under communism.

It is this 'gold plated monster' that sent thousands to the beaches of Normandy. Flagging off the D-Day landings Eisenhower said "half of them will not come back alive". America, Lessing says, allows ideas and emotions to wash over with little resistance like a populace stricken by measles. Sure, is that why America put its money and men defending Western Europe and her own beloved England. Referring to FDR's 'lend lease program' to England, Presidential historian Robert Dallek, chuckled, "what lend lease, there was no collateral to be lent against. FDR basically hoodwinked the people and supplied Churchill". Lessing jeers that Americans have short memories. She with a long memory forgot that US had to be dragged into both World Wars. It is a matter of conjecture that had US entered, what was seen as European conflict, earlier in WW-II much loss of life could have been stopped.

Torn between two wars, a terrorist attack that reshaped the psyche of a country and an economic recession, it was only USA that rushed its C-14 helicopters across the globe to save the thousands battling for life in Tsunami stricken Banda Aceh in Thailand. Note, there was no oil or any strategic advantage in Banda Aceh.

George W. Bush hiked the aid given to Africa to combat AIDS. A 2006 Washington Post article says he tripled the aid. Bill Clinton, through his 'Clinton Global Initiative', has negotiated with drug companies to supply AIDS drugs at a fraction of their prices. Why should American companies sacrifice their hard earned profits?

"Black Hawk Down" is a famous blockbuster that portrayed the infamous incident in Somalia. UN aid to famine stricken impoverished Somalis was being hijacked by war lords. US decided to take out one notorious war lord and the ensuing scuffle was absolute humiliation. The black hawk helicopter was shot down, the soldiers were killed and their bodies were dragged in the streets. This is the incident that is said to have crystallized Osama's vision that America could be hit. 1993 America was a different place. Cold War was won. NASDAQ and DOW soared, American economy was overheated. Clinton was battling for re-election. America was in no mood for war in a war ravaged Africa which had nothing to offer. Today millions of children face near certain death in Somalia due to continued famine.

When Russia imploded after the failed coup by the hardliners again it was America that rushed in to prevent USSR from self-incinerating. Yet again during a recession precious money was funneled to USSR to secure the nuclear war heads. David Hoffman, Pulitzer winner for his portrayal of Cold War arms legacy in 'Dead Hand', writes scathingly 'not one of USSR nuclear facilities met Western standards".

The Marshall Plan, Reagan's "Mr Gorbachev bring this wall down", Nunn_lugar aid for USSR, saving South Korea, rebuilding Japan, rebuilding Western Europe, saving millions in Bosnia and much more was all America.

Indira Gandhi came running to LBJ for wheat to feed India. USSR too, depended on US for food. Yes, the dictatorship of the proletariat could not feed itself. Well after the bloody collectivization drives in Ukraine and killing millions of Kulaks it was the Yankees to the rescue. By the way but for US Zhou-En-Lai would have marched to Delhi and given a Bhai-Bhai lesson to Nehru.

Ask anybody today, including most Americans, who started the Vietnam war. The answer would be America. Truth, of course is different. America was dragged into it by France and brought itself great shame by its conduct. However here too a wrinkle is often ignored. We only hear how USA napalmed villages. We never hear how American GI's were brutally tortured by Viet-Cong, torture that makes Abhu-Ghraib, however shameful, look like picnic. Google the words "Hanoi Hilton". I'll blog on this separately.

Every international institution owes its independence (however arguably) and robustness to American taxpayer money. USA pays more than 60% of UN's bills. No other country comes close. IMF and World Bank, both born out of US leadership, have saved millions across the world, unarguably unless you are a bleeding heart liberal and a closet communist.

Hearing criticisms of inciting a coup in order to build Panama Canal Teddy Roosevelt reminded his critics that the coup he incited were only 51st in a steady stream of coups. The canal helped world trade for 100+ years and was recently turned over to Panama. For over 200 years it was dream and TR, in what would be the 'American Century', turned it to reality. Of course one could argue over the morals of the coup. What would miss the point is that coups were par for the course and TR's coup, not entirely engineered by him but only aiding what was already underway, helped world trade and millions.

The Granta issue highlighted a critical dichotomy. Those from erstwhile communist countries were more sympathetic to USA than those from well heeled western democracies. Only a pathological hater like Pinter could call NATO bombings as evil and fund raise for Milosevic. He and others like him are beyond the pale of reason.

An American GI was distributing sweets to children in a street side in Iraq. They were ambushed in a terrorist attack. When Time magazine interviewed an insurgent and referred to the incident asking "what about the many children", the insurgent replied "Allah will understand, we had to get that one soldier". To equate both is not just fallacious reasoning but a very facetious reasoning.

So was really US foreign policy the angering element in fashioning the ghastly attacks? Osama had zero interest in anything as remote as articulating an alternate world vision or in standing up for some high liberty. He launched a religious attack, pure and simple. One can keep papering over it but thats what it is. One crude question to puncture the logic would be this:"If US foreign policy begets terrorism then how come it was not the Vietnamese or Filippino's or Grenadans or Haitians or heck even Panamanians or Cubans, why was it only the Saudis?". A peek into Osama's persona and his evolution into a jihadist is for another day.

Ralph Nader, Upton Sinclair and Vasantha Balan

2011-09-15T23:00:00.003-04:00

I am often asked what is it about USA that thrills me so much. The questions and wonderment get sharper in response to my carping about India. I turn 40 next year by which time I'd have spent most of my adulthood, 18+, in USA. I left India as a 25 year old, I could not leave earlier unfortunately. I wear my opinions on my sleeve and I make no bones about what I think of anything. Here is an issue that draws the distinction clear and bright between two civilizations.

Last year a Tamil movie, 'Angaadi Theru' ('Merchandise Street' or something close) became an unexpected blockbuster. The movie was made with teenage newbie actors on a very medium budget. The dialogues were penned by a popular contemporary Tamil writer, Jeyamohan. The dialogues were pedestrian and lacked any panache marking the pen of a writer. The movie was a thinly veiled, in fact not at all veiled, fiction of the travails of employees in a store in a particular street in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

Renganathan Street near the Mambalam station is famous for its clutter of stores and of course, dirt and squalor. "Saravana Stores"is a prominent well known departmental stores selling everything from sarees to dresses to utensils etc. Every now and then 'Saravana Stores' would feature in some story in Junior Vikatan, a vernacular gossip magazine. Invariably the accounts would be about some woman customer being abused on charges of theft. Other than that nobody knew much about the store. After all this is India where nobody has time for anything other than immediate concerns.

'Angaadi Theru' laid bare very ugly truths about the store. The movie featured prominent hints about the store starting with their popular ad jingle to store logo and in one shot the camera would linger on 'Saravana Stores' neon signs itself. The movie relates how the store management would fish out teenage and sometimes plain children out of destitute families and later treat them like bonded labor. Abusing women employees, making employees live and eat in crowded areas, physical abuse, torture etc were portrayed unflinchingly. What is worse, the director said that what was shown was still not 100%. Watch the below clipping

The movie was a big surprise hit. In a state where movies packaged like bromides with no story or logic save super human heroes and voluptuous heroines are the fare this story of impoverished child workers was a very surprise hit. And the story ends there tragically.

There was no social awakening, no public furore, no zeal to legislate and correct such inhuman acts, no boycott of the stores. Nothing. Zip. Recently Tamil Nadu's top drawing star Surya recorded an ad for 'Saravana Stores'. Surya is no George Clooney.

There is no society with ills else it would be paradise. Even paradise was not liked by its occupants who nevertheless yearned for the forbidden fruit. How a society responds to ills and how remedies come forth, how the remedies remain institutionalized uprooting the ills forever are all the hallmarks of a responsible and responsive society.

Prompted by another thought I intend to blog on how America is a country of deep intellectual traditions influenced by ideas and books but here is a good sampling.

Upton Sinclair wrote his bestseller "The Jungle" about the meat packing industry in Chicago. Sinclair's intended focus was the horrific circumstances of the workers and the appalling unhygienic conditions of how meat was packed and sold. The book, published in 1906, caused a furore and was instrumental in USA enacting the "Pure Food and Drug Act", the forerunner of the now functioning 'Food and Drug Administration' (FDA). Sinclair was disappointed that people only focused on the unhygienic meat part and did not address the workers conditions. Those were to be addressed later and workers rights became contentious issues.

Ralph Nader is mostly now known as the spoiler for Al Gore becoming President. Nader, however, is the quintessential 'consumer activist'. His book "Unsafe at Any Speed" , 1965, sent shock waves into the auto industry by causing an uproar amongst US consumers by ripping into how unsafe the cars were. GM, then US auto giant, tried to silence Nader by every crookish method. However the furore reached such proportions that Congressional Committee hearings were held. GM apologized to Nader and later paid out a settlement to Nader on a lawsuit on the harassment. Nader, wikipedia says, used the money to lobby for the creation of a watchdog agency, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency).

Tamils often mistake that culture is something about some hoary ancient literature (using words that are mostly not used in daily life) or some hazy notions of ill defined chauvinistic identity that has no basis in history or anthropology culture is beyond all that. About all that some other time.

Road to 9/11: Hamburg and the Patriot Act

2011-09-12T00:09:00.000-04:00

As I wrote earlier 9-11 was just a murderous attack by fundamentalists and their supposed causes were nothing but fig leaves to disguise a murderous ideology. Not many realize that the attacks themselves were made possible by the freedom's enjoyed by the murderers in USA.

Terrorists used the freedoms of US and other western countries to hurt us. To be blunt, a 9/11 kind of attack was possible only in USA, a July 2004 attack was possible in UK. Neither of these would have been possible in xenophobic, illiberal regimes across the middle east from which the attackers mushroomed. Only in USA protected by freedoms given to all who are in its soil could the thugs execute such a dastardly act.

The 9/11 plotters were drawn from a group that is now referred as the "Hamburg Cell". Why did they choose Hamburg? Lawrence Wright, in his Pulitzer awarded and well researched book "The Looming Tower", provides a stunning insight. Germany in it is desire to redeem itself for the Nazi era excesses of curbing freedoms lurched to the other extreme. Hamburg, Wright says, became a sanctuary city, "Acknowledged terrorist grouse were allowed to operate legally, raising money and recruits-but only if they were foreign terrorists, not domestic. It was not even against the law to plan a terrorist operation so long as the attack took place outside the country".

A phrase that became famous in the aftermath of a colossal failure of US intelligence community was the "failure to connect the dots". To use a word that is common place today, there was too much "chatter" after the U.S.S.Cole attack. Today on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 NYC and DC are on heightened alert due to "chatter". Americans were infuriated to learn that CIA and FBI had so many clues. A very famous memo was the one given to Bush in August outlining exactly Osama Bin Laden's resolve to strike USA. Little mention is made of the fact that US laws prohibited sharing of information across agencies and even within agencies.

Wright says that FBI took Rule 6E - of the Federal Rules of Criminal procedure- as absolute. Rule 6E prohibits revealing any information arising from a grand jury testimony. Added to that was a new Justice Department policy in 1995, Clinton era, "that regulated exchange of information between agents and criminal prosecutors, but not among agents themselves". Wright says that FBI took it as holy writ to mean no exchange of information. The CIA too in turn had its own self imposed barriers on sharing information with FBI agents.

When I came to USA in 1998 all that I needed to get a driver license in USA was my social security number and proof of residence. I got a drivers license that was in no way different from a US citizen though I was on H1B. The drivers license renewal date was beyond my H1B visa date. In fact my immigration status was not even inquired about. In US other than for international travel nobody uses a passport for anything. Waving a drivers license for a curb side check in was routine. A driver license, as government issued ID was on par to a passport giving access to many things. Airlines would not share information on passengers to FBI that easily. The drivers licenses were not even tamper proof. my NJ license just had a photo stuck on a card and laminated. Post 9-11 all that changed. Patriot Act and its concomitant sentiments changed it all.

The cost of 9-11 operation to Bin Laden is estimated at $500,000. Half a million dollars!!! That's it. How as money funneled to the conspirators? Some through Hawala some through very legitimate means. Banks would not ask about immigration status for opening accounts, invasion of rights!! It was easy to open accounts with little and sometimes no information. Patriot Act put a stop to that. I work for a major retail bank in US and I've seen the transitions. Again not many know that as a country that welcomes immigrants by the thousands these supposedly lax procedures have made life easy during the initial struggling days for immigrants. Also those, now extinct, freedoms to open an account easily was good for many illegal immigrants from Mexico who come to US, though illegally, only to make an honest living and for the sake of their families.

When the Radia tapes were released most Indians were interested only in the gossip. Nobody, at least not most, batted an eyelid that a government department was eavesdropping on telephones used by people who posed zero threat to the government and as yet no case was made against them. Its impossible to do that in USA. Even if its done such evidence will be thrown out of the court. Obama, as candidate and as President, has repeatedly renewed the FISA act that governs wiretaps.

Americans, especially pre-9/11, are a very open and trusting people. States like NY, NJ, VA, CA and FL, with heavy immigration, are very accepting and hospitable to immigrants. When would-be hijackers told flight instructors that they did not need to learn how to land nobody's radar went up. As recently as 2009 political correctness prevented timely action in preventing a massacre. The Fort Hood Texas shooting suspect (he is no suspect actually, it is him) Nidal Malik was an American born Muslim who served as psychiatrist. Post 9-11 there were many warning bells about him. Political correctness trumped any attempt to dismiss or take any action. The result was a ghastly day that left 13 innocent men dead. This from a guy who was treated honorably as a citizen without any discrimination.

Lawrence Wright who interviewed hundreds to write his book and is very well aware of how rotten the real world nevertheless is uncomfortable in how US is balancing liberty and security. In his column he wonders, "is this the country we want to be". While I understand his concerns I am perplexed at what kind of policy prescriptions are available to combat this hydra headed monster.

America cherishes freedom of opinion like anything. One could say the most despicable stuff and still strut about safely protected by the First Amendment. Pre-9-11 another issue tested the limits of free speech. Instances of hate crimes against homosexuals brought attention to what came to be labeled as 'hate speech'. US courts have ruled that hate speech is not free speech. However the bar is set pretty high. This problem reached its acuity in the July 2004 bombings in London. Mosques in an around London indulged in unbridled hate speech calling for Jihad against England by its own citizens who have enjoyed liberties not given to anybody in lands from which they came from.

Barack Obama, who sailed to the US Presidency on the power of rhetoric, recognizes what a potent weapon speech is. Nidal Malik was radicalized by listening to YouTube videos of Anwar Al Awlaki. Obama has issued an unprecedented kill order against Awlaki, a US citizen residing in Somalia. Ever since the botched CIA attempts on Fidel Castro, overt and not-so-overt, Congress has passed laws prohibiting the US President from issuing such orders. The Obama administration made out a case that Awlaki, by virtue of his preachings, is an imminent threat to US national security. Again, an act made possible, only in the backdrop of the Patriot Act.

Yes its easy to quote Ben Franklin who said "people who sacrifice a little liberty to secure a little security deserve neither". Ben Franklin would not have imagined the savagery of Al Qaeda. Ben Franklin or Jefferson could not imagine, with all their erudition, the vicious rationalizations of Qaeda. Who can understand the murderous sophistry behind 'takfeer', declaring ones own coreligionists with whom one disagrees, as "un-Islamic" and hence OK enough to be killed?

America is a very dynamic and resilient country. We shall find our balance in due course. A recent PEW global survey reports that most American Muslims feel good about being in USA post-9/11 despite the harsh light that shone on the community as a whole.

American foreign policy is blamed for 9-11 by its apologists. Anybody who starts of condemning the attacks and then adds "but" to tag on their own prejudices against America is an apologist for terrorism. Let us not forget that Bush came to office vowing to pursue a more humble and withdrawn role, especially, militarily. Al Pacino, the aging Godfather who yearns to get out of the mafia business would get drawn back in after an attack on him. Pacino would curse "just when I want to get out, they pull me back right in".

As for those who continue to beat USA with the Vietnam stick, the napalm bombings and of course Palestine etc, I can only say, "none of the 19 hijackers were from Vietnam or Palestine". USA today shares a very good relationship with Vietnam.

On this day, the 10th anniversary of 9-11, a word of tribute to US armed forces. From the beaches of Normandy to Tsunami stricken Banda Aceh to the sands of Libya its US Army that often stands as a force for good. In human history if any army had the record of US Army, its blemishes and My-Lai notwithstanding, they can be proud.

Born-Einstein Letters: Physics and Friendship in Uncertain Times

2011-09-01T00:47:00.000-04:00

S.Ramakrishnan, noted contemporary writer in Tamil Nadu, visited a book fair and listed the books he had bought. "Born-Einstein Letters 1916-1955:Friendship, Politics and Physics in Uncertain Times" was a very unlikely inclusion in that list. I always love to read anything by or about Einstein.

The 'letters' is an easy read but nevertheless rich one. Two great scientists living in a very politically tumultuous time exchanged letters over nearly 40 years of which for nearly 20 years they never saw each other. The letters are not just between Max Born and Einstein. Max Born's wife Hedi also corresponds with Einstein with lively exchanges.

The letters do not have any explosive content, not much that is unknown to general informed reader. However the first hand accounts of persecution, some rivalries, attitude of Governments toward science and state of scientific institutions all provide very valuable insights for the discerning reader. As I pointed out in my earlier blog Soviet Russia persecuted scientists just for teaching 'Theory of Relativity' .

The period covered by the letters, 1916-55, is the most tortuous time in Germany spanning two World Wars and the rise of Nazism. Born and Einstein are Jews and the drama plays out in many letters. Born, writing about the lack of job prospects for Epstein, says "as a Jew and a Pole (he) will therefore be strongly rejected". Born, Einstein, Bohr, Neumann and scores of other giants of science fled Nazi Germany, mostly to USA. The University of Gottingen, home to Math geniuses like Hilbert and Courant, lost all its crown jewels due to anti-Semitism. Courant fled Gottingen to NYU in New York. Courant is credited with creating the finest math department in USA. Neumann fleeing University of Berlin comes to 'Institute of Advanced Studies" in Princeton and played a key role in the development of the atom bomb along with other emigrant scientists. Born recounts how Philipp Lenard spearheaded an attack on Einstein fueled by anti-semitic hatred. Born credits Lenard with inventing the "difference between 'German' and 'Jewish' physics". Born also indicts another scientist, Johannes Stark, as being "responsible for the removal of all Jewish scholars".

Born met Henry Goldman of Goldman Sachs. Born admires Henry whose Jewish parents had emigrated from Europe and arrived penniless to USA. Henry's grandfather was a door-to-door salesman who finally ended up owning a small bank. The rest if history. Today, in 2011, Goldman Sachs is the most hated financial firm in Wall Street. When I hear snide remarks about Jews controlling Wall Street, Hollywood and USA I recoil. How many realize that Goldman Sachs was not created in a day?

Any student who has a love of Physics would find it enjoyable to read about names that we learn of as remote geniuses. Born tells that Max Planck suffers great tragedies losing his two daughters in childbirth. The book has an introduction by Heisenberg (Uncertainty Principle). Heisenberg's work in Nazi Germany was the most controversial. Born's writes a letter in which he remarks that Heisenberg is "Nazified". However Born who added notes to the letters in the 50's retracts that as too harsh a judgment. In another letter Born states that Heisenberg did not know much about matrices in math when Heisenberg worked under him. (The concept of matrices and the non-commutativity of matrix multiplication is the root of Heisenberg's revolutionary 'Uncertainty Principle'). I found it notable that though Heisenberg wrote an introduction letters critical of him are left intact.

Born is very open in admiring younger scientists, especially his assistants Pauli and Heisenberg. He practically admires them both. Pauli, we learn, is a lazy assistant who needed to be woken up from bed. In his note to a letter from Einstein congratulating him for his belated Nobel (Born was awarded the Nobel in 1953) Born concedes that he was very wounded for not getting the Nobel in 1932 along with Heisenberg. Very graciously he writes "I got over it, because I was conscious of Heisenberg's superiority".

It is Hedi who provides relief in this collection. She upbraids Einstein for falling prey to a publicity stunt and sternly tells him to dissociate with a publisher. In another letter Hedi insists that Einstein "must read Rabindranath Tagore's novel 'Home and the World' ". I do not know how they read Tagore, in English or German. Note that the letters were originally written in German. In fact all three did not have great felicity with English as a language. All scientific papers were written only in German those days. After her visit to India Hedi published a book of sonnets about India.

Einstein's letters are mostly short. Ronald Clark's classic biography of Einstein has a chapter titled "Stateless Person" referring to a period of Einstein's life when he really did not belong to any country, he had no valid passport of any country. Advising Born to take up a position in Gottingen Einstein adds that as a 'rootless person' he is ill qualified to advise such a step. He says he buried his father in Milan, Mother is buried Germany, children living in Switzerland and he in Germany. Einstein worries about the world, wonders if Woodrow Wilson will make the 'League of Nations' a robust institute.

Einstein is supposed to have read Kant as a schoolboy. He writes to Born that Kant's 'Prolegomena' is not as good as Hume's books. Hume, as Will Durant notes, is credited with waking up Kant from his 'dogmatic slumber'. Such intellectual pastimes, especially reading an Indian author or a British philosopher , are wonderful especially in an age when there was no internet or Amazon.com or wikipedia.

Einstein is a warm man but not an intimate person. Writing from Princeton during winter Einstein says he is hibernating like a bear and adds that he feels lonely after the loss of his 'mate'. Thats it. His wife's death is an added line to his hibernating like a bear as if he was adding a line about having cold, not even fever. Born, despite having known Einstein for 40 years, is perturbed and it is he who draws attention to this fact in his explanatory note to the letter.

One thought which came to my mind was the wonder of progress in science in Germany in those years. Indians mostly complain about beurocracy, government control, lack of funds for research, lowly salaries for academicians as reasons for lack of scientific output. Most scientific institutions in Germany were run by the government, strapped for funds during the period 1916-1955 (in fact Germany was a pauper then), politics and racial tensions all plagued the scientific establishment. Yet it was the apogee for scientific research. Notably most progress was made in theoretical science, not experimental. Born who fled to Edinburgh writes that his salary was pittance, no pension even.

Born has very interesting anecdotes of Sir C.V.Raman. Born alleges that Raman encouraged his pupils to attack Born's theory concerning structure of crystals, in the pre-eminent scientific journal 'Nature'. Raman had invited Born to IISc-Bangalore, that Raman created. After that visit they fell out. Later during a meeting at a Nobel ceremony Born says Raman just stomped out telling Hedi that Max Born had insulted him. S.Chandrasekar's (nephew of Raman) biographer Kameshwar C. Wali writes in "Chandra" that Chandrasekhar's mother told Chandra to keep away from Raman's orbit.

Another interesting anecdote narrated by Born is about a Jewish physicist in Aligarh Muslim University. Born credits that physicist with establishing a fine physics department in AMU. Born says that the new Vice Chancellor, a Muslim, kicked out all non-Muslim staff.

As the 50's rolls in both Born and Einstein have aged considerably and the turmoil of fleeing their homeland takes it toll. Born, much to Einstein's disapproval, returned to Germany. Einstein never set foot in Germany after leaving it in the 20's. Now its cold war. Courant, now at NYU, invites Born to USA. Meantime McCarthyism rages in USA. People suspected of being communist had their careers broken, lives became hell. Born wrote that since he was born on the far side of the Iron Curtain he would not get a visa.

In their final days Born and especially Einstein became pacifists. Einstein agonized over his letter to FDR that kicked off the Manhattan project became a pacifist. Born says he would not like to visit UC-Berkley was because Edward Teller the father of atom bomb was there.

The letters end in 1955. Einstein passed away in April 1955 in Princeton NJ. I recently took my dad to the street where Einstein lived. 112 Mercer Street. Its a private home now. The gate had a small board "Private Residence".

Jethmalani's travesty and Hypocrisies Galore in Tamil Nadu

2011-08-31T00:28:00.000-04:00

Ram Jethmalani became a household name in the late 80's thanks to his "10 questions a day" to Rajiv Gandhi in Indian Express. When asked about the question Rajiv retorted "I dont have to answer every dog that barks". Jethmalani returned volley, "Mr PM dogs bark only at thieves". Those were heady days. As a naive teenager I was drawn like a moth into such grandstanding. Jethmalani, A.G. Noorani, Arun Shourie, Ramnath Goenka were all heroes. Gurumurthy's articles on Reliance Industries were a huge hit. Little did we know that Express was merely taking sides in a corporate war. Parsi Goenka was siding with Parsi Nusli Wadia the owner of Bombay Dyeing. I still remember Jethmalani's questions. Jethmalani had traced where Amitabh's children studied. Abhishek Bachchan was studying in Aiglon Villars in Switzerland. Their school fees and how Amitabh could afford such foreign exchange was a question. Another day a photo of Ajitabh Bachchan's home in Switzerland was splashed on the front pages with its price tag. Again a question of how Amitabh and his brother Ajitabh could afford it. The not so subtle innuendo was that Amitabh had siphoned Bofors kickbacks. This was vintage Jethmalani. As 17 year old little could I appreciate that much of what he did was invasion of privacy, sheer tabloid journalism, neither of which are hallmarks of a criminal lawyer who was so brilliant that he got a special permission to practice law at 18.

Today Jethmalani is a hero in Tamil Nadu for playing, what is portrayed as, lead role in getting a stay from Madras High Court against the hanging sentence for the Rajiv assassination convicts. The other two lawyers were Colin Gonsalves and R.Vaigai. Both Colin and Vaigai come with impeccable credentials. Vaigai, the only Tamil in the defense panel, is spearheading a forum to hold the judiciary accountable. Vaigai is instrumental in the impeachment proceedings against Justice Dinakaran. Colin an IIT graduate turned to become Law student to fight for human rights.

At the outset let me state categorically that I've nothing against a death row person availing every single legal avenue to prove his/her innocence. That said I am completely repelled by the obnoxious mob mentality. This whole circus is riddled with contradictions and hypocrasies. Most who support the trio were acerbic critics of Anna Hazare's protests. Every criticism they unfairly flung at Anna is now completely true of this so called 'people's sentiment'.

When Anna commended Narendra Modi the secular brigade pounced on him and tore him to shreds. Today we have Ram Jethmalani an ex-BJP minister as defense counsel. If BJP as opposition party takes advantage of Anna's protest Anna becomes guilty by association. Yet not a murmur about this BJP cadre who is defending the darling trio. The flag waving and shouting of 'Bharat Mata ki jai" were decried as nationalism that borders on chauvinism. Today I am told that any Tamil who opposes clemency for the trio ceases to be a Tamil. Anna Hazare was mostly upbraided by so called intellectuals as blackmailing the government. Anna's protest was censured as unconstitutional. This is where the hypocrisy touches a nadir. Today the protests seeking clemency are anything but non-violent or constitutional.

Watch this video below

These are called students. If this is called civil protest I just lost my dictionary. As I was narrating the High Court order to my dad he surprised me by asking "Why Jethmalani and Colin, why do they keep running to North Indian lawyers, could they not find good lawyers in Tamil Nadu". Note, that self-styled leader of Tamil language and custodian of Tamil diaspora Karunanidhi begged Jethmalani to appear in person for his daughter's bail plea. I was mulling over the choice of lawyers and wondering could not Tamil Nadu's law colleges produce good lawyers. Then I remembered the Madras Law College student violence when a student was beaten to pulp. Have we forgotten how lawyers acted like hooligans in High Court. The Sri Krishna committee report gave a scalding picture of lawyers who were practically lawbreakers. From this cesspool people like Vaigai are rarity to flower. One blogger rants against North Indians for not joining the chorus and instead questioning the propriety of the circus. Little does he realise that his trio owes their grace period to North Indians.

Another irony is that most who decry the judicial process today were the ones who were gloating over the humiliation suffered by Jaya in the uniform syllabus shenanigans. Thanks to that ruling today students read a history textbook that has a section titled "achievement of Hitler". Those who gloated then now find the shoe on the other foot. Jaya who is still smarting from that humiliation hesitated to question the Supreme court ruling or take any action that would invite potential wrath of SC. Finally she caved in. The TN assembly resolution is not worth the paper its written on and sets a very dangerous precedent for mob rule in questions of law. When Tamils get angry that Delhi called the resolution "not binding" and threaten secession they should remember that Salman Kurshid was merely acting constitutional.

The most shameful hypocrisy was Perarivalan's own clemency petition. He says as 19 year old he was attracted to EVR's ideology and that he supported 'anti-Brahminism". Then without batting an eyelid he cites V.R.Krishna Iyer's letter in support of his clemency petition. Today DK partisans refer to Krishna Iyer with reverence "noted legal luminary Krishna Iyer 'himself'..". If Krishna Iyer had said anything different these guys would not hesitate to lynch him and deride him with obscene epithets referring to Krishna Iyer's caste. Every time I think one cannot go further down in hypocrisy these guys show me a new nadir. By the way I wonder what makes a 19 year old boy hate an ethnic community. Maybe, as Karunanidhi wrote recently, if released he might he lead a 'reformed' life. Karunanidhi did not realise that that statement implies guilt, a fact violently disputed by his idolaters. R.Vaigai, daughter of noted communist leader P.Ramamurthy hails from a Brahmin family. I do hope Perarivalan gets released and realises to whom he owes his life to.

The most heinous hypocrisy is concerning Rajiv himself. I am yet to hear from anyone who supports the trio as innocent voice any remorse over the gruesome murder of a man. All this love for humane punishment is basically bollocks. I see tweets about how Rajiv turned a blind eye to the Sikh genocide. Yes it was shameful. But that does not mean his killing can be justified. The hypocrisy is even more cutting when one notes that none of these people called Rajiv shameful at that time for that. It was just Sikhs being killed in far off Delhi. One commentator made a chilling observation that because Rajiv was North Indian Tamils are keen to overlook his killing and shamelessly ask for clemency beyond the purview of law. Let me reiterate that I do not grudge any redress within the confines of the law. There are many valid grounds for questioning how justice was dispensed with.

Ram Jethmalani appearing for Kanimozhi cited her gender as reason to be enlarged on bail. Today Jethmalani adds that courts should listen to people's voice. Jethmalani has gone senile. Every associate of Anna Hazare was brought under a microscope for any dirty linen to be discovered. Arundhati's article citing Ford Foundation funding for Kejriwal was widely circulated and tweeted. Here is Jethmalani who earned the reputation of being "smugglers lawyer". Barring a few publicity seeking cases like Kehar Singh his clientele reads like a rogues gallery. Haji Mastan, Harshad Mehta, Ketan Parekh etc. The worst charade of Jethmalani was his U-turn of Afzal Guru. After having defended Guru saying he did not get a fair trial Jethmalani did a U-turn when he needed a BJP seat. In chilling words Jethmalani declared "What I had said was that such indoctrinated elements (like Afzal) shouldn’t be allowed to die easily, but they should made to rot in jails,” . All for a Rajya Sabha ticket. If Jethmalani had appeared for the prosecution all this dirty laundry would be shouted from the rooftops by my Dravidian brethren.

When Arjun Singh, in a naked attempt to upstage Manmohan, implemented Mandal in IIT's it raised furore on both sides of the aisle. Those for it shrieked "what is sacred about IIT, do we need islands of excellence", "what is excellence after all, who decides it", "merit is a bogey". Today its IIT-ian Colin Gonsalves who is called for defense. After all did not V.P. Singh come scurrying to Memorial Sloan Kettering after proudly announcing the first Mandal doctor in AIIMS. Karunanidhi once acidly asked "what good is education" and then sent Maran to Houston. Dont we know these scumbags.

After surveying the endless list of hypocrisies I feel like asking, "at long last, Sir, have you no decency".

The Rajiv Killers and The Death Penalty Debate

2011-08-30T01:42:00.000-04:00

Michel Foucault in "Discipline and Punish:The Birth of the Prison" recounts in grisly detail the execution of Damiens, convicted of regicide, on March 2nd 1757. Torture is a mild word. Reading the details would churn our stomachs. A sample. "the flesh will be torn from his breasts, arms, thighs and calves with red hot pincers, his right hand burned with sulphur, and, on those places where the flesh will be torn away, poured molten lead". The details continue for three pages. US constitution prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment". The journey towards that is a mark of civilization and it comes to a head on a pivotal question of what to do with a heinous criminal? What is just and humane punishment?

What are we to do with a killer who kills a defenseless child in the most gruesome manner? Can any parent forgive such a criminal? What are we to do with a Timothy McVeigh, executed for Oklohoma city bombing, whose intent was to kill innocent people including children? What are we to do with Satwant Singh and Beant Singh who mercilessly unloaded several rounds of ammunition on an unarmed woman who had entrusted her own safety to them? What are we to do when a supposedly innocent Kehar Singh gets executed along with Satwant Singh?

Whether its US or India death penalty is not handed down lightly. Its reserved for the rarest of the rare cases and where the guilt has been proven beyond reasonable doubt. Recently all of USA was riveted watching the Casey Anthony murder case involving a mom accused of killing her two year old child. The jury came to a gut wrenching decision that Casey's guilt was not proved beyond doubt. Casey was acquitted, like O.J.Simpson, on all counts. The last time death penalty received wide notice in India was when a rapist who killed a child was hanged in Calcutta. Note, that none of the objectors today in Tamil Nadu voiced any note of protest other than the usual protests by liberals.

The case involving Perarivalan, Santhan and Murugan has come to a climax after 21 years. 21 years ago Rajiv Gandhi, ex-PM and possible next PM of India, was murdered gruesomely by LTTE thugs. Without going into conspiracy theories around who else was involved lets just say that the key murderers are all dead (Sivarasan, Subha, Thanu, Pottu Amman and Prabakaran himself). As the murder trial wound its way to the Supreme court finally 4 were sentenced to death. To add drama one pair, Nalini and Murugan, gave birth to a child in captivity. Both were sentenced to death. This created ripples amongst legal circles and human rights activists. The Indian state faced prospect of 'creating' an orphan. Sonia Gandhi and her children out of great magnanimity decided to pardon the mother. When Nalini filed her mercy petition thanks to Sonia's forgiveness it was accepted. The remaining three petitions, as per then CM Karunanidhi's cabinet decision, was rejected.

Neither me nor anybody other than those connected directly with the trial can say with any certainty about the merits of the case. However we all opine from what we learn through media reports, online sources etc. With that background one can safely conclude that Perarivalan, especially, had a very tangential role if at all. As is usual in India he was tortured mercilessly and made to sign papers. Arrested as a 19 year old he has languished in prison for 21 years. As a 40 year old he now faces the gallows on Sep 9th unless the High Court gives him reprieve tomorrow. Even if one were to ignore the confessions procured by torture and accepts his guilt his crime does not befit the punishment. He stands on par with Kehar Singh who was accused of being a co-conspirator in the Indira assassination case. Santhan's case appears to be more confused involving mistaken identity. Essentially in both of their cases their guilt is very circumstantial at best and at worst fabricated by the police. Seen either way it would be a gross miscarriage of justice to send them to the gallows.

The case against Nalini and Murugan appears to be more genuine. This is reflected in the current agitations clamoring for the release or commutation of death sentence for the trio. Most arguments start off with Perarivalan's coerced confessions, muddled proofs of Santhan and then reluctantly proceeds to include Murugan. When the arguments come to Murugan they take on more specious tones. That he has spent 21 years in prison is cited as punishment enough. That he was at worst an unsuspecting collaborator is promoted. Finally now his daughter has released a message from London pleading for clemency. This is where I break off with the so called Tamil enthusiasts. I don't know though what enthusiasm for Tamil has got to do with addressing evaluations of guilt in a gruesome murder. But then this is Tamil Nadu.

As for the clemency reason for Nalini I find it repugnant. She and her paramour Murugan (I am not sure if they were wedded at that time) decided to take part in a conspiracy to murder a high value target, here I am giving credence to the theory, for the sake of argument, that they are unsuspecting accomplices. In the midst of that they enjoyed marital bliss and Nalini got pregnant. They did not think of their child. The murder they helped orchestrate killed 10+ innocent bystander including an innocent Rajiv Gandhi. Today that child's plea for clemency is doing the rounds on the web. Has anybody thought about the children of the victims who were dirt poor themselves. Nalini's daughter is being educated in London today. Does anybody even know the names of the children of the victims other than Priyanka and Rahul? The case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg is pertinent to cite here. They were convicted of espionage in the most notorious trial in USA. Both, parents to small children, were sentenced to death. The children were later raised as orphans. Very tragic. Very sad BUT who is to be blamed here? If Murugan had a role to play he should be prosecuted. The death penalty should be carefully weighed depending on the crucial question of whether he was central to the conspiracy or an unwitting accomplice. On that score he should be spared and sentenced to life imprisonment. This is my second breaking point with the agitators.

Amongst the scores of protesters these sentences are now portrayed as some act by North Indians against innocent Tamils. That the rest of India is nonchalant about Sep 9th angers many a Tamil chauvinist. I remember how Ram Jethmalani used to scream about Kehar Singh's innocence in Indian Express. I don't remember any Tamil leader or activist writing anything against death penalty then. In a country like India there are very few issues that assume a pan-Indian quality and evoke a nationwide response. Also let me note here that when Mumbai was ripped by bomb blasts in 1993 Tamil Nadu was tranquil as if Mumbai was on a different planet.

Another relevant but very irritating point is the kind of people who now pontificate about how death penalty is state sanctioned murder and how that is pure vengeance, not justice. A good majority of these newly minted anti-death-penalty protesters are unabashed, unapologetic worshippers of Prabakaran. Even now they refuse to acknowledge the reign of terror unleashed by Prabakaran against his opponents, Tamils and Sinhalese alike. Rajiv Gandhi, Premadasa, Amirthalingam, Alfred Duraiappa, Sabarathinam, Mathiah and an endless list of people were killed in cold blood. In a final shameful act of megalomania he held his own Tamil brethren as human shields and mercilessly ordered his cadre to mow down the fleeing people in the final days of 2009 war. Yet we never heard a squeak of protest from any of these peaceniks.

The arguments furthered by anti-death-penalty protesters are specious at best and at worst downright silly. One could always trust the redoubtable Subavee (an ex-TADA detainee) to provide some entertaining fodder. I always check viduthalai.com (DK media) for news like this. Subavee in his smooth voice with a befriending smile offers an analogy. Subavee reasons that Indian law does not cut off the hand of an assailant just because the assailant had cut off the hand of a victim. Put simply law does not promote 'eye for an eye'. He reasons, therefore death penalty is barbarous since its vengeance seeking. The logic holds good on surface.

In USA, unlike India, the kin of victims can request to witness an execution of the convict. When Timothy McVeigh was executed the kin of a victim observed "I had to see it to convince myself that this monster is dead". Yes, there is a primal, sort of tribal even, instinct in this. Of course there is an element of vengeance. But its a much needed catharsis for the victims. However what Subavee fails to note is that as much as retribution in like is not practiced for other crimes death sentence also is NOT offered to every murderer. Death sentence is not given just because a life is lost. It is reserved for the most heinous acts.

When Godse had to be sentenced the question of the appropriateness of death sentence in a country that pays fealty to Gandhi was discussed intensely. Would Gandhi have pardoned Godse? It makes for good parlor discussion, like would Christ pardon Judas? This is the world we live in. There are monsters in this world. Recently the death penalty invited attention during the Afzal Guru case. Yet another case where the evidence is either circumstantial or practically foisted. Afzal Guru is sentenced to death in the Dec 2001attack on Indian parliament. Afzal Guru, being Muslim, attracted to his defense every self appointed custodian of Muslim interests in India, starting with, who else, Arundhathi Roy and our own Subavee. Subavee, for once is honest, in this video when he narrates how a Muslim organization that invited him to speak on behalf Afzal Guru later backtracked when Subavee asked them to join in abolishing death penalty altogether. Subavee, with a smile, says that the reason was simple, Middle east Islamic states practice death penalty very crudely.

The only valid argument against death penalty is that if a mistake happens its irrevocable. That said I don't consider the Indian form of 'life sentence', 9 years+, as sufficient punishment. The case of Megan Kanka in New Jersey is pertinent here. Megan, a 7 year old child, was molested and killed by her neighbor Jesse Timmendequas. Jesse was sentenced to die. While Jesse waited on death row New Jersey abolished death sentence. Jesse's sentence was commuted to life without parole. Jesse will never see the outside world.

A certain hypocrisy runs through this clamor for releasing the trio. I've not read or heard any Tamil columnist or opinion maker, including the current crop of bloggers, voice anything about death penalty so far. Today when a fellow traveler is indicted everyone is jumping up to action.

Most of these protesters, not coincidentally, were against Anna Hazare's protests and called Anna a blackmailer for compelling the parliament to enact his bill. Anna was advised to stick to constitutional methods. Today these protests are the result of people disliking what constitutional process has produced. The protests, rail roko etc, are patently unconstitutional and are nakedly blackmailing the government.

Calling a 19 year old girl's self-immolation as "courage" is shameful. Senkodi's act is a gross injustice to her parents. Tamil Nadu, thanks to Dravidian politics, has encouraged such stupidities. Leaders regularly commend such acts, reward the families. When would people learn that such acts get nothing. No leader or leader's kith and kin commit self immolation. Vaiko swore on the ashes of his cadre who committed self immolation that he would never align with DMK. Anbazhgan and MK extolled those who committed self immolation during anti-Hindi agitation. Needless to say what their children learnt.

In their zeal to release the trio most are rushing hither and thither like a blinded cyclops. The real issue is the rotten state of courts in India. That it took 11 years to adjudicate a mercy petition is grossly inhuman. That statements procured by torture and lapsed laws (TADA) were admitted in a court of law says much about Indian jurisprudence. Kehar Singh, Afzal Guru, Perarivalan are sad reminders of how justice is dispensed. I'd rather have the courts open a re-trial, conduct it expeditiously and transparently and free them without an iota of doubt. That's more honor to the wrongly convicted. These protests should be more for justice to be done not asking for mercy.

Let justice prevail.

Anna Vs Arundhathi, Veeramani and Intelligentsia

2011-08-24T00:05:00.000-04:00

Arundhati Roy, A JNU Prof, Veeramani and a host of others have unleashed a barrage of criticism, a virtual vitriolic out pour against a hapless septuagenarian who is tormenting his frail body and faces possible death. It is not very surprising to see intellectuals arrayed against this upsurge by the hoi-polloi. Anna has been accused of every imaginable political skulduggery and his motives are not only questioned but also maligned. The media frenzy is derided as corporate media that is cashing in on a craze. We suddenly find lovers of constitution rushing to the fore to protect a constitution that has been amended willy nilly for 100+ times in 64 years. We are lectured on how Jan Lokpal will undermine the constitutional liberties and create an unbridled agency.

Arundhati Roy who was fascinated by gun toting Maoists is horrified at a fasting Anna. That Maoists blew up schools, murdered policemen gruesomely, raped fellow comrades, smuggled arms and function as stooges of China does not bother her. Yet she is deeply worried about Anna's backers. Her article "I'd rather not be Anna" is a litany of hypocrisies save for one paragraph were she worries about a street vendor. She freely indulges in guilt by association and much of the guilt she assigns is also due to her animosity towards her ideological opposites. That Arvind Kejriwal's organization received a grant from Ford Foundation is suspect in her eyes. By being associated with Kejriwal Anna too is tarnished on that account. The Ford Foundation, like numerous other US based foundations, does admirable philanthropy. That Kejriwal an IIT grad did not board a flight to US like his classmates and instead chose public service is a fact that does not even merit mention. A good rebuttal to Arundhati is at http://clearvisor.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/why-i’d-rather-be-anna-than-arundhati/ As that blogger points out Arundhati's complaints like Anna being a 'new saint' etc are churlish. That Anna has not voiced an opinion on every issue under the sun irks Arundhati.

A JNU professor wrote the most shameful article on this. Titled "Ambedkar's way and Anna Hazare's methods" the column slanders that Lokpal is anti-Dalit. Prof Thorat says Dalits worry that Lokpal provisions would make Dalit employees vulnerable to complaints out of caste prejudice. He cites how many cases filed by Dalits under the "Prevention of atrocities act" is languishing. Thorat ignores the fact that the snail like judiciary is a separate problem. That such complaints are not investigated expeditiously is a part of a larger judiciary problem.

Professor Thorat waxes eloquently about how Ambedkar wanted Indians to adopt strictly constitutional methods to bring about social changes. Nothing gets my goat quite like that argument. Reservation quota was initially stipulated for only 10 years, with no end in sight its been extended for 64 years (note that reservation has been in vogue in some form or other in TN since 1920's thats 90 years of quota). The constitution stipulates that the total quota should not exceed 50%. TN has 69% set aside in quota. This is where Veeramani, a neo-Nazi steps in.

Veeramani and his DK underlings organized meetings to prove how A.Raja is honest. Then during the first Anna Hazare fast Veeramani and his race baiting DK organized meetings vilifying Hazare. Raja is innocent. Hazare is a crook. Crucify Jesus. Release Barabbas. Veeramani started floating theories of, well what else but, Brahminical conspiracy. If Veeramani does not have bowel movements he will blame it on Cho Ramasamy. Veeramani is worried about how Hazare is blackmailing the government by fasting. What always confounds me is Veeramani's absolute lack of a sense of irony. Having pilloried Hazare for blackmailing the government by mobilizing people, Veeramani, without batting an eyelid, today, calls for a war against Kapil Sibal for wanting to introduce entrance exams. He issues a clarion call for a war and he wants to wage 'war' to such an extent that no Forward Community member is ever again appointed as education minister:

ஒடுக்கப்பட்ட மக்களின் கழுத்தை அறுக்கும் இந்தத் திட்டத்தை கருவிலேயே முறியடிக்கும் முயற்சியில் நாடாளுமன்றத்தில் உள்ள தாழ்த்தப்பட்ட, பிற்படுத்தப்பட்ட மற்றும் சிறுபான்மை சமூகத்தைச் சேர்ந்த உறுப்பினர்கள், பூகம்பப் புயலாக எழுந்து நின்று முறியடிக்க வேண்டும். குறிப்பாக கல்வி அமைச்சர் பதவி என்பது உயர் ஜாதியினரிடமே இருக்கவே கூடாது என்கிற அளவுக்கும் பிரச்சினையை முழு வீச்சில் முடுக்கி விட வேண்டும்.

Whether its Ramadoss or the Gujjar's when violent agitations were launched to get quotas nobody winced or wondered about governments being blackmailed. Ramadoss's stooges justified the whole sale felling of trees and mayhem that he unleashed to get quotas.

Prof Thorat says Ambedkar is wary of Indians succumbing to hero worship due to our cultural roots. Thorat wonders how else would a yoga teacher get so many followers. Here Thorat, like most intellectuals, tends to look down upon the religious minded. Thorat ignores the fact that Indians hero-worship not only out of religious reasons. Rajnikant is hero worshipped in TN. Veeramani , who also has been presenting Anna's crusade as anti-Dalit, is practically living off of a cult worship of E.V.R. EVR encouraged his followers to erect his statues while he was alive. EVR reveled in inaugurating his statues. Of course lets ignore the fact that they call themselves 'Rationalists". Jayakanthan once acidly remarked, "DK people are not atheists, their god is EVR". To complete the irony today Ambedkar himself is the most sacrosanct idol.

Today the constitution gets so many well intentioned protectors. Where we these people when a destitute Muslim woman, Shah BanoRajiv Gandhi with his 450+ brute majority in Lok Sabha amended the constitution to override the Supreme Court ruling. Arundhati Roy and Gnani breathlessly ask "what about Irom Sharmila who is fasting for years together and is being force fed". Anna touched a problem to which every Indian could relate. Irom Sharmila took a problem that is purely localized. Naturally the outpouring of support is different.

The middle class hypocrisy is another accusation. People wonder why has the middle class suddenly woken up. A New York Times article, by an Indian origin author, berates the middle class that it is not entirely impeccable on questions of integrity. In a country like India it is almost impossible to be honest every dealing. Yes the middle class indulges in bribery of RTO's to get drivers licenses, bribes a policeman, bribes a government employee (who in turn is middle class himself) etc etc. The middle class that has chafed under this system and is now crying ENOUGH. Political corruption engenders bureaucratic corruption.

Doctors in government hospital in Sankaran kovil were directed to collect money for a function organized in honor of Stalin. Where would the doctor get the money. of course from patients. When I narrated this to a Veeramani worshipper, here in USA, the answer was a glib "they could have written a letter to CM's cell and it would have been stopped". I was left speechless at the fanatical ideological blinders of this guy. While the incident in Sankarankovil illustrates how political corruption is the fountain head the reaction by this party man also shows how dangerously corrupted India is. When A.Raja landed in Madras after his resignation Veeramani organized what he called a "rousing reception". A.Raja is innocent until proven guilty but to celebrate the arrival of a ex-minister who had to resign on prima-facie charges of corruption shows how venal the society's leaders are.

Without Lok Ayuktha would Yeddyurappa have resigned? As I wrote earlier the constitution actually protects the ruling class from the reach of the hands of law. As the Bard said in Hamlet, "plate sin with gold and the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks". Some ask would not existing laws suffice. Existing laws are not just insufficient they shielded Jaya , they shielded Raja for more than 2 years. That CBI could not even properly investigate him until the Prime Minister granted permission is ridiculous. We are told that Lok Pal is not a cure all panacea. Of course not. Independence of investigating agencies etc are talked about. Nobody can disagree with that. The day the CBI can investigate the Home Minister if needed is when they would have attained complete independence. Somewhere a beginning is to be made. Anna has lit the fire for that.

Nandan Nilekani's interview to CNN-IBN got wide notice for his quote that Anna's movement will not solve everything and very justifiably draws attention to the fact that systems need to be changed. Nilekani correctly identifies that many of the red tape systems we have provides a fertile ground for corruption. His remark on Anna received wide publicity but what most tended to gloss over was Nandan's even more astute observation that corruption of the astronomical scale is incorrectly attributed to privatization and the economic reforms. Nilekani put his finger on the problem saying that the recent scams were all in areas where thhe government had a role to play as buyer or seller. Economic liberalization in many areas has unleashed productivity and lifted hundreds of thousands out of poverty.

That brings me to the final question, will this Lokpal solve corruption completely. Not even the illiterate think it so. Badri Seshadri (founder of cricinfo) a prominent publisher and blogger narrated an exchange his friend had with two government employees from UP. One employees parents had died in an accident and he was able to get their bodies only after bribing officials. He stated beautifully:

“அண்ணா ஹஸாரே, ஜன் லோக்பால் என்கிறாரே, இதெல்லாம் உங்களுக்குப் புரிகிறதா?”
“இல்லை. அதெல்லாம் எங்களுக்கு அவ்வளவாகப் புரியாது.”
“அப்படியென்றால் எதற்காக உண்ணாவிரதத்தில் கலந்துகொள்ள வந்திருக்கிறீர்கள்?”
“உங்களுக்குத் தெரியாது... என் தாயும் தந்தையும் விபத்தில் இறந்து அந்த உடல்களை வாங்க நான் எவ்வளவு லஞ்சம் கொடுக்கவேண்டிவந்தது, எவ்வளவு கஷ்டப்படவேண்டியிருந்தது என்று. நீங்கள் எல்லாம் பையில் காசைப் போட்டு வேலைக்காரனிடம் கொடுத்தனுப்பி உங்கள் வேலைகளைச் செய்துகொள்பவர்கள். உங்களுக்குத் தெரியாது நாங்கள் தினம் தினம் படும் கஷ்டம். அண்ணா ஹஸாரே எங்களுக்காகப் போராடுகிறார். அதனால் லஞ்சம் தீர்ந்துவிடுமா என்றால் தெரியாது. ஆனால் ஒருவேளை தீர்ந்துவிட்டால்? அதனால்தான் வந்திருக்கிறோம். எத்தனை நாள் ஆனாலும் பரவாயில்லை. எனக்குச் சம்பளமே கிடைக்காவிட்டாலும் பரவாயில்லை. அவருடன் இருப்போம். மேலும் இன்னொரு விஷயம். அவர் நல்லவர்.”

That is all people expect from this. If there are issues with what Anna proposes lets talk about it. If Anna becomes delusional with all this publicity lets discard him then. All that he has accomplished is to rouse a nation. Even if one were to be overwhelmed by the frenzy so what. This is not frenzy over a multi-million dollar Super Star movie. This is not frenzy over a megalomaniac chief minister organizing a language conference for self glorification. This frenzy is towards something that all can agree upon. The country is vibrant enough to channelize this. What angers me most is that people are ridiculing a person who has put his life on the line for a laudable initiative. He sure has warts, who does not. But he rises above that and what is most important for once a leader has called upon Indians to stand up for something good. God bless that frail soul.

Road to 9/11: Fundamentalism Run Amuck

2011-08-23T00:18:00.000-04:00

In the days after 9/11 it was fashionable to say "we condemn the atrocity but..." and then lecture down to America that America practically invited the attack. The reasons offered were projections of each persons own animosity towards America. Ranging from Sujatha Ranagarajan writing for a South Indian vernacular magazine to Noam Chomsky, considered the greatest genius in Cognitive psychology, the advices were variations of a meme: America's super power attitude, propping up dictatorial regimes, middle east policy, military adventurism etc. That the 19 suicide attackers left no note made it convenient for each person to trot out his or her own theory as to why they did it. Recently I finished reading Lawrence Wright's Pulitzer winning "The Looming Tower:Al Qaeda and The Road To 9/11". Around the same time Osama's killing happened and Washington Post published an article titled "Five Myths about Osama Bin Laden". The first myth was that Osama was trained by CIA.

A columnist for Frontline, a fortnightly from Chennai, helpfully wrote about the possible motivations of the hijackers, "Betrayal of the Palestinians, the destruction of Iraq! One can reasonably assume that these two great devastations of the Arabo-Muslim world were vivid in the memory of those 19 hijackers on September 11 this year". (Note the Iraq war the author refers here is the 1991 Gulf War that was fully supported by UN, Gulf States etc). Palestine. Iraq. Support of US to middle east potentates were all the most repeated reasons.

Lawrence Wright, based on extensive interviews and deep research, unravels the puzzle of who the actors and what were their 'possible' motivations. As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches I thought I shall write a few blogs on this topic and allied issues not just as a book review but as a history that not many are aware of and would lack the patience to accumulate by reading a 600 page book (its a page turner).

The suppression of free speech, the military state etc are offered as reasons that fueled terrorism since legitimate expression of dissent was prohibited. The support offered by US to such middle east oligarchies notably the Saudi Royal family is cited as cause. Bollocks.

Anger at suppression of democracy or democratic processes was the least of concerns for the hijackers or Al Qaeda. In fact Bin Laden, Zawahiri, Azzam all pay fealty to fundamentalist Wahhabi sect that was founded by US educated Sayyid Qutb. Sayyid Qutb quit USA only because he was disgusted that USA was un-Islamic. Most left wing people who espouse social justice, affirmative action etc decried what they called US hegemony and used 9/11 to pillory US. What is worse is that they did not realize that Al Qaeda'a intellectual godfather Sayyid Qutb,Wright notes, hated egalitarianism. Qutb used to quote the Koran, "we have created you class upon class".

Sayyid Qutb rebelled against Nasser, not for more democracy, but because he said Nasser's Egypt was not Islamic enough and required to be overthrown. Sayyid was arrested, tortured and finally hanged.

Anwar Sadat is supposed to have told Golda Meir, "if you make peace with me you will go back to Israel a hero. If I make peace with you when I go back to Egypt I will be assassinated". Sadat's wife had made it easier for women to get divorce. Sadat, after the Yom Kippur War, made historical peace with Israel. His prophecy came true tragically. Sadat was assassinated. How was his killing justified? How did they justify killing a fellow Muslim? Sayyid Qutb's ideology of 'takfir' helped. By declaring that a muslim has become un-islamic by his/her acts, a takfir, the respective person is removed from being protected as a fellow muslim. Wright acidly notes, "the pious Anwar Sadat was the first pro-medern victim of the reverse logic of takfir".

Democracy was repugnant to the followers of Qutb. "Democracy was un-islamic. Therefore anyone who voted was an apostate and forfeited his life". Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian Nobel laureate, was declared an 'infidel' and suffered a near fatal knife attack.

Often the apologists for terrorism speak fondly of how youth get attracted to terrorism due to lack of education and opportunities in life. Wright quotes a study of political prisoners in 1970's Egypt, "majority were sons of middle-level government officials, educated in science and engineering,...,They were not the alienated, marginalized youth that a sociologist might expect. While tomes are written excoriating the CIA coup in Iran to install the Shah as examples of US hegemony and US support of totalitarian regimes little have we heard on how Islamists engineered a coup in Sudan to install a Islamic regime. It is Sudan that was home later to Bin Laden before he ventured to Afghanistan.

In the murky world of middle east the attempt on Mubarak was another watershed event. Egyptian police abused a thirteen year old boy and blackmailed him into infiltrating Zawahiri's organization that was suspected of a hand in the attempt on Mubarak. The boy and another friend were used by Egyptian agencies to kill Zaawahiri and his associates in Sudan during a meeting. Sudanese intelligence discovered the plot and the boys were abandoned by the Egyptians. Many members of Al Qaeda objected to putting the boys on trial. Zawahiri, to prove that the boys had attained manhood, stripped them and then shot them. The boys confession and shooting was videotaped. The outrage infuriated the Sudanese government which chased Zawahiri out.

Bin Laden's own journey was an odyssey that culminated in 9/11. Incidentally, Wright says, Bin Laden hated Yasser Arafat. In Bin Laden's opinion Arafat was a secular and not islamic enough.

The presence of American troops in Saudi after the 1991 Persian Gulf War is cited consistently by Bin Laden as something that offended him. It did not matter that American army was stationed in Suadi at the behest of the government which feared Saddam more. Bin Laden loathed the fact that the gulf states took US help to stop Saddam Hussein. Incidentally Bin Laden hated Saddam (Iraq was more westernized than any other gulf state). Bin Laden tried convincing the Saudi king that he would stop Saddam with his mujahideens from Afghanistan. By the way nowhere in the book Wright establishes any link between CIA and Bin Laden (a fact confirmed by Peter Bergen, the only US journalist who interviewed Bin Laden).

What not many lay readers know is that Americans troops stationed in Saudi, not anywhere near Mecca, is nothing compared to how French troops entered Mecca itself at the behest of Saudi king. In 1979, yet another Islamist group, took Mecca by siege during Haj period. It shook the Islamic world. Saudi King after vacillating and unable to clear the holiest shrine invited French troops who then entered Mecca where no non-Muslim could ever go. (Saudi Arabia denies this happened). For something that the US had nothing to do with Khomeini blamed US and for good measure blamed Israel too. Needless to say Anti-American demonstrations including burning down of an embassy ensued. It was the Bin Laden family that provided vital clues to the French on the building details.

An event that crystallized Al Qaeda as a terrorist organization was, according to Wright, the botched bombing in Amen on Dec 29th 1992. The bombing was supposed to kill American soldiers going to Somalia as part of an international relief effort to that impoverished country. The bomb went off but killed no American. A Yemeni and and and Australian had died. Bin Laden's deputy and mentor, Abu Hajer, justified it based on a fatwa by Ibn Tamiyyah. In a chilling rationale that defied any sane logic killing of innocents was justified. Wright, ends the chapter with a ominous note, "Al Qaeda would concentrate not on fighting armies but on killing civilians".

The last chapter, titled, "Revelations" rounds it all of. On 9/12, the day after the carnage, Soufan a Muslim FBI agent went to interrogate Abu Jandal who was apprehended for the Nairobi Embassy bombing. Abu Jandal, Wright says, 'was confounded by Soufan and what he represented: A Muslim who could argue religion with him, who was in the FBI, who loved America'. Sofan asked about the innocent women and children who died in that bombing. In particular Soufan asks about a woman on a bus 'who was clutching her baby, trying to protect him from the flames. Both had been incinerated'. Jandals reply was "God will give them rewards in the Hereafter". About them being innocent he reasoned cruelly, that the bombings took place on a Friday when Muslims were supposed to have been in mosques. If she was not in a mosque what was she doing on a bus. She was not a Muslim then but a 'takfir' and deserved to die.

Time and again the recurrent theme in the biography of each actor is a fiendish fundamentalism that cloaked itself in causes that were never consistent or helpful to the people they were supposed to help. Palestine, American imperialism etc were all fig leaf causes only to hide their desire of establishing a Caliphate. Re-establishing an Ottoman style Caliphate was their desire. In a post cold-war world the only remaining obstacle was USA.

No wonder Lawrence Wright got a Pulitzer for a landmark book. Wright patiently pieces together the jigsaw puzzle and leads us through the twisted world of terrorism. I shall continue with a couple more blogs. The 9/11 hijackers chose to meet in Hamburg for a reason. After 9/11 US citizenry was aghast at how agencies did not share information. The reasons for that and more await a little.

Anna Hazare and Ambedkar's constitution

2011-08-17T00:40:00.000-04:00

As I was mulling over the Hazare drama that unfolded over a day I picked up Donald Kagan's "Pericles of Athens and the birth of democracy". Kagan, Yale history professor, is the foremost authority on the Peloponnessian war and Athenian history. Kagan states democracies "need to meet three conditions if they are to flourish. The first is to have a set of good institutions; the second is to have a body of citizens who possess a good understanding of the principles of democracy;the third is to have a high quality of leadership, at least at critical moments". India suffers from a serious deficiency of the first and the third conditions leading to an erosion of the second.

I remember vividly the attempts by Subramanian Swamy to prosecute Jayalalitha based on prima facie evidence. His stumbling block was the Indian constitution that made it necessary for a litigant to get the 'permission' of the Governor to prosecute a Chief Minister. India's constitution framers retained the feudal mindset of protecting the ruling elites despite overthrowing feudal colonialism. While the framers of US constitution agonized over separation of powers and checks and balances the framers of Indian constitution gladly concentrated power in the hands of very few with no checks. Paula Jones, a literal nobody, sued the US President who is often referred to as the most powerful man on earth. Bill Clinton had to testify before a grand jury. He was reprimanded too for his perjury. Let's not nitpick his impeachment and find faults with the US system. What is to be gleaned here is that a common woman could sue and bring to court the President. There is no constitutional bar. If Americans, even in 1776, were told that a President is beyond the reach of the law until he demits office in order to maintain decorum, they would reject it outright as laughable.

The Karnataka spectacle was shameful. That a corrupt chief minister had to be cajoled into leaving office is despicable. What is even worse is that he could dictate the choice of his successor. Corruption and politics are inseparable in any corner of the world. US politicians have paid a high price for corruption. Governors and Congressmen have been charged and sent to jail.

The Lok Pal exemption of the Prime Minister is ridiculous. The excuses given for the protection are childish. It is said that the office of PM is dignified and hence should not be subject to litigation. The dignity of an office is in the transparency not in how the office holder is shielded. As always, national interest, is another excuse trotted out. We are told that foreign powers would instigate law suits and destabilize the country. Silly. It shows a complete lack of faith in the judiciary and law enforcement agencies. The ever present excuse is that PM should be protected from frivolous law suits. Yet again it shows a complete lack of faith in the judiciary.

Every August 15th a handful of Tamil bloggers with DK/DMK allegiance would decry India's independence and the Union itself. A throwback to the Dravidanadu days of C.N.Annathurai. Their chief grouse is the many shortcomings of the Indian state. Kashmir, step motherly treatment of North East, Tamil Nadu's perennial riparian problems with neighboring states etc. Nobody has paused to reflect on the simple fact that their beloved idol Ambedkar is the architect of a shoddy constitution from which all these flaws emanate from. Ambedkar learned law in Columbia University under the aegis of none other than John Dewey.

That Indira Gandhi could dismiss governments at will, that corrupt ministers cannot be prosecuted by an independent authority, that government servants can never be fired for any misdeed, that authority is centralized with no respect for federalism etc etc are all features of the constitution is lost on many. It took just 3 days for Indian parliament to ratify the constitution. That Indira Gandhi could paralyze democracy by declaring Emergency signed off by a pusillanimous parliament and a weasel of a President is a shameful feature.The ratification of US constitution itself is worth volumes of Pulitzer prize winning books. The furious debate, the Federalist Papers, the anti-Federalist papers are all stories worth reading and learning from. Sadly, even a US educated lawyer failed to give his countrymen a good constitution. Every so called safe guard in the Indian constitution has caused more havoc than serving the intended good purpose.

The founding fathers of US agonized endlessly over writing laws in such a manner as to avoid a monarchy. They deeply distrusted human nature to do good. The very Bill of Rights was written only because they felt that rights were not sufficiently guarded in the original constitution.

How many of us have reflected on the fact that Indian Penal Code is very draconian and gives very wide powers to the police? Pre-emptive arrests alone exceeded 1000+ yesterday. That a government can arrest people preemptively before they start a peaceful protest is an anachronism in civilized world. When the Patriot Act was passed in USA, addressing serious loopholes in national security, it was debated hotly to protect individual rights. It is still not set in stone. The act needs to be renewed by the Congress. Rajiv Gandhi passed TADA without a murmur of protest. NSA, MISA, TADA, POTA all were done within the framework of the Indian constitution. Remember it was the Supreme Court that sanctioned suspending habeas corpus during Emergency. Habeas Corpus is considered the corner stone modern law. Even today a producer of a stage play has to submit his/her script to the local police station in order to secure permission to stage the play. A remnant from the British Raj days when dramas were considered seditious.

Ambedkar. US framers were particular in designing a system of polity that was very unlike the British. Whereas Indian framers were content to mostly do a copy and paste of various constitutions finally rendering a mish-mash. Until a recent high court ruling the common man in India could not fly his national flag whereas every minister and government functionary could. In Ambedkar's constitution retains the spirit of the colonial midst that thee rulers are to be judged by a different law if at all they are to be judged.The Indian constitution fully qualifies for the cliche that what is good is not original and what is original is not good.

In fact I wonder what if any is Ambedkar's original thinking other than the quota system. Even that was not designed well. It was originally envisaged only for 10 years. Its in vogue for 64 years. The constitution stipulated that quota should not exceed 50%. Tamil Nadu has a draconian 69% and is tucked sneakily into the 9th Schedule.

Ahhh the 9th schedule. ONLY the Indian constitution has got a section of the laws walled off from judicial review. 9th Schdule is non-justiciable. The 9th schedule was created to prevent judicial review of the Urban land ceiling act. Protecting ULCA from judicial review was necessary in order to prevent courts from overturning laws that were promulgated to redress the Zamindari system. Today that spirit of 9th schedule is violated and the 9th schedule is used as a catch all bucket for any legislation that Parliament does not want the courts to review. The inclusion of TN's oppressive quota regime is pending before a constitution bench for over a decade.

Most of the ills that plague Indian politics can thus be traced to an effete constitution written by unimaginative people who were only fit to be clerks. Everything highlighted above has contributed to corrupting every facet of the society. Indira's dismissal of Farooq Abdullah fomented Kashmir's problems. Quotas have generated the most shameful vote bank politics. Stifled freedom of opinion has often suffocated ideas and engendered mediocrity.

A tamil blogger today tweeted "A taste of Indian democracy for the middle class, arrest of Anna Hazare". What eventually happened was UPA getting a taste of democracy. The upsurge in spontaneous protests brought the gargantuan Indian state to its knees to release Hazare. This is democracy at its best moment. It is extremely shameful that Harvard educated Chidambaram, Harvard law school alumnus Kapil Sibal and Oxford educated Manmohan Singh have perpetrated this despicable arrest.

At the end of the day whether its Columbia educated Ambedkar or these Harvard and Oxford alumni they all remained just Indians at soul and never learned anything from their US education. I don't know if its a failure of education or of the pupils. That they had lived in societies far more free has done nothing to their spirits to give their fellow countrymen good governance or the framework for it.

Theory of Relativity, The Nazis and Soviet Russia.

2011-08-09T22:28:00.000-04:00

A scientist, especially Nobel Laureates and heads of premier research institutions, is held in awe by the common man. A man of science is thought of as rational, one who rises 'above' common passions and prejudices. However a cursory reading of the lives of scientists would dispel that myth. At the end scientists, too, are just human beings.

I am now reading "The Born-Einstein Letters:1916 - 1955" edited by Max Born. This is a collection of correspondences between physicist Max Born, his wife Hedi and Albert Einstein. Its a charming book that does not tax the reader but nevertheless leaves one enriched. I love to read anything about Einstein and hence I am not a stranger to the many controversies of the period that the letters portray but the personal narrative brings such distant happening to an immediacy.

Anti-semitism, hating Jews, is often thought of as unique to Germany, thanks to Holocaust. Even more simplistically many think that Jews were persecuted by just Hitler and his bigoted ideology that the Germans took a fancy for under turbulent times. Anti-semitism has deep roots in Europe (and USA too!!!!). When Einstein, an unknown worker in an office for issuing patents, shook the scientific world in 1905 with his paper "Special Theory of relativity" he burst into the international scene. Finally when he published, in 1915, "the general theory of relativity", he practically redefined the world for eternity. Problem was he was a Jew.

As early as 1920 Philip Lenard, Nobel Prize winner in 1905 for his research on cathode rays, spearheaded several German scientists in a blistering nakedly anti-Semitic attack on Einstein. Lenard was a member of the Nazi party and chairman of "Aryan Physics". Lenard and many other's attacked TOR (Theory of Relativity) as a "Jewish Conspiracy". Irving Wallace, researching for his book ' The Prize' about Nobel's, discovered that Lenard was instrumental in making the Nobel committee to award the prize to Einstein not for relativity but for his lesser known papers on Photoelectric effect and Brownian motion. The prize was inevitable after Eddington in a spectacular experiment had proved the curvature of space as predicted by the General TOR.

TOR fared even worse in Soviet Russia. In a letter dated 12th August 1929, Born writes to Einstein seeking help for a Russian physicist, Rumer. Born writes "Rumor, left Russia because relativists are treated badly there (truly!). The Theory of relativity is thought to contradict the official materialist philosophy and, as I've already been told by Joffe, its adherents are persecuted". TOR was thought to contradict the central tenet of determinism of dialectical materialism that ruled the roost in Soviet communist era. Born adds a detailed note to the letter. Rumor had been deported for espousing TOR to some Gulag near the Arctic ocean. "After the death of Stalin he received a telegram" freeing him and recalling him back to Moscow. Rumer was appointed head of an institute and became a loyal communist. Born says Rumer later wrote to him extolling the virtues of communism and how "Soviet system is superior to Western institutions, not only politically and economically, BUT ALSO MORALLY".

Incidentally Soviet Russia also disliked genetics and frowned on Gregor Mendel for the same reasons as they objected to TOR. Science was an ideological football in Russia. School students learned only the Mendeleev periodic table (based on atomic weight) and not the modern periodic table (based on atomic number). I remember my school chemistry textbook detailing key difference between Mendeleev's and Modern periodic tables and how the latter addresses certain defects of Mendeleev's table.

Scientists are often the worst offenders of the tenets of science. However throughout history eventually science, and truth, often triumph in the end.

Narendra Modi: Redeeming himself and Gujarat.

2011-08-08T23:12:00.000-04:00

I never thought I'd come to write a blog like this one. But that's the charm of life. A recent spate of articles and, in my opinion, a key development made me re-evaluate Narendra Modi and come round to accepting him.

Economist magazine recently heaped praise on Modi as the force behind making Gujarat India's Guangdong, China's prosperous outpost. The article starts with a bang, "So many things work properly in Gujarat that it hardly feels like India". Gujarat outstrips the national GDP.Economist points out that with just 5% of the country's population Gujarat accounts for 22% of India's exports and 16% of India's industrial output.The article attests to an 'effective bureaucracy'. An industrialist vouches that he could set up a factory without paying bribes. A distinct wonder in corruption ridden India. In an article in Feb Economist again drew attention to Modi, "Gujarat and its controversial leader". The state, Economist points out, has surplus electricity which it sells to other states.

A February 8th 2011 report in New York Times, "Narendra Modi, a Divisive Indian Official Loved by Business" states, "compared with most other states, Gujarat has smoother roads and less garbage next to streets. More than 99% of Gujarat's village have electricity compared to 85% nationally". NYT too specifies how Modi brought down corruption by making many services online and works like a chief executive. NYT cites businessmen, "he gives promising people positions of responsibility...non-performers are pushed aside". This Feb 8th 2011 article also ominously said "in another state considered pro-business, Tamil Nadu in the south, the ruling party, D.M.K., has been dogged by accusations of corruption". A US based trade group member sums it up "If you are an investors in India, Gujarat must be at the top of your list". Just ask Ratan Tata who was chased out of west Bengal by that shrew of a politician Mamata.

A key moment of re-evaluating Modi came when he invited Narayana Murthy to head an 'incubation' center for future entrepreneurs. In neighboring Tamil Nadu Murthy would be tarnished as a "Kanadiga Brahmin", a double negative. To see an Indian politician talk to a top business man about ideas and invite him to lead an institute to create entrepreneurs to "create wealth" is a refreshing sight amidst pygmies who ride to power on freebies and indulge in mindless blather of distributing wealth with no idea of how to create it in the first place.

What finally compelled me to write was a feature in Rediff, borrowed from Business Standard, titled "Modi: Iron man to ladies' man with focus on growth" . Modi has launched a program 'Mission Mangalam', that will be a database, a giant employment exchange, of skilled and unskilled labor. Linking that mission with SHG (Self help group) he aims to tap into unused and unpaid labor of rural women. His health schemes are not palliative freebies for sloganeering but read like well thought out policy proposals. Gujarat's budget for women and child welfare, Business Standard says, has gone up from Rs 300 crores in 2007 to Rs1,281 crores in 2011.

BUT what is common to every article extolling progress in Gujarat is one criticism. Whether its economist or NYT or Business Standard or BusinessWeek every article draws attention to the Gujarat riots that makes Modi a lightning rod for criticism. US famously refused visa to Modi on grounds of religious intolerance, thanks in no small measure to some hectic lobbying by self declared secular Indians in USA. Modi still addressed the meeting, a Gujarathi cultural meeting, by video conferencing.

Getting over the Gujarat anti-Muslim riots is what sickens anybody's stomach. How do you bring yourself to vote for a man who sat in CM's office while 1000+ Muslims, including many women and children, were butchered? Including a sitting Member of the Parliament. How do we turn a blind eye to Ishrat Jahan's death? How do we vote looking beyond the fact that a guy, who bragged in a TV documentary that he slit open a pregnant Muslim woman's belly, is still at large?

I now venture into a territory that stinks. What I say would appear as rationalizing or excusing but I can vouch its not.

Lets take a step back into time. When Delhi burned after Indira's assassination Rajiv's reply was "the earth is bound to shake when a large tree falls". Top brass from Congress, roamed the city with murderous goons and systematically killed 3000 innocent Sikhs. 25 years later, with a Sikh Prime minister, not a single leader has been convicted in court. Indira Gandhi was warned not to conduct elections in Assam which was seething with anger and divisiveness. Indira plowed ahead and the result was unspeakable horror in Nellie. Indira and later Rajiv brought order Punjab by burying human rights. K.P.S.Gill notorious for encounter killings is celebrated as 'super cop'. Does anybody remember the case of "Jodhpur detainees".Karunanidhi was warned not to name bus corporations with Dalit names. He proceeded and Madurai burned for a week. Finally the entire practice was abolished. An entire village was ransacked and women raped when policemen went in search of forest brigand Veerappan. In Karnataka an entire village was kept under TADA and tortured for the same reason.

What use is all this vaunted administrative efficacy if it could not stop a bloodletting? However its patently unfair to judge Gujarat riots in isolation especially divorcing it from GodhraTehelka telecast an interview of boastful murderers lets note that there was no Tehelka to hold Congress ministers to account for so many riots that happened not just under their watch but also because of them. Excoriating Modi endlessly smacks a tad of hypocrisy.

Modi's detractors in Tamil Nadu are mostly DMK/DK supporters who suffer from selective amnesia. When I see a DMK supporter crying full throated in defense of secularism and probity in defending lives I puke. DMK shamelessly aligned with Indira many times including immediately after Emergency. Most ironically DMK was very shamelessly aligned with BJP just to spite Jaya and to foot Murasoli Maran's medical bills.

That Modi comes from humble backgrounds and is a provincial leader is his drawback. In the absence of any pan-Indian leader within BJP and in view of Manmohans's effete leadership that is bedeviled by scabs of corruption maybe it is Modi's time. Lets watch.

Obama: Bush's Worthy Successor

2011-07-20T22:21:00.000-04:00

One of Barack Obama's, and every democratic candidate's, tactic during his run for Presidency was to tarnish John McCain as "Bush's third term". That was despite the fact that in many ways McCain differed from Bush and almost derailed Bush's run in 2000. It was a successful tactic. A bestseller arguing against McCain had as its cover a photo of McCain hugging Bush. Obama's highfalutin rhetoric assailed Bush as the primary reason for US being hated by many countries (Pew Global research shows the percentage of haters remain the same even now). In his inaugural address Obama scolded Bush administration for the false choices between security and values. Bush, seated a feet away, looked at the heavens dreamily. Into the 3rd year of his Presidency its a sweet irony that Obama mirrors Bush in areas of defense and security. Its a winning combination. The republicans cannot blame him for acting like a republican and the liberals will hold their noses and still vote for him because they would prefer a 'covert' republican than an overt republican.

Just after securing his nomination Obama, then senator, voted in favor of FISA that included provisions for wiretap etc. Washington Post editorial exulted that Obama having secured the nomination is now moving to the center. Who cared if he won the nomination caricaturing Clinton as not steadfast in values. As President he renewed the patriot act with drama by signing the act with an electronic pen from Europe. Liberals huffed and puffed in private.

Obama angered his base when he re-nominated Robert Gates as secretary of defense and retained General Petraeus in Iraq. Petraeus was a lighting rod for liberals for the Iraq surge strategy. Robert Gates is highly respected for his professionalism and when he retired recently Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in USA. None of which went down well with left wing.

Closing down Guantanamo was a big campaign promise. The attempt to close down Guantanamo ran into choppy waters in his own party and ground realities concerning the prisoners (no nation would accept them and many were hardened terrorists) made Obama to put that away. Coupled to that was the huge fiasco of getting to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, architect of 9/11 in a New York City civilian court. Critical portions of KSM's confessions were the result of water boarding which may not be admissible in a US court. Asked if the administration is ready to deal with the possibility tat KSM may walk out of a NYC court free due to tainted evidence Attorney General Eric Holder asserted "KSM will be judged guilty". Holder's assertion stood in contrast with the cornerstone of modern law, "innocent until proven guilty". Finally the plan was shelved. But such a political embarrassment needed a scapegoat. Obama helpfully scapegoated his counsel Gregory Craig. Craig, though a friend of Clintons, was one of the earliest endorsers of Obama. Maureen Dowd, the redoubtable liberal, wrote a column about how Obama has a tendency to sacrifice friends for his politics. Incidentally Craig later ended up as counsel for, hold your breath, Goldman Sachs.

Liberals carped endlessly how secretive the Bush administration was. Obama now makes Bush look more open and a paragon of transparency. When requests for information based on Freedom of Information act were made Bush had a rejection rate of 9.1%. Obama's administration has denied 15.9%.

During the campaign Obama said he would not tone down the drone attacks in Pakistan and that he would go into Pakistan if he knew for certain that Osama was hiding there. Hillary ridiculed him for saber rattling.Unmanned drone attacks that take out terrorist targets are a huge irritation in Pakistan and source of anger against US for Pakistanis. Under Obama's watch the drone attacks have increased. There have been civilian deaths too. The killing of Osama, a questionably legal act (many legal scholars do say that US had a right to do it) was the ultimate Bush like act.

If Bush had his Iraq surge Obama has the Afghan surge. The decision to send 100,000 troops was a tough sell to liberals who wanted to cut and run from Afghanistan, the 'graveyard of empires'.

The sweetest irony was Obama questioning the need to submit to Congress approval the US entanglement in Libya. In the aftermath of Vietnam Congress enacted the "War powers act" to curb Presidents from plunging the country into a war without Congressional oversight. No presidential candidate has accepted that rule in its entirety or spirit. The act stated that in the event of a war taken to protect US strategic interest or in self defense the President has to seek approval from Congress if the engagement goes beyond 60 days. Obama, the master orator and artificer of words, did what is pejoratively referred to as "Clintonian parsing". Obama claimed that US involvement in Libya did not fit the description of "war" and hence he did not need Congressional approval. Dropping bombs, spending money approx $10 million a day, sending US navy and drones all of that does not mean US is at war according to Obama.

Obama and the democrats justifiably criticized Bush for his record number of 'signing statements'. 'Signing statements' are those where a President while a signing a bill into law takes exception to certain portions of the bill and says he will not enforce those parts as head of the executive. Bush used it willy nilly. Of course just as President Obama flip flopped on many that he promised as candidate he did so on this issue too. What is worse his signing statement was to object to protecting whistle blowers amongst Federal Employees. The reason he gave was classic Bush, 'to protect secrets'.

When it comes to spending Obama outdoes Bush in profligacy. The only advantage here is that that is typical of a tax-and-spend liberal so his base has no problems with it. Bush had to contend with the ire of conservatives who scolded him for his unfunded wars and spending.

Bush was ridiculed for his penchant to vacation. Michael Moore lampooned Bush's vacationing in his documentary, in reality it was more fiction, Fahrenheit 9/11. Obama's vacation make Bush look more studious. A worthy successor indeed.

Isaac Newton's Fan Club

2011-07-05T23:13:00.000-04:00

Couple of weeks back I was in Washington DC visiting the world famous 'Library of Congress'. The LoC owes its existence to Thomas Jefferson. That Jefferson was one of the founding father's of America is America's fortune. Intellects like Jefferson are in a league of their own. Browsing through the gift shop I leafed through a 'Modern Library' edition of Jefferson's writings. As luck would have it I chanced upon a letter (written in 1789) wherein Jefferson is asking his friend for portraits "three greatest men that have ever lived". The men are Francis Bacon, John Locke and Isaac Newton.

Will Durant's "Story of Philosophy" has a very interesting anecdote in Voltaire's life. Voltaire exiled from France was living in England. Durant writes "Bacon's name was still in the air, John Locke had written a masterpiece of psychological analysis and Newton had just died". Voltaire recounts an argument he witnessed. A group of men were arguing as to "who was the greatest man - Caesar, Alexander, Tamerlane or Cromwell. Some one answered that without doubt it was Isaac Newton. And rightly: for it is to him who masters our minds by the force of truth, and not to those who enslave them by violence, that we owe our reverence". Voltaire had attended Newton's funeral. Voltaire then proceeded to study Newton avidly and later worked to spread Newton's theories in France.

Studying Newton is no mean feat. Newton, like the intelligentsia of that period, wrote his magnum opus 'Principia Mathematica' in chaste Latin. The text was dense and abstruse by design to "avoid being baited by smatterers". Rebuffing those who wanted explanation for his theory on gravity Newton had responded "hypothesis non fingo" (I dont frame hypothesis).

Newton had many not so nice sides to him. He quarreled with Robert Hooke and most infamously tried to dupe Leibniz of his credit for formulating Calculus. Even Newton's famous quote, cited for humility, "If I've seen farther it is by standing on the shoulder of giants, is thought of as maligning Hooke. Hooke was short and a hunchback. Newton, the supposedly rational scientist, wasted many years dabbling in alchemy. But as Durant says of Voltaire, these faults were secondary and were not of his essence.

Its amazing that an American politician would idolize an English scientist (along with two English philosophers) 63 years later in a letter. As much as it speaks of the men themselves it also testifies to Jefferson's intellect to search for such high wisdom in an age when acquiring such knowledge exacted a premium from the seeker. Living in an age when knowledge and facts could be summoned at fingertips we lose the ability to appreciate such seekers. Confession, I googled several times to write this to get exact quotes.

William Wordsworth had celebrated Newton in his poem "Prelude" (written circa 1799, nearly 70 years after Newton's death):

The antechapel where the statue stood
Of Newton with his prism and silent face,
The marble index of a mind for ever
Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.

Newton was interred in Westminster Abbey where Kings and Queens were buried. The poet Alexander Pope wrote the verses for Newton's epitaph:

Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light

Seeing that letter by Jefferson reminded me of how Newton was feted by poets and philosophers. In an age when politicians and conquerors with armies were the ones to be celebrated Newton heralded the age of an intellectual celebrity. Its a road in which so many were to walk and in the 20th century give our own scientific celebrity Albert Einstein.

Tocqueville to H1B's: Allure of America

2011-07-05T00:30:00.000-04:00

The July 4th celebrations just wound down across America from 'sea to shining sea'. I watched the fireworks at Lake George, NY on July 2nd. Today the telecast from NYC and DC was spell binding. Just as John Adams had wished Americans celebrated July 4th with pomp and fireworks. Incidentally FeTNA, an umbrella organization of the numerous Tamil associations across US, held its annual celebration, as usual, around July 4th. Without getting into the merits of what they celebrate, the fact to be appreciated is that such celebrations by ethnic communities is a beautiful American character. I've often listened to immigrants jeeringly say "after all this is a country of immigrants". The subtext is a certain haughtiness that America lacks history or 'native' culture. Nothing quite gets my goat as that comment.

I was at the Library of Congress and was thrilled to walk through the cavernous halls. The roof was replete with quotes from western literature, names of giants in every discipline were engraved on pillars. Goethe, Faust, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Newton, Linnaeus etc find mention. Of course one could scoff at this and say "after all, America, with its recent history lacks the tradition of having such geniuses as its 'sons of soil'". Far from it. I see this celebration of geniuses from every imaginable corner as America's own is the quintessential American character. America has named satellites after S.Chandrasekhar (Nobel laureate) and Kalpana Chawla (died in Shuttle disaster). Both immigrants. No other country in the world, to my knowledge, says if you have a PhD you will be labelled as "National Essential Worker" and gives a permanent residency within 6 months. No other country in the world gives children of immigrants, legal and illegal, citizenship by virtue of being born in USA.

If I say "given a chance most of the world would emigrate here" many would consider it repulsive. US has a lottery scheme of allotting 55,000 green card on a lottery basis for ensuring 'diversity'. Last year the number of applicants were 15 MILLION. In recent years a small percentage of Indians return to India, for many reasons of their own. Yet the inflow continues unabated. But for the shameful green card mess more Indians would eagerly apply for H1B's.

The allure of America is not only in recent years. This country has drawn immigrants for nearly 300 years in wave after wave and has forged its own character that is quite unique and could be unhesitatingly called "American Culture".

Alexis de Tocqueville , French visitor, wanted to study America and write about. His masterly commentary "Democracy in America" (Pub 1835) is still read with interest for 180 years. Born just after the French revolution Tocqueville was enamored by the country across the Atlantic. He created an excuse to come to America, to study Prison systems in America, and wrote his book after a year of going around America. Tocqueville wrote a book that was largely laudatory about America but very much alive to America's original sin, slavery.

Many have visited the famed Smithsonian museums in Washington DC. How many would know that they were established by a British Scientist who bequeathed his wealth to create an institution in America, not his own England. For 150+ years that institution has lived true to goals of its founder and we benefit from it.

Given the propensity of today's intellectuals to rant against America it is easily forgotten that it was to America that intellectuals, fleeing Nazism and fascism and later communism, came. America cheerfully hugged Albert Einstein and the many Jewish scientists who fled Hitler. While this is mostly well known little is known of literary intellectuals who fled and found a home in Los Angeles. Economist recently reviewed a biography of Heinrich Mann, brother of Nobel Laureate Thomas Mann. Both Mann's had fled Nazi Germany. German literary giants, like Bertolt Brecht along with Mann, created a movement in US for 'Exile Literature' .

The other most famous exile was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who fled the Gulags of USSR. Safely ensconced in picturesque Vermont he scolded America for its consumerism. It is to USA that Nabokov too came. He later taught in Cornell University.

Andrew Grove, legendary CEO of Intel, escaped Nazis first and then the Communists. Grove's immigration from Hungary is the stuff of magical lore. Grove, said of his 20 years in Hungary, "by the time I was twenty, I had lived through a Hungarian Fascist dictatorship, German military occupation, the Nazi's 'final solution', the siege of Budapest by the Soviet Red Army....". Grove arrived in USA in 1957, as the wiki entry says, "with little money and unable to speak English". The rest of Grove's story is, as the cliche goes, 'history'.

No other social program of India has lifted so many thousands of family into prosperity as the American H1B program. The thousands who came to US came, mostly, with a few hundred dollars and two suitcases. Of those two suitcases only one would carry clothes, the other would be for utensils, Indian spices, cooking notes etc. With this spartan possession many of those who came have stayed, become citizens, raised families, created wealth for themselves and for their families and for America too. America has welcomed and hugged H1B's. Many H1B's, like many other immigrants, do not appreciate the deeper intellectual traditions of this great country nor do they make efforts to school themselves in the history of USA. Visiting Smithsonian's and reading a smattering most immigrants do not even know one tenth of America. Many do not even give credence to what made America the super power that it is today. The genius of America, unlike European countries, is in allowing the immigrants to take their own times across generations to assimilate. As always the first generation tries to hold on to vestiges of what they know and cherish of 'back home'. The subsequent generations assimilate without hassles and contribute to the quintessential "American Dream".

Whether its the millions applying for lottery or scientists and literature giants fleeing persecution or the educated thousands who come searching for greener pastures America has an allure for many a human being across the globe.

Culture is not just some fabled ancient literature or the ability to claim antiquity. Emma Lazarus, whose sonnet adorns the Statue of Liberty, wrote acidly "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp". That America makes it possible for so many to come, earn, live freely, and pursue their happiness is the best form of culture.

This July 4 I'd like to celebrate the idea of America.

TN Voter Revolts and Media Sleeps.

2011-06-20T23:21:00.000-04:00

It is often said that democracy is messy but in reality compared to its alternatives democracy is the least messy. Representative democracy with all its faults remains the best form of governance. The smug literate Indian voter has often looked down upon his/her illiterate counterpart who votes. When the results of TN election were announced on May 13th it was the largely illiterate voter who had the last laugh. In many ways we should thank the poverty stricken, less educated voter for it is ONLY they who saw through the arrogant power gambles by Karunanidhi.

How arrogant and venal must Karunanidhi be to think that the voter can be hoodwinked by a comedian? Many long time DMK sympathisers shook their head at seeing a party once known for literate orators now rely heavily on a comedian's campaign. A party which once took pride in blackening with tar Hindi words in Railway stations now begged a Hindi actress with a Hindi tattoo on her hand to campaign for them. Irony was that Thiruma, a member of the ruling coalition, once harassed that same actress as a self styled custodian of Tamil morality. Wikileaks cables now show how Karthi Chidambaram had bragged about bribing voters. "Thirumangalam formula" will see us through crowed their supposedly educated supporters.

On May 13th the TN voter delivered a stunning verdict that left no cover for either DMK or their palanquin bearers. Now the question was "how did nobody see this coming", "how did none of the polls predict this". DMK was shattered beyond belief. Stalin, heir apparent, limped past the finishing line. Azhagiri fort was pulverized to dust. The verdict was so humiliating that Karunanidhi did not even wait for the final tally he tendered his cabinet's resignation within a few hours of the trend emerging. DMK expected the going to be tough but nobody saw this coming. DMK genuinely expected that their Insurance scheme, free housing schemes, money doled through self help groups, Rice at Rs1 etc (not withstanding free TV's and other freebies) would serve as a firewall to protect their turf. "Thirumangalam formula" would secure the seats that were in play thus cumulatively securing them a second term. Whenever I used to talk to both DMK supporters and general public about the inflationary aspect of many of these so called "schemes" I always got one response "the poor don't care, the illiterate do not care, this is all fancy economics you are saying".
See my earlier blog http://contrarianworld.blogspot.com/2011/03/corzine-and-karunanidhi-bribing-voters.html . When I told a person, not a DMK supporter, "well they get rice at Rs1 but vegetable prices are sky high, food inflation is in double digits according to the government itself", the reply was "the poor do not realize and they will not care".

Well the poor care because they are hungry. The poor care because they now see how their children are being deprived. It does not take a PhD in economics to realise that Rs1 rice alone is not enough. Actually its the PhD in economics who might be numb to reality and prattle about ideology etc. A poor man is pragmatic, he has no alternative.

Seeing Thirumaa and Ramadoss being drubbed today many pontificate that caste politics has been discarded by the voter. Again its the smug educated voter who has never seen the intelligence of the electorate. DMK lost, against much expectation, in 2001 only because they chose to align with caste based parties and doled out seats based on chest thumping by caste party leaders like Kannappan. Ramadoss is often cited as holding a loyal block of voters. That's a wonderful myth. In the past when he contested alone he was drubbed. In recent times his candidates lost pathetically. Ramadoss did become a force to reckon with initially because he did get some fruits for his caste but after the quota agitation success there was nothing else to fight or win. His family's corruption became an eyesore amongst his community. Thirumaa is the worst leader that Dalits could beget. He has no idea of what Dalits need. Jaya's wonderful advertisement showing how he ranted against MK earlier and contrasted it with his fawning today was the best attack ad of the election.

Interpreting a mandate is often a reflection of the person's own subjectivity. Many supporters of Eelam who felt deeply betrayed by MK rejoiced and called this the price for betraying Eelam. Some started calling Seeman, a third rate director and rabble rouser as the next force in campaigns. Eelam probably affected a miniscule voter's decision. TN voter gave DMK a comfortable win, contrary to expectations and desires, in 2009 general elections while Sri Lanka burned and MK carried out a farcical fast. Vaiko, eelam's most sincere and vociferous supporter was trumped at the polls against an unknown. Just watch his election speeches in those days. Vaiko was thundering fire and brimstone about Sri Lanka, about using radar donated by India, about Bofors guns from India AND he lost. As the cliche says "All politics is local". Eelam was a marginal issue.

Why did the media, at all levels, miss the voter fury? Very simple. There is no professional journalism in India. Its all the more true at a regional level. To be sure even in USA we do have our share of surprises. When a republican won from a senate seat held for 40 years by Ted Kennedy in Massachusettes it sent shock waves. But the media was not blind sided like it happened in Tamil Nadu.

NYT report would go to a village start off from a villager, narrate his woes, then flesh out the grinding effect of food inflation, give a human dimension to the story by emphasizing how his/her children are malnourished take the theme on a big picture level, tie it to the inflationary policies and finally conclude with the villager again. This kind of in depth reporting is alien to Indian journalism.

When we talk of corruption again the literate smug intellectual retorted in two modes, "do you think the poor care", "is Jaya incorrupt?". A villager may not care about 2G spectrum or its astronomical sum. Yes Jaya is shamefully corrupt. But the corruption of the past 5 years was of a scope that was staggering. Corruption had eaten into each and every facet of governance thus sticking on the face of the poor like an octopus. Again other than sensational reporting on 2G there was little sensitive in depth reporting by any media. Also for the first time people saw first hand how each minister came to amass hundreds of crores thanks to colleges. Corruption was not even done surreptitiously it was brazen, gargantuan and inescapable. The reporting of that side was seriously hobbled by how the powerful could muzzle media and journalists. Journalists had to fear for their lives if they wrote of Azhagiri or Veerapandi Arumugam (who also is bigamous like his leader and many other colleagues).

Power cuts was another albatross. A few days after the election Karunanidhi announced even more draconian power cuts, now including even Chennai. If MK had announced it 3 months before the election even he would have lost from Thiruvarur. Coimbatore, India's Manchester, erupted in revolt. Thousands of people marched in the streets in a spontaneous protest. No political outfit rallied them, nobody paid them to rally, no biryani packets were used to entice crowds. Yet such an event was grossly underreported. It was a inside news item in a vernacular news paper (Dinamalar). Again the journalistic infrastructure is pathetic that no article could weave a tapestry out of the hardships due to power cuts. In 2011 lack of electricity hobbles job creation, spikes unemployment, affects hospitals, affects the poor weaver, the small scale industrialist who employs tens of poor graduates or unskilled labor. Yet I could not find a single journalist who could write a compelling story on this articulating the seething anger of the people.

Opinion polls are another mess. The media in Tamil Nadu, especially TV, is sharply divided along partisan lines with absolutely no objectivity. The vernacular press also is partisan to a great extent. Amidst this sea of mediocrity and crass partisan reporting opinion polls were a joke.

Sun TV beamed endlessly the hundreds who milled to wave at Vadivelu. Media wrote that in Vadivelu maybe DMK had found a trump card. Yet when the results were announced the joke was on DMK/ Vadivelu and the media. Yes many probably still do love to watch Vadivelu but life is different reality. The sophistication showed by the Tamil Nadu voter should send a stern message to Jaya more than MK. Let Jaya heed the message and realize that in 2016 she could be where MK is today. Well she knows that all too well, could she have forgotten 1996. Its pathetic that MK forgot 1996 could happen to him or completely ignored the lessons of 2001.

Tamil Enthusiasts and muddled ideologies.

2011-06-09T23:55:00.001-04:00

This week's issue of Vikatan had an article titled "தமிழ் மட்டும்தான் சொத்து". It was about one Mr Radhakrishnan whose house in Pondicherry is quite unique. The photo below should tell you why.

The walls of the house have verses proclaiming glory of Tamil and verses that demand a primacy for Tamil in education and all walks of life. The walls are also adorned, as you can see, with photos of Tamil literary savants like Bharathidasan, Maraimalai Adigal, etc and here is the curiosity, photos of Ambedkar, Karl Marx, Lenin, Prabhakaran and finally the mandatory triumvirate of C.N.Annathurai, M.Karunanidhi and E.V.Ramasamy Naicker. Unsurprisingly, rather as expected, a distinct omission of Bharathi.

Interestingly the same issue of Vikatan had another article, "பெரிய மனிதரும் அரிய புத்தகங்களும்!" about a person who has a library of Tamil books with very rare editions like G.U.Pope's translation of Kural etc. N.P.Ramasamy of Kovai had this to say "எஸ்.எஸ்.எல்.சி. முடித்த பின்பு, திராவிட இயக்கத்தில் சேர்ந்தேன். அப்போது திராவிட நாகரிகம் சார்ந்த புத்தகங்களும், உலக புரட்சியாளர்களின் வரலாறும், பொதுவுடமைச் சிந்தனைகொண்ட புத்தகங்களையும் படித்தேன்". Soviet Russia, Che Guevara, Prabakaran etc have a mystical hold on the imagination of Tamil literature lovers. Again knowledge of history or awareness of facts are mere inconveniences. Just like Radhakrishnan of Pondicherry, Ramasamy of Kovai has a fondness for Prabakaran, "'எனக்கு வயதாகிவிட்டது. எனக்குப் பின் இந்தச் செல்வங்களை பாதுகாப்பது யார் என்ற கவலையே இப்போது தினமும் என்னை அலைக்கழித்துக்கொண்டு இருக்கிறது. பிரபாகரன் தலைமையில் ஈழம் மலரும்; அப்போது இந்தப் புத்தகங்களை தாய் மொழியை மதிக்கும் அந்த நாட்டுக்கு கொடுத்துவிடலாம் என்று இருந்தேன். சோனியாவும் கருணாநிதியும் சேர்ந்து அந்த நம்பிக்கையை கேள்விக்குறி ஆக்கிவிட்டார்கள்." It is stunning that two people with nothing but a shared love of literature and language should have such ideological affinity. This affinity is not accidental its characteristic.

When I meet or read an English literary enthusiast its almost impossible to know his/her ideological lineage or political affiliations. With Tamil literature enthusiasts I've no such problems. I draw a distinction between enthusiasts or lovers of literature against creators. Most enthusiasts or lovers of Tamil literature, especially non-brahmins, are clearly defined by the following: Fealty to Dravidian ideology as 'defined' from time to time by DK or DMK (never ADMK), blatant communist or muddled socialist leaning, avowedly anti-capitalist, a thirsting for bygone glory reflected by admiration totalitarian Prabakaran, fanatically chauvinistic to the core on linguistic issues and to cap it all anti-brahminism. Many of these actually contradict one and another but that never matters. I've never understood this cocktail of politics, economics and linguistic chauvinism. What can I say if one has portraits of Ambedkar, Marx, Lenin and Karunanidhi in the same row.

I can understand one's love for a language, I can understand one wanting to see one's mother tongue become lingua-franca and have a cherished place in daily life. Once a person told me "you are anti-Tamil because you hate Kalaignar, you hate Anna". I wondered what has one got to do with the other. If you did not accept the literary genius of C.N.Annathurai or Kalaignar you become ipso-facto anti-Tamil.

EVR had called Tamil a language fit for barbarians and exhorted Tamils to study English. It was the advent of DMK that created an ideology that mixed up everything, understanding very little of any of the components. What is worse serious non-partisan academics have been swept aside and chauvinistic shallow hacks posing as academics have taken their place peddling nonsense as received wisdom. When I read Dr M.Varadarajan's (Mu.Va) "History of Tamil literature" I was stunned to see him emphasize that the term "Muthamizh" (Three forms of Tamil -- Drama, Music, Poetry) is a recent invention. As he progresses to discuss that he sheepishly says "there is no drama in Tamil, we don't have any works of drama that would qualify for that genre". A DMK party hack would cry hoarse about "Silappathikaaram". Silappathikaaram only talks about how street plays were conducted. Silappathikaram is not "King lear" or "A Dolls House". Jayakanthan, referring to Manonmaniam, another pet example of dramatic Tamil, said "its a fourth rated recreation of a third rated work". The tragedy is not the general population buying this charade of dramatic Tamil, the real tragedy is its a rarity to find any so-called Tamil scholar to disagree with it.

Tamil enthusiasts love to believe anything and everything that would glorify Tamil. Tamil music is another fertile ground for politics and ideological posturing. Carnatic music, to some extent fairly and to some extent unfairly, is seen as the preserve of Brahmin's hence Carnatic music is seen as another battlefield in challenging the Brahminical order of supremacy. If Harold Bloom, Yale university's legendary Shakespearean, wrote a book on 'English Music' he would be laughed out. But in Tamil Nadu people with dubious credentials would freely talk about musical traditions and how Tamil had it all. For a Tamil enthusiast no field is alien, anything is fertile ground to wade into and claim primacy for Tamil texts, often by contorting evidence and more often with no evidence. Anbazhagan, a minister and a lackey to Karunanidhi, would write a lesson for Tamil textbook equating Kural and Newton's 3rd law. Only a Tamil enthusiast will have the audacity (I am being polite here) to claim Kamban knew of atomic fission.

Only in Tamil Nadu have politicians become arbiters of literature. Today what most Tamilians understand as 'characteristics' of Tamil culture and Tamil as language comes from Karunanidhi who has cast a long and shameful shadow on Tamil academia. Only in Tamil Nadu could a person like Vaiko be hailed as 'literary exponent'. Only in Tamil Nadu would Karunanidhi's opinion be more important on a question regarding Tamil than any scholar (if one such still remains). DMK's two leading lights C.N.Annathurai and Karunanidhi have completely obliterated impartial scholarship and have monopolized the academic framework of Tamil. Its a phenomenon thats worthy a sociological study by itself. Silappathikaaram is hailed as "Epic of Tamils", Kamba Ramayanam is derided as pornography. The inherent contradictions in both claims, the lack of academic merit in those making such accusations were never given a thought to. Silappathikaaram, a male chauvinistic epic with references to Karma written by a Jain is hailed as "Epic of Tamils" while it completely contradicts every pet ideology of DMK.

Why did I say that Radhakrishnan (what a name for a DK member) had unsurprisingly omitted a portrait of Bharathi? Nowhere in the world was a poet of Bharathi's stature shunned because of his/her caste. DMK incessantly promoted Bharathidasan against Bharathi who was derided as "paarpana Kavi" (Brahmin Poet). This, against Bharathi. Only the venal minds of DMK and its ideological adherents are capable of such shameful acts. A leading contemporary Tamil writer recently wrote in his blog that in the last 5 years whenever recommendations had to be sent for Jnanpith the explicit command was "see to it that its not a Brahmin author". Asokamithran, a giant in Tamil literature, being Brahmin is shunned. Its thanks to U.Ve. Swaminatha Iyer, that much of what we know as Tamil literary texts even survives. It was M.G.R., a malayalee, who created a university for Tamil. Tamil Bibles, translated from Hebrew and Greek by Brahmins is a veritable treasure to read. The Tamil Christian hymns too richly borrow from Hindu imagery.

During a visit to India I bought some Tamil texts. "Purananooru" (400 poems on war and life) has a rich set of poems by poet Kapilar. Kapilar's poems dwell on the generosity of King Paari, Paari's death by treachery, Pari's daughter's being destitutes etc. Would I ever read a book that would take those 10+ poems, situate them in historical context, set out the details of their friendship etc without a shred of jingoism or mixing up political ideologies? Not in a 100 lives. So many books could be spun out of that collection of 400 poems yet none that is accessible to lay or even a discerning interested reader is available. If such a collection of poems and such dramatic lives were in English literature some professor would have turned it into a Pulitzer prize winning book.

2012: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs and Jobs

2011-06-07T23:33:00.000-04:00

Amidst the euphoria following the killing of Osama I told a friend that when it comes to 2012 elections this will be a blip in the radar for Obama. My friend, an Obama supporter, grumpily said "oh you are just voicing your wish". Today Washington Post released an opinion poll that has landed with a thud. 59% of Americans disapprove of Obama's handling of economy. Mitt Romney, the lead republican candidate, is in a statistical dead heat with Obama. To rub it in, amongst registered voters, Romney leads Obama. Romney is a candidate with many vulnerabilities.

Team Obama is very well aware that George Bush Sr lost to Clinton after winning a war only because of the economy. James Carville, Clinton's strategist, famously said 'Its the economy, stupid". When asked if he had felt the effect of recession, Bush, floundered and appeared out of touch. Bill Clinton, the master empathic politician gave a warm answer and rode to a landslide victory glossing over his numerous sexual affairs. Only starry eyed ill-informed supporters felt that killing Osama will guarantee a win for Obama. Within a month what changed?

The manufacturing index fell 6.9 points in May compared to April. At an anemic 53.5 manufacturing while nominally expanding its barely about 50 the point at which it would be 'contracting'. Last month employment figures were a pathetic addition of 54,000 jobs, the lowest in a year. Unemployment is stuck at 9.1%. Underemployment is at a staggering 8.5%. People who have stopped looking for a job and hence NOT counted in the unemployment figures is a whopping 2.2 million. Reading the Bureau of Labor Statistics report its grim.

As if all that did not sound grim enough comes the housing report. US housing is measured by the Case-Shiller-S&P-Index. Robert Shiller one of the developers of that index is reputed economist and author of bestseller "Irrational Exuberance" which foretold the 2001 dot com crash. The housing index delivered a massive blow to the recovery. US home prices have dropped 4.2% in first quarter of 2011 AFTER declining 3.6% in last quarter of 2010. The index report delivers a jaw dropper, "Nationally home prices are back to their mid 2002 levels". I bought my home in 2003. After 8 years its worth is exactly the same as it was 8 years ago, possibly less. Today's WSJ had a lead article citing a major report by Corelogic, leading provider of mortgage data, amongst US households that have a second mortgage on their homes 40% are underwater.New home sales is at record low . Consumer Confidence index is down 5.2%.

Today Obama hosted a joint press conference with visiting German Chancellor. An ominous question was "are you worried about a double dip recession". Obama in his professorial manner opined "I am not worried about a double dip recession" (watch for republicans to recycle that video) and proceeded to give a long winded answer that was anything but an answer.

Barack Obama won the presidency purely by blaming Bush and promising the skies. In 2012 he will have to defend his record. Liberal economists gleefully pointed out that Bush was presiding over the worst job creation since Herbert Hoover. Barack Obama will win that prize handily.

To be sure Obama is only partly responsible for the unemployment situation. Technology and globalization have wiped out many jobs that, as Biden openly said, will never come back. Some parts of this unemployment is "structural". There is no way to see the dotcom era level unemployment. The financial crises that Obama inherited was unprecedented in scope or kind. The usual playbook responses were highly insufficient.

Life is not fair. Obama was not fair to Bush when he conveniently blamed everything on Bush glossing over the fact that the financial crises had seeds sown during Clinton era. Repealing Glass-Steagall act, failure to regulate derivatives, long term easy credit, later democrat controlled congress using Fannie and Freddie to further social engineering etc. Such inconvenient truths were all buried and a trope of Bush, the Texas oilman, is responsible emerged. The presidency is a job that Obama applied for knowing the crises thats engulfing hence he has to take ownership for what has happened under his watch.

Closely allied with economic worries a serious debate is emerging on role of government. US debt is staggering and every economist of every hue is crying for reform. In the backdrop of Euro zone crises Americans are seriously questioning the role of public sector. Federal employees and state employees unions are under a sharp focus for their generous benefits and unsustainable pension guarantees. Obama has presided over expansion of government unlike any before.

A republican candidate's success will depend on how convincingly they can portray the economic quagmire as the 'result' of Obama policies AND what alternatives they can provide. Just blaming Obama is not going to help. The economic uncertainties that are being spun out of Obama's and democrat controlled (until recently) congress to regulate business punitively is doing serious harm. The Dodd-Frank legislation that regulates financial institutions has become a legal nightmare spawning agencies that are sending big banks into a tizzy. Chuck Schumer, ranking Senate democrat, who voted and championed it is now decrying its effect. WSJ ripped into his hypocrisy . Schumer now says that the that new derivatives rules "will inevitably result in significant competitive disadvantages for U.S. firms operating globally."

WSJ had a wonderful article on how complex and Frankenstein like Dodd-Frank has become. The article says that the growing paper trail is 20 times taller than Liberty Statue. Many rules set forth in the legislation are yet to become laws. The federal agencies like SEC are simply crushed by the burden. Its a classic case of a panacea becoming an infection. The uncertainties and complexities have severely affected the profit making of financial institutions with a direct effect on hiring.

Obama, one time community organizer and an instinctive hater of capitalism, ranted against "fat cat bankers" endlessly. The administration and its minions pilloried Wall Street. It was populist in 2008. Obama repeatedly exhorts business to hire and spend their profits. Businesses are balking, not out any malice, but merely out of a hesitation due to uncertainties surrounding hiring costs. The regulations that fly out of capitol hill added to the gargantuan health care bill has created a very uncertain climate for hiring. All of this is justified criticism against Obama.

The tax battle is looming ahead. Obama, an open socialist, is committed to playing Robin Hood. The Bush tax cuts that Obama extended, much to his supporters' anger, is due to expire in 2012. Obama has made it clear that he will make that issue for the elections. Obama wants to raise taxes on homes making $250,000 and above. In his opinion those making $250,000 (as couple) are rich and should pay their 'fair share'. Of course what he labels as 'fair share' is from his vote-bank angle. In 2008 he could get a pass on that. In 2012 there is voter fury against Unions and benefits finagled by arm-twisting Unions. Obama's class warfare rhetoric will not fly easy in 2012. Unions, taxing the rich deserves a blog of its own.

Mitt Romney, to be sure is not a shoo in. He has to survive primaries and convince republicans of his conservative credentials. I'll reserve discussing the candidates themselves for another time.

Osama: A Cathartic Killing.

2011-05-23T22:58:00.000-04:00

The killing of Osama Bin Laden has been dissected in international media. While the world heaved a collective sigh of relief at not just the killing but the near total absence of any outcry from the proverbial Arab street. The latter, specifically, is making analysts sit up and take note.

Are Americans wrong to celebrate the killing of Osama? How different is such an American from those who celebrated 9/11 watching the towers fall? Stunned by Obama's action that looked very much like Bush the world at large gave a muted appreciation but the ubiquitous finger wagging intellectuals added a "nevertheless its not nice to celebrate a person's death" and for good measure compared it with the celebrations that erupted in parts of Middle East seeing civilians leap to their death from the towering inferno. Such moral bracketing is despicable and loathsome. Celebrating the death of a mass murderer is NOT the same as celebrating seeing innocent men and women leap to their deaths. I had aptly compared it to Diwali in my earlier blog .

Like World War II, Korean War, Vietnam, First Gulf War, this was not a war that America sought out. America in the midst of a recession was busy addressing its economy. George Bush came to office forswearing nation building. He had declared that "America is not the world's 911" (911 - number for all emergencies in USA). John Cherian, writing for Frontline magazine, claimed that America went to war to capture one man. An insulting sleight of hand. America did not go to war with Afghanistan just chasing Osama. Afghanistan was the hot bed global terrorism running practically schools were terror tactics were taught to jihadists. That terror network had to be dismantled.

Some have pointed out that unlike common belief that this attack is indeed covered by international law. More than a few sought to lecture America that this is not justice but sheer vendetta, justice would be to arrest Osama and indict him in a court of law. America did that to Ramzi Youssef who had bombed the towers in 1993. Youssef, too, was picked up in Pakistan, arraigned in a court of law, defended by a lawyer paid by US taxpayer and is in a supermax prison sentenced for life (no death penalty). What good did it do us? Would the likes of Osama be mollified by such trials? Even if such a trial was carried out a would-be-Osama (and not a few intellectuals) would still mock it as a staged trial. It would be free dangerous propaganda circulating on youtube. Osama's culpability in 9/11 was proved beyond doubt by any standards of investigation, including his own despicably boastful videos that nailed his guilt.

Some brushed it as inconsequential killing that may unnecessarily inflame passions again. The treasure trove of intelligence unearthed has shown that Osama was not just in hiding but actively plotting with his sick mind. There are those who would still say such intelligence was 'planted'. I've no arguments for instinctive Anti-Americans who loath America. Let me reiterate that Obama is the president under whose watch all of this is happening. Now the anti-Americans would drool "all American presidents are the same". Trying to convince them is like having a conversation with a dinner table. The killing has deep symbolic effect across segments and it has perceivable impact in real terms too.

When the Japanese launched Pearl Harbor their idea was that America lacked guts and courage for a prolonged bloody war. After decimating American navy when the planes headed home, General Yamamoto, who spear headed the campaign, educated in USA, is reported to have said "all that we have done today is to wake up a sleeping tiger". Osama thought the same. The nation of Playboy, Bay Watch etc would run away with its tail in between its legs. Osama repeatedly referred to how US ran away from Vietnam and Somalia. The Vietnam debacle especially emboldened him. If bicycle riders could humiliate America why not mule-riders? Destroying that comfort is valuable.

I did not want to write blogs on the operation itself immediately when the details were sketchy. Unlike my initial reaction this was not a 'kill' operation. There were preparations done to take him alive. However that was a very remote possibility. The SEALS were operating in very hostile territory, under darkness racing against time and against an opponent who valued his life very little hence their decision to kill him cannot be second guessed from arm chairs. The decision to bury him at sea was a brilliant one. I don't buy the reasoning given for that like "no country would accept him", "according to Islam we had to bury him in 24 hours". He was killed on land and taken to sea to be dumped for the fishes. I hope they had a feast or maybe they found him too distasteful for their morals.It would take another 5 years minimum until some investigative reporter pieces together the story for a prize winning book.

The killing of Osama provided yet again an opportunity for anti-americanism to come out in its full rich spectrum. Anti-Americanism is a rich tapestry woven out of many strands that mirror the colors of the soul of the beholder. The spectrum of such animosity ranges from sheer loathing to supposedly well meaning criticism couched in intellectual bromides.

A few days after the killing The Guardian newspaper from UK, no friend of America, printed a column that said the greatest myth about Osama was that USA/CIA created him. Soon after Peter Bergen, who had interviewed Osama in person in 1997 for CNN, wrote an op-ed for Washington Post titled "top 5 myths about Osama". The first myth was that Osama was a Frankenstein created by CIA. From Bergen's column:

"Instead, all U.S. aid to Afghanistan was funneled through Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, the ISI. Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, the ISI officer who coordinated Pakistani efforts during the war, explained in “The Bear Trap,” his 1992 book: “No Americans ever trained or had direct contact with the mujaheddin.”

Since 9/11, al-Qaeda insiders have responded in writing to assertions that they had some kind of relationship with the CIA. Bin Laden’s top lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in his autobiographical “Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet,” wrote, “The truth that everyone should learn is that the United States did not give one penny in aid to the [Arab] mujaheddin.”

I just finished reading "Looming Tower" by Lawrence Wright, Pulitzer awarded. The radicalization of Osama and the jihadist ire against America has got very little to do with American foreign policy or Israel. Osama declaring war on America follows a tortuous route spun with several threads that culminated in a fateful ideological conclusion. I plan to write on the various in the days ahead.

What does this killing do for Obama? Not much in real terms. The 2012 election is far away. The Obama team is very well aware that Bush Sr lost the election after winning the war. Bush Sr lost to a relatively unknown Bill Clinton. Unfortunately for Obama the economic situation mirrors that of Bush Sr. But so far the GOP has not produced a Bill Clinton. Obama may yet win 2012 but this killing, while giving a welcome and richly deserved boost, is not enough to guarantee a second term. Its, still, the 'economy stupid".

I shall part with just one more thought. Just like Yamamoto many of the intellectual (if you can call them that way) leaders of Al Qaeda were educated in American universities. They and the 19 hijackers were guests of a generous America. What is it with American education and anti-americanism????

Anna Hazare: Inspiring A Nation and Combating Naysayers.

2011-05-17T01:18:00.000-04:00

I had been waiting to write this blog for a long time. I was waiting for the results of Tamil Nadu assembly elections. Now I am emboldened to flesh out a narrative given the verdict, that is nothing short of revolutionary, by the TN voter.

Like many Indians I had no idea of who Anna Hazare was until I saw Facebook postings and news items of a frail man with a Gandhi cap going on a fast unto death until corruption was rooted out of India. Corruption, with its many tentacles, is like an octopus stuck on the face of India. Nothing, absolutely nothing, can escape the venom of corruption that courses along the veins of India's body. Can we eat a fruit from a vendor without pondering if it was infected to hasten its fruition? Can we buy a bottle of water without pausing to think if it was tampered with? Passport office, RTO, Government secretariat, a traffic stop, a doctor's prescription, a medical laboratory reusing a slide used for examining stools, a college, a postman delivering a pensioners meager pension, banks, schools, scams running into numbers that the average man cannot even comprehend and much more.

Is any Indian naive enough to think that all would change with one fasting? Not in the least. Not the voters who have the maturity not to be lured by money and boot out the most corrupt regime in TN's history (surpassing Jaya's 91-96). Whatever Hazare achieved or did not he certainly achieved in unifying a wide array of critics across the political spectrum. Let's look at the critics first.

There is the well meaning intellectual who is horrified at an ultra-constitutional authority like the Jan Lokpal. Their concerns are very valid. Then comes the realist who reminds us that India is not corrupt for want of legal framework or legal avenues hence this is one more attempt that may very well scupper. So far I am with them. Another set of critics projected their own prejudices and pet causes as a template within which Hazare was judged as a hypocrite or liar or fundamentalist or plain buffoon.

Arundhathi Roy takes issue that Hazare is trying to root out corruption while not opposing the liberalization policies which in her mind are the fountain head of corruption. Opposing corruption while not opposing economic liberalization is a non-starter for her. Corruption did not start after 1991 when India launched privatization and unshackling the economy. Its government programs, especially social welfare programs, that are notoriously corrupt.

Gnani is angry that Irom Sharmila's fasting did not evoke the same level of public sympathy. In his eyes this is middle class hypocrisy. He upbraids the middle class, who constituted most of the sympathizers, as protesting against corruption only because it interferes in their 'comforts' or 'enjoying life'. Jeyamohan aptly criticized this as misplaced anger. Hazare touched an issue to which every Indian in every station of life could relate to. India is a subcontinent with diverse problems and each has its own intricacy. Divided by language and culture not many issues achieve a pan-Indian unity. As much as the northern India does not care for Tamil Nadu fisherman being slaughtered in the ocean the south India does not care much for India's brutal repression in parts of North India.

The media attention came in for lot of flak. Some commentators wryly noted that in between World Cup and IPL this was a welcome TRP generating entertaining. After all the media, as enablers of corruption, was one of the key features of the despicable Radia tapes saga. Some alluded to extended jingoism coming out of a world cup victory. Even if we were to concede all that I am tempted to ask "so what?". Its not like the media was beaming jhatka-matkas to tick up viewership. Its not like people are clamoring for something dishonorable. Its not like a people rose up to say "release Barabbas".

Hazare's companions, the Bharat Matha depiction, praising Modi, Bhushan affairs were all fodder for criticism. Why hold Hazare responsible if Pappu Yadav offers support from within Tihar Jail? Hazare did not solicit Pappu Yadav. What is wrong with a Bharat Matha picture? Political correctness has run amuck when such objections are voiced. Swami Agnivesh is a respected social worker, just because he is a 'swami' its churlish to paint all of them as 'Hindutva'. Again none of them were agitating for anything ignoble or devious. They were all coming together to try to shake a nation to address a cancer that is eating into the body of the country. What is wrong with imagery of religiosity? Have we not seen the venality of so called atheists in Tamil Nadu? Atheism does not bestow any virtue as much religiosity by itself does not do so. EVR's pet project was erecting statues for himself while he was alive. Jayakanthan aptly observed that DK members are not atheists its just that their god is EVR.

Is undertaking a fast a blackmail? Is fasting to get one's nominees and oneself included in a panel 'Gandhian'? Yes, fasting is a sort of emotional blackmail if one chooses to call it as such. Was the fast as farcical as Jaya's fasting or MK's comical one? Not by a mile. More to the point Hazare was not putting his life on the line to gain electoral advantage or score brownie points. That Hazare wore a Gandhi cap and went on a fast prompted the label hungry media to call him a 'second Gandhi'. One could ignore that and move on.

Why did Hazare's fast yield results while others, most notably Potti Sriramulu's fast for Andhra, fail? Whether its the storming of Bastille or a guy setting himself aflame in Tunisia, revolutions and popular uprisings are characterized by an indefinable chemistry. Revolutions and momentous uprisings succeed or fail on a multiplicity of factors. When Gandhi announced his Dandi march nobody, not even Nehru and Patel, thought it was worthwhile. Irwin thought it was a joke. By the time Gandhi raised a fistful of salt he had shaken the foundations of an empire. Cable TV, social networking and above all the fact that every Indian has been singed by corruption personally made it possible for Hazare to succeed. The way many have asked "why did not the Indian government suppress this one like it habitually does?" kind of makes me wonder if they wished Hazare to silenced in some encounter. Again, very different dynamics operates here. Hazare is not a gun toting Maoist who is blowing up schools and is plotting to overthrow the government. Also Manmohan Singh is not Indira Gandhi. Hazare is not JP either.

Jan Lokpal is ultra-constitutional. No doubt. Jaya has formed a 33 member ministry, the largest so far in Tamil Nadu. She could not go higher because the Supreme Court has restricted the number of ministers a cabinet can have. Why should the Supreme Court interfere in the liberty of a CM? What can we do in a country where ministries where used to lure party hoppers. Kalyan Singh's jumbo ministry in UP, I think he had 100 ministers, is a shameful episode. Much of what the election commission did is unfair. That before election a state's entire law enforcement machinery was deemed unreliable gave them no other option but to seek measures that only had a fig leaf constitutionality. People love this only because politicians have been crooks.

In a country where the constitution was written in such a ham handed manner where prosecuting a sitting CM or PM is next to impossibility such measures are inevitable. Paula Jones was a nobody yet she could prosecute the sitting President of the USA. To prosecute Jaya, a sitting CM, Swamy needed the permission of Channa Reddy the then Governor. Reddy and Jaya's parties were in alliance.The Founding Father's of USA agonized over balance of power and how checks and balances were incorporated. India while throwing off the yoke of colonialism retained the colonial mindset of treating the rulers as a superset subject to different rules from the common man. It was funny listening to Veeramani shedding tears for respecting the constitution. This from a man whose organization and its progenitors took pride in burning the constitution when it did not suit them.

When a government servant, a gazetted officer, applies for passport the mandatory police verification is waived off. Other hapless lesser mortals have to be verified. This is constitutionally sanctified class stratification. Government rules stipulate that a pensioner has to present himself/herself physically to a government officer periodically to certify eligibility for pensioner. Imagine you live in a village on a meager pension and you can imagine the dictatorial power that a clerk can have over you for certifying that you are alive.

The constitution, the government rules are all breeding grounds for corruption rendering a population that is intrinsically corrupt to the extent that many have lost completely all sense of ethics. An education internet user from Australia wrote in comment section "buying a black ticket is not unethical or corrupt. The buyer is paying the seller a premium for 'services' rendered such as not having to stand in queue". There is more than a shade of truth in decrying middle class hypocrisy. However political corruption stands out for many reasons and should be considered the head of this venomous snake.

The black ticket seller and buyer would run at the sight of a cop or at least try to be more surreptitious. Whereas its only a politician who would smile and wave when arrested. When CBI raided the premises of Kalaignar TV Cho drily remarked "if CBI recovers any incriminating document the management should be arrested for sheer incompetency given that the raid was very well expected and took more than a year to happen". Jaya's cases still grind through the lower courts, 15 years after they were filed.

Before any reader smugly asks "is there no corruption in USA or UK?" let me say "Of course there is but not of this scale where everyday life is a torture". Even when it happens justice is swift and impartial. My brother recently wrote, "In Britain, The Daily Telegraph newspaper exposed the scandal of MPs' expenses claims a year or so ago. Following that the worst three offenders were charged and the case came to court withing a year and all three were sent to prison for sums that would be considered loose change by Indian politicians. Sadly such a justice system is light years away in India.". I could cite many such cases in USA. Tom De Lay and Charlie Rangel are famous examples. Bill Clinton suffered mightily for his indiscretions.

Last year as soon as I came back from India I had to take my vehicle for annual inspection to our local DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) in New Jersey. I looked up the DMV website for what papers I needed to take. Just basic stuff. I checked on the webcam online to see how the queue was. I went to the DMV, waited in queue for 5 mins, I was early. When my turn came I handed over the registration, gave my keys and stepped out. Within 5 minutes the inspection was completed, it was free of charge, I got my car and whizzed home. I told my cousin that I should blog that and draw the contrast with India. My cousin said 'People will think you are crazy'. Only those who have been through an RTO office with its scum bag touts will appreciate what I just narrated.

That a state's CM was openly bigamous provided good fodder for jokes and innuendo. This was not a mere infraction. Rajathi was well aware that in the event of anything happening to MK she and Kanimozhi would be left hanging dry hence she let loose an avarice that set tongues wagging. Not only MK several of his cabinet ministers like Veerapandi Arumugam were openly bigamous (manaivi + Thunaivi -- Tamil words that rhyme for wife+concubine). Every house repeated the story. If one started analysing the ethical implications of a culture that shrugged of this one would open a can of worms that needs a separate blog by itself.

Veeramani and his acolytes organized protest meetings to "unmask" Hazare. Remember this was the same guy who a few months back organized meetings to celebrate A.Raja. Suba.Vi, a suave talking professor, decided to discredit Hazare in broad strokes. Suba.Vi alleged Hazare was against social justice (euphemism for quota based reservation). There is no proof of that. Even if it be so, its a disconnected issue. Just because I don't like quotas should I not protest against bribery? Veeramani and Subavi then proceeded to deconstruct Hazare as a paper tiger, as a front man for vested interests, as the mask of Hindutva etc etc.

V.P.Singh is a favorite idol for DK/DMK. When V.P.Singh took on Rajiv Gandhi he too was called a paper tiger. V.P.Singh was then derided as propped up by pseudo intellectuals in Express. Just as many DMK worker wished that 2G spectrum will not be an issue so too back then many wished Bofors would not be an issue. After all what does the common man care for corruption, what does the common man understand of Bofors or Fairfax or 2G. The common man has answered resoundingly.

Hazare's campaign coming weeks before the election did have a salutary effect on many complacent voters. For having tapped into the higher yearnings of the common man and for inspiring a nation to reach for higher goals we owe Hazare a big thanks. Lets criticize his ideas or remedies. If he too has feet of clay let him fall. But mere vilification only shows the nature of the vilifier it does not diminish Hazare.

Take Your Daughter's To Work

2011-05-06T00:28:00.000-04:00

I want to take a break from the deluge of Osama related news. For a change I want to write about something that I had been thinking for a very long time. I'd say this blog is for my daughter and for every girl child out there.

The last Thursday of April is observed as "Take your children to work day" in USA. It originally started in 1993 as 'Take your daughter's to work day". Gloria Steinem, the feminist, was the force behind this. Today companies organize events and really go all out to make the day enjoyable for children who accompany their parents to work. It is to inculcate a spirit concerning work chiefly for girls. Women as a working force received big impetus during two pivotal wars in USA. The first was the Civil War and then World War II.

The idea behind this blog germinated when I was reading historian, now Harvard University Dean, Drew Gilpin Faust's "Mothers of Invention: Women of the slave holding South". Faust is considered one of the most pre-eminent historians of the Civil War. She later became the first woman dean of Harvard in 2007 amidst a furore. In 2008 she published another bestseller, "This Republic of Suffering:Death and American Civil War", this was Pulitzer finalist. Dr Faust draws attention to how Civil War reshaped the mores of America. US lost more men in Civil War than in any other since. This completely changed gender relations. With men away at battlefield women, especially in the conservative atavist South, stepped out of their traditional boundaries. Thus began a new era for women.

While their men folk went out to war the women ran the households, that includes doing chores that a 'lady' never did before. By the close of the war when the slaves were freed the women were compelled to do menial chores too. During the war women would knit socks for the men at the war front but when they ran out of cotton they had organize purchase of cotton. Simple but a landmark event in 1860's. Deprived of men to work women stepped into the professional arena. Chiefly, teaching and nursing. When women were sought to become teachers the society confronted an entrenched discrimination. Until then most schools for girls did not teach math and science like the boys were taught in their schools. By 1860's scientific discoveries, all by men, were shaking up the world chiefly in Europe. This discrimination formed the background for a controversy which enabled Faust to become Dean of Harvard.

During World War II women were recruited to do jobs that were usually the dominion of men and "Rosie the Riveter" as the poster campaign was known was born. The iconic poster was

Drew Faust's mother tersely told her, "It's a man's world, sweetie, and the sooner you learn that better off you will be". Faust, a rebellious daughter, did not pay heed. She went to Bryn Mawr and later to University of Pennsylvania to do her PhD. Princeton did not accept women graduates till 1960's. As PhD student, having completed her requisite coursework that required her to be at the University newly-married Faust asked her professor if she could complete the thesis from remote so she could accompany her husband. The professor jeered, "if you want to be with your husband why are you doing PhD". This to a woman who as 9 year old wrote to then President Eisenhower decrying racial segregation.

When Hillary Clinton campaigned in 2008 in New Hampshire men holding T-shirts that said "go and do laundry" appeared at her rallies. A WSJ opinion poll stated that, in 2008, USA more ready to elect an Afro-American man than a woman. If Hillary's make up was not sharp the press read meanings into it. If her jacket had less than conservative neckline it was noted. Her pant suits were made fun of. An MSNBC commentator referring to Chelsea's lobbying of delegates remarked "they are pimping her out". A remark he would not have made if the child campaigning was male child. Hillary Clinton remains the ONLY presidential candidate to have ever won a primary election.

Women, an IBM study says, lose approximately 7 years in their career due to motherhood. Only recently Clinton signed the FMLA giving 12 weeks paid leave for maternity. Women are traditionally paid less for doing the same job as that of a man.

Larry Summers, former Secretary of Treasury, highly respected economist, commented during a conference that we should study as to why women are not adequately represented in science and math. Summers was already facing some opposition at Harvard as Dean and this controversy simply blew the lid. He was caricatured as a dinosaur and booted out. Then Harvard set about searching for a dean. They finally hired, for the first time in their history, a woman as dean. Faust was dean at Radcliffe at that time.

The 2009 Nobel Prizes were a windfall for women scientists. Other than Madame Curie and her daughter I cant remember any other woman Nobel laureate in the sciences. 2009 changed that. Check out http://contrarianworld.blogspot.com/2009/10/2009-nobel-prizes-stellar-year-for.html . Women were introduced to the sciences only in 1860's, women enrollment in colleges, in Ivy League universities, did not become an accepted fact until the post-war period. Even today if we go to "Pottery Barn kids", an upscale shop for kids, we could see it divide in halves. The boys half, decorated in blue, would have toys of guns, cars, building kits etc. The girls half, in pink, would have kitchen sets, bedroom sets, make up kits etc.

But then things change. I am seeing change for the better in America as recent improvement suggest. Corporations now like to boast that they are rated high as work place of choice for mothers. Diversity, racial and gender wise, is a stated goal and companies do invest money to promote diversity. The wage gap is fast closing. Now, for the first time, women outnumber men in workforce. Woman CEO's are no longer eyebrow raising. A credit card company is now running an ad showing a young girl child as an entrepreneur.

When Faust was reminded about her being the first woman dean, she said "I am not the woman dean of Harvard, I am the dean of Harvard". Hillary conceding the nomination to Barack Obama referred to the votes she received as "18 million cracks in the glass ceiling". America redeemed itself with Obama's election. One more redemption is pending.

I started this blog referring to "Take your daughters to work day" only as I finish I realize that coming Sunday is "Mother's day". Three cheers to my mom and to my wife.

America's and Obama's Moment of Glory

2011-05-03T00:36:00.000-04:00

Its Diwali time in America. Its the one metaphor that can capture the mood of the country. America has slain a beast that had brought unfathomable destruction to lives and the American way of life. 9/11 has a very personal meaning for me. Our family, my wife in particular who worked in Wall Street, endured unspeakable horror and anxiety. That was a day, as an Indian, I felt comforted that I was in America. I was sure that my wife would reach home safely. Volumes have been written about that day, Giuliani becoming America's mayor, the steely resolve of New Yorkers, civilians committing suicide to foil the plans of barbarians and so much more. I shall not rehash those now.

My favorite columnist Lance Morrow wrote a vitriolic column in Time laying out the "The case for rage and retribution' . "A day cannot live in infamy without the nourishment of rage. Let's have rage. What is needed is a unified, unifying, Pearl Harbor sort of purple American fury, a ruthless indignation that doesn't leak away in a week or two" and Morrow asked Americans to "relearn why human nature has equipped us all with a weapon (abhorred in decent peacetime societies) called hatred". In prescient words he closes, "the worst times, as we see, separate the civilized of the world from the uncivilized. This is the moment of clarity. Let the civilized toughen up, and let the uncivilized take their chances in the game they started".

All these years many have mocked that America, with all its technical glitz and unparalleled power, could not bring to justice one individual. Not many realized that the America we see in movies is not the America in reality. This escapes even the well informed many times. Very coincidentally Time magazine's cover story for this week is Robert Mueller, chief of FBI. The story highlights that prior to 9/11 FBI did not have agents devoted full time to gather intelligence. Today there are 580 in a new category devoted for intelligence. Now consider tracking a fugitive like bin-laden (in the domain of CIA) who does not use any modern amenities that can be tracked or hacked. Add to that the fact that he lives amidst his fellow tribesmen of undying loyalty. Now compound it with other bizarre facts like not having, almost nil, 'humints' (human intelligence agents), zero agents who even knew rudimentary Pashtun, the language of the fugitive. On 9/11 Bush realized the archaic nature of communications equipment aboard Air Force One. After the demise of communism America took a well deserved holiday and basked in the glory of being not just the super power but a hyper power where the second in line was so far behind that it did not matter.

Americans are fast learners and learn from mistake so learn we did. America cultivated humints, prosecuted a just war, reshaped a country and then got distracted in an unwise war of choice. No wonder Osama was free for close to 10 years. The details of his capture are now common place and any reader can find it himself/herself.

This is Barack Obama's moment of glory. While candidate Obama, like any politician, adopted lofty sentiments to shine himself up, President Obama has been a hard nosed realist. Much to the frustration of his voters time and again Obama has reiterated or continued many of Bush's policies that he once decried. What amazes me in the continuity in officialdom despite the fact that key positions are political appointments. When Bush took over he retained George Tenet, a Clinton appointee, as head of CIA. After 9/11 many thought Bush would fire George Tenet as a scapegoat. Bush did not. Obama retained Robert Mueller, a Bush appointee, as head of FBI. Obama literally angered his voters by retaining Robert Gates, another Bush nominee, as secretary of Defense. When Obama got elected but was still yet to assume power he started communicating with Robert Gates. Gates acknowledged that if he got calls from both Bush, his then current boss, and Obama, the president elect, he would give higher priority to Obama as the incoming CEO. Today when Obama has won a richly deserved glory not one of his republican opponents demurred in praising him. Heck even Rush Limbaugh praised Obama.

While the groundwork for killing Osama began in Bush's tenure Obama deserves all credit for what is a very perilous mission. We are told that for 40 tense minutes anxiety, to put it mildly, hung in the air in the situation room at White House. Any misstep could have landed in a diplomatic hot water or could potentially have crippled Obama's re-election. Like Truman said, "the buck stops" at the President's table. Across the spectrum there was lavish praise for Obama. Krauthammer too.

It was a week that started with political theater when Obama appeared almost a weakling stooping to disprove Trump's, a republican candidate to be, racist ridiculous charge that Obama was not born in USA thus constitutionally illegitimate. Then he went on a road trip to carry on his battle with republicans over deficit control. On Saturday, in the White House correspondent's dinner, he joked and laughed at Trump and at himself too. All this while he was contemplating an operation that could redefine his presidency. During the campaign when John McCain in a very stupid maneuver suspended campaigning Obama chided him saying 'a president should be able to multi task'.

Hollywood has a despicable habit of caricaturing CIA as trigger happy thugs, bumbling idiots, insensitive boors, oil hungry organizers of coups and so on to everything except honorable, intelligent officers in the service of their country. Whether its dismantling A.Q.Khan's nuclear bazaar or capturing Al Qaeda operatives or this phenomenal feat CIA has time and again proved that its an organization that keeps America safe.

Now there are those who rush to say, "we condemn Osama BUT..." and then launch into broadsides on American foreign policy plainly frustrate me. This is the real world there are no angels in the world. Starting with Noam Chomsky down to Tamil bloggers I've heard enough of this moral equivocation. Is American foreign policy completely benign? Of course not. Nor do I wish it to be. Has America made completely egregious condemnable crimes? Yes it has. There is My Lai. Then depending on how much one hates America one can have his or her pick from justifiable to the patently unfair listing of imagined crimes. Chile, the Shah of Iran, Grenada, Haiti, Philippines, VIETNAM then there is Iraq.

Lets sample Noam Chomsky. Chomsky is considered the greatest genius on cognitive psychology and linguistics yet he is mostly known for his perpetual vitriolic and acerbic criticism of USA and Israel (he is a Jew). Every book store will have some screed of Chomsky's, invariably 100% the blurb on the jacket would declare "Chomsky, the man whom New York Times, calls 'arguably the greatest intellectual alive'".

Chomsky draws a contrast between Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the US led war in his interview to Frontline, "This is quite different from the Soviet invasion. The Soviets were facing a major mercenary military force, backed by the United States and other powers. They also had additional constraints: they never bombed cities or destroyed them, and they never used what amount to weapons of mass destruction, like carpet bombs or daisy-cutters". A very specious distinction to put it mildly. Soviet Union destroyed civilians as policy unlike US. The civilian casualties in Soviet repression ranged from 1-2 million. If this is not intellectual dishonesty pray what else is?

Nothing angers me more than the tongue in cheek condemnations of 9/11 which are laced "yet did not US bring about the attacks due to its policy". The 19 hijackers came from well heeled families who were not even remotely touched US policies. If even one hijacker was a Palestinian or a Vietnamese or a Chilean or a Filippino or a Haitian I could remotely understand. Those 19 thugs had nothing but hatred fueled by religious fundamentalism.

Krauthammer in a searing column in Time eviscerates these foreign policy clingers, "Al-Qaeda always invents some excuse, some historical injury to justify its barbarism. Today Iraq, yesterday Palestine and, when all else fails, Andalusia, a bin Laden staple that refers to the Muslim loss of Spain to Ferdinand and Isabella (in 1492!). Various casus belli are served up as conditions change. Only the gullible and the appeasers buy them. Now we're told that the Iraq invasion has increased al-Qaeda recruiting". He adds damningly, "In fact, the 1990s was the decade of Muslim rescue: the U.S. intervened militarily, and decisively, to save three Muslim peoples--the Bosnians, the Kosovars and the Kuwaitis--from conquest and catastrophe. Yet it was precisely during that era of good feeling that al-Qaeda not only recruited for but also conceived, planned and set in motion the worst massacre of Americans in history. So much for the connection between American perfidy and anti-American terrorism." Only a conservative columnist can provide that crystal like clarity in brief passages. The entire column is a compelling read.

"Oh was not Osama America's Frankenstein?". "American recruited fundamentalists to defeat communism unmindful of long term consequences". Both only carry a shade of truth but serves as convenient mental constructs to simplify a world thats labyrinthine.

New York Times, in a manner that only the Times can do, published a nice section called "A survey of Books on Osama" has highlighted some good books on Osama that were reviwed in the Times. Choose especially Lawrence Wright's Pulitzer winning "The Looming Tower". Wright painstakingly lays out the winding roads that map out Osama's radicalization from Holywood watching anti-communist to jihadist anti-American. The crystallizing event for Osama is the stationing of US troops in Saudi after Gulf War-I. A war that US fought, mostly at the behest of Saudi and other Arab nations which were shivering to their boots lest Saddam run over them.

I am sick of hearing complaints about US unilateralism. Western Europe was resurrected after the ravages of war by unilateralism on the backs of American taxpayers. Hundreds of billions of dollars under the Marshall Plan stabilized western Europe. When a Libyan town faces genocide from its ruler only American cruise missiles and American tax payer money rush to its aid. Oil, Oil, Oil, Oil. Yes there is oil involved but did pontificating France put its money and weapons on the table. As a commentator observed US is NATO and NATO is US. Nicholas Kristof, resigned to pragmatic real world, wrote,"Critics argue that we are inconsistent, even hypocritical, in our military interventions. After all, we intervened promptly this time in a country with oil, while we have largely ignored Ivory Coast and Darfur — not to mention Yemen, Syria and Bahrain.We may as well plead guilty. We are inconsistent. There’s no doubt that we cherry-pick our humanitarian interventions.But just because we allowed Rwandans or Darfuris to be massacred, does it really follow that to be consistent we should allow Libyans to be massacred as well? Isn’t it better to inconsistently save some lives than to consistently save none?". Arguments anyone. Today in Iraq and Afghanistan women go to schools, vote in elections and even contest elections. In the entire Middle East today Iraq is the only country to hold a democratic election, even the ever waffling UN certified that the elections were fair and free.

Vietnam is another albatross. Who went there first and instituted a regime of terror? Who terrorized Algeria? Which country treated North Africa as its foot stool? The lover's of liberty and egalitarianism the preening French. The conduct of France in African colonies would make American imperialism look like picnic. Vietnam is a blot on America.

When Soviet Russia marched into Afghanistan Margaret Thatcher asked Indira Gandhi, as key member of NAM, to condemn it. Indira refused saying it was not aggression. This same India today rushes to condemn US. Non-Alignment. Bollocks.

When America gets attacked the custodians of human rights and flag bearers of anti-imperialism smugly lecture us about our evil ways. We never hear such lecturing when Russia is attacked as a direct consequence of its brutal suppression of Chechnya. I love to see Hindu N.Ram tie himself up in knots condemning US imperialism while being palanquin bearer for Russia's state sponsored terrorism.

After 9/11 N.Ram worked himself up into a lather foaming at the mouth advising America to "go all out to bring its authors to stern justice - justice under the rule of law and through the law courts, by marshaling and laying out evidence to convince the world, through the collective agency of the United Nations, and through pro-active international diplomacy". The title of that editorial in the Frontline Issue dated Sep 29th 2001 is "Dangerous implications of America's unjust war". Remember it was referring to the Afghan War not the justifiably contentious war of choice that Iraq was. Not content with his pontificating he orchestrated a scolding of America by Noam Chomsky at Chennai. What could be better than having a white American, that too Jewish, to scold America.

On Jan 24th 2011 Chechen rebels attack Moscow airport and kill 35, here is N.Ram's editorial in HIndu dated 26th Jan 2011, "in recent years, the virus of terrorism has spread to other predominantly Muslim territories in Russia's south and mutated to patently jihadist insurgency, which has joined hands with al-Qaeda to create an ‘Islamic caliphate' across the Caucasus...Monday's atrocity should serve as a wake-up call for Russia to curb terrorism in the Northern Caucasus as it prepares to host the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2018 World Football Cup".

Russia should curb terrorism so that Winter Olympics could go on unimpeded. That when the casualty was 35. When America is attacked in the most stupendous manner killing 2600 any declaration of war is unjust we must supplicate the UN, marshal evidence, wait for a constable to serve summons to bin-laden. Today Barack Obama served the summons as bullets to bin-laden. A Fox news viewer aptly summed it, "I am happy to know that the last man Osama saw before dying was an American".

Incidentally NYT asked Chomsky as to whether he ever thought of renouncing his American citizenship given how much he hates America. Chomsky replied, airily with no hint of sounding hypocritical, "America is the greatest country on earth".

As the news broke out around 10:30 PM EST crowds gathered in front of White House and Ground Zero in NYC. Today as I was speaking to my father the metaphor of Diwali struck me as appropriate

I found the picture above (From NYT) very interesting. Its a photo of the scene in the situation room at the White House. The President of USA is sitting on the side while some military person is sitting at the head of the table and conducting the operation. Malcolm Gladwell in his book "Outliers" talks about America has one of the lowest "power distance" equations where people are more comfortable approaching or challenging a superior. This is important when results matter.

This killing does not mean that the hydra headed terrorism is finished. Far from it. This is a pivotal turning point. A powerful symbolism but only a symbolism. It is elementary knowledge that Al Qaeda has many local variants across the globe and they are still very much alive or awaiting to come alive. Obama reiterated that. Every sensible columnist has cautioned on triumphalism.

The picture below says it all. I pass through this place every week.

A passerby at Ground Zero in NYC

Near White House.

What makes a speech great?

2011-04-29T00:01:00.000-04:00

I am one of the minority in US who does not think great of Obama's oratory. Obama puts me to sleep. I've attempted to hear his speeches many times and I'd be snoring after 5 minutes. Before people jump at me saying "republican" let state unambiguously that I love to listen to Bill Clinton. If Bill Clinton and Barack Obama spoke about health care reform in 2 rooms I'd go to Bill Clinton's room. While I was mulling on this topic I wondered about how some speeches get to be called "great speeches". As an avid one-time debater and orator I've collected such CD's and read quite a few of the so called "great speeches".

Today every school boy in US knows about Lincoln's famous Gettysburg speech, "a government for the people by the people". A historian, Gary Wills, wrote a Pulitzer awarded book, just dissecting that speech alone. But in its day the speech was not reported prominently. The speech received mixed reception in the press, in fact there are several versions of the speech, Lincoln spoke for just 2 minutes. With the passage of time and with the perspective that time enable us to appreciate of events today the speech is one of the most celebrated. Any speech attains greatness primarily from the significance of the historical background in which it is delivered, secondly from the words chosen in that order. Lincoln's choice of words rose to the occasion and remains great.

Sometimes only a fragment of a speech will attain the status of a classic and would be oft quoted. When US was literally and metaphorically shell shocked after Pearl Harbor FDR gave his famous, "a date that will live in infamy" speech. Only those words remain etched in public memory because they perfectly captured the sentiment of a nation. Amongst the nearly hundred inaugural speeches only one American President's inauguration speech is noted and quoted (rather mis-attributed), "ask not what your country has done for you, ask what you have done for your country". JFK, rather his celebrated speech writer Ted Sorensen, had plagiarized the words of Lebanese-American poet Khalil Gibran and used the words out of context. Khalil Gibran addressed the words to corrupt Lebanese politicians thus "Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in a desert." Its a citizen asking a politician if he had done anything for the country. JFK, a politician, inverted it to ask citizens. Even Obama's ardent admirers felt let down with his inaugural address because in their mind he was inheriting JFK's mantle of orator-politician.

Winston Churchill was the uber-historian-biographer-orator-politician. It was said that he took the English language to war against Hitler. Amongst his many speeches a couple stand out for some key passages that remain unrivaled in the history of public speaking. The first is his speech delivered to the House of Commons when he took over the reins from Neville Chamberlain delivering the immortal lines, "I've nothing to offer but blood and toil, tears and sweat". Hear him say the word "sweat" (near the minute marker 3:29), that's the bull dog warrior for you.

He is addressing a nation that was in dread. He does not promise anything easy, he lays it out clean and honest. He does not even promise a quick victory. He stated bluntly, "we have before us many, many, many long months of struggle". Faced with an enemy like Hitler Churchill could easily label him evil and say unequivocally, "you ask what is our policy, it is to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the long and lamentable catalogue of human crimes". Note that Hitler's tyrannies for which he will be loathed by the ages were yet to begin and whatever he had done against Jews in Germany was yet not very well known to the outside world. I've often wondered why did Churchill choose to say "never surpassed" instead of just "unsurpassed". If we read the line again then the choice becomes clear, unlike saying 'tyranny unsurpassed' the words 'tyranny never surpassed' has a staccato stabbing effect. He then declares the goal very clearly, 'victory, victory at all costs'. The speech nevertheless finishes with hope, 'come, then let us go forward'. The speech itself could be analyzed for mastery of the art of rhetoric.

During the course of the war Churchill would deliver many memorable speeches with lines that are now committed to memory by every student of history and literature. The last famous speech he gave was in US. After the war cold war had erupted and Churchill saw it with a clarity that was not apparent to many at that time. At Westminster College, Fulton he delivered what is now referred to as the Iron Curtain speech, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent" . This speech is famous for the clarity of vision that was stated plainly without befuddling the issue. There is no Obama type "on the one hand and on the other hand" hand wringing.

While I exult in Churchill's rhetoric I wonder too how come we never speak of Adolf Hitler's speeches. Hitler was known to be a great orator too. Hitler had charisma and a magnetism that did make him a successful politician. Yet by the nature of the evil he unleashed and that he was defeated perhaps has made pass by his oratorical skills. After all history is written by the victors.

All of the above pale into insignificance before Martin Luther King Jr's most famous "I've a dream" speech. (Aug 28th 1963)

A member of the oppressed class came to the capital of a country and flung rhetoric unmatched and shamed a nation's conscience. The speech was not extempore, parts of it had been delivered in earlier speeches. The language, the delivery, the structure and above all the historical significance, even its own day, all came together to create the greatest speech ever delivered in human history.

Another of MLK's speech is marked out for reasons of sentimentality. The night before he was assassinated in Memphis, TN he delivered a speech that was prophetic. He delivered what is now called, 'I've been to the mountain top speech' . MLK, the preacher, alluded to how Moses died before entering the Promised Land. Moses could only glimpse it from a mountain top before the Lord took him. MLK in words that continue to haunt, said "Like everybody I like to live a long life, longevity has its place but I am not concerned about that now, I just want to do God's will. I don't know what will happen tomorrow,....I've seen the Promised Land, I dont know if I will get there with you but I want you to know that we as a people will get there". Next day MLK, aged 39, was assassinated. In 2009 Barack Obama paid respect to MLK saying that today "the dream of a King comes true". This speech is considered great because of what happened later thus rendering it a dreadfully prophetic speech.

In the vein of rhetoric matching a historical occasion, as an Indian-American, its impossible for me to not mention Jawaharlal Nehru's speech when India was born. Nehru, with his opening lines "Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny" soared effortlessly on scales of polished rhetoric and sentiment.

The lines "we redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure but substantially" alludes to the painful partition that was underway. Nehru is supposed to have told Padmaja Naidu "I was reminded of the images of our beloved Lahore going up in flames". Capturing the essence of the moment were the words, "a nation so long suppressed finds utterance". The speech was supposed to be extempore. Amongst all the speeches cited this is possibly the only extemporaneous speech. The second occasion when Nehru found the words to address the nation at a moment of exceeding tragedy was when he had to announce the death of his beloved Bapu.

Just as MLK's last speech is appreciated because a tragic event made it prophetic and hence lent a certain greatness likewise is Ronald Reagan's most memorable speech exhorting Gorbachev to "tear down this wall". The speech, as the wiki link quotes a Time magazine report says, was little noted in its own day. Yet, today when Communism is buried and the Berlin wall remains as dismantled pieces in museums across the world (and in people's homes too, my aunt who lived in Germany at that time has a piece).

Reagan was famous, or notorious depending on the readers political leaning, for labeling Soviet Russia as "Evil Empire". That moral clarity is brought out in this speech that he delivered in front of the Berlin wall. Reagan, in short simple lines, drew a contrast between the prosperity of the west and decrepit state of all communist states. Prisons and houses both have walls but with a key difference. The walls of a prison are there to prevent people from leaving of their own free will. Communist Russia erected such walls. Jamming radio waves, disallowing foreign broadcasts, severly restricting travels of its citizens and finally a wall to keep them inside. A wall complete with, as Reagan points out, "dog runs, barbed wires". Suddenly he gets blunt and says in words that are simple yet forceful, "Mr Gorbachev, 'tear down this wall'". Listening to an American President challenge an oppressive regime with moral clarity and with words that are unambiguous the German crowd, waving American flags, erupts into an applause.

Amidst all these speakers where does Obama fit? Nowhere. His most famous speech, possibly the only one he will be remembered for, is the one he delivered in John Kerry's 2004 Democratic Convention. Obama, a partisan ideologue, waxed eloquently about how "there is no red America or a blue America, there is only the United States Of America". His body language and gestures betray a nervous speaker, which he was. The words are trite, given that it was said to a partisan crowd that was there only to applaud he naturally was rewarded with a raucous applause. The one other speech that his admirers might point to is his speech on "Race" that he delivered to defuse the Jeremiah Wright crisis that almost derailed his run for the presidency. I found it to be a pabulum yet his palanquin bearers ranging from Cornel West to the common voter thought it to be scholarly. Krauthammer, as always, differed.

The success of Obama the orator was chiefly possible ONLY because Bush had been President. Barack Obama owes his Presidency, Nobel Prize and his fame as intellectual etc only because there was George W Bush as president for 8 years. As Obama's ratings plummeted, especially during the health care reform, his supporters wondered where was Obama the candidate who could sway thousands. He was, in their view, talking more like a professor, endlessly prevaricating, endlessly hand wringing. It is a frustration that only seems to grow by the day.

Historical background, latter day events, choice of words, clarity of vision, the indefinable chemistry that a speaker shares with the audience all go into making a speech as a great one for the times to come. Obama fatally falters in articulating a vision even when a historical revolution in Egypt comes across he delivers a speech that was shamefully inarticulate. Words are not a problem for Obama, articulating a vision is.

Gandhi and Lincoln: A Life of Evolving Ideas.

2011-04-25T22:40:00.000-04:00

Joseph Lelyveld's, just released, "Great Soul:Mahatma Gandhi and his struggle with India" created a furore in India. Gujarat government immediately banned it before anyone had read it. The furore centered around two issues. First, and the most inflaming, was Lelyveld's imputation that Gandhi might have had bi-sexual impulses. Second was Lelyveld delving deep into how Gandhi, the one who became Mahatma, was forged in South Africa. A recent sad trend in India is for Dalit leaders and Dalit opinion makers to trash Gandhi as racist while uncritically praising Ambedkar. Everyone can choose whom they want to idolize but when we choose to trash someone we need some justification. Meena Kandasamy, a Dalit activist, ruffled a few feathers by quoting Gandhi from his days in South Africa, about blacks. A post office used to have two entrances, one for whites and another for the rest. Gandhi had written that "Kaffirs" (referring to blacks) should not be clubbed with Indians, the latter being superior to blacks. The quotes supplied by Meena Kandasamy were accurate. The online edition of Gandhi's "Collected Works" has them verbatim. [“Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilized - the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like animals.” ~ CWMG, Vol. VIII, pp. 135-136] So shall we label Gandhi as 'racist'?

The 2011 Pulitzer for the best book on an American historical subject went to Eric Foner's "The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and Slavery". Just as Indian kids learn about how Gandhi was a Mahatma, American kids learn how Lincoln ended slavery, though a tad little less hagiographic. Lincoln, as anyone with a little deeper knowledge of history would know, had very jaded opinions on blacks. While he was strongly anti-slavery he did not believe that all men were 'created equal' as Jefferson, the slave owner, wrote in "Declaration of Independence". Foner, writes, "while his racial views changed during the Civil War, he never became a principled egalitarian.."

A little perspective helps us to appreciate Gandhi better. The institution of slavery remains America's 'original sin'. George Washington who decreed that his slaves are to be free men after his wife's death in his lifetime would go to great lengths to recapture a slave who had escaped. Thomas Jefferson famously sired an illegitimate child with a slave while declaring that all men are created equal. It would be childish to decry all of them as arrogant hypocrites. Far from it they were struggling between what they knew was right versus what was possible when a country was being willed into becoming. Abraham Lincoln became president fully aware of the slavery issue and knew full well that as President he would have to address either wholly or in part. In a sort of historical passing of baton Lincoln was killed 4 years before Gandhi was born in 1869. Unlike Lincoln Gandhi was born into a society that was steeped into racism for centuries and lacked an intellectual framework that challenged such evil. Anti-Slavery abolitionism, intellectual opposition to slavery were rigorous in America for a long time, in fact ever since its birth. Slavery in America did not gain the religious sanction, or at least to the level that casteism enjoyed in India. Gandhi's stay in London was not a period of intellectual fermentation. In fact he went to great lengths to keep his famous promises to his mother. It is this man who came to South Africa.

Eric Foner admirably cautions, "the problem is that we tend too often to read Lincoln's growth backward, as an unproblematic trajectory toward a predetermined end. This enables scholars t ignore or downplay aspects of Lincoln's beliefs with which they are uncomfortable- his long association with the idea of colonization, for example- while fastening on that which is most admirable at each stage of his career, especially his deep hatred of slavery". Foner then invites the reader to trace lIncoln's "growth, as it were, forward, as it unfolded, with sideways and even backward steps along the way".

Thanks to the movie Gandhi is even more sanitized and fossilized. Most Indians who have never read a full length biography of Gandhi are shocked and swayed when Meena and others fling accusation from selections that lend heft to their personal agendas. The same Gandhi who wanted separate doors for Indians was also one who would later slap his wife for not cleaning the toilets of a low caste ashram inmate. This was the same Gandhi who would choose to stay in the huts of outcaste when he toured. He would eat their food.

Lelyveld has done a signal service to Gandhi in fleshing out the evolution of Gandhi. Every schoolboy in India knows how Gandhi was thrown out of a train because he was brown skinned. Lelyveld adds a little known fact. Gandhi wrote about that incident to the train company and got a free ticket to travel first class again, which he did complete. In a long life like that of Gandhi's there are always new events that can be teased to throw some new light. Gandhi, Churchill, Lincoln, Napoleon, Einstein are all a biographer's delight.

Gandhi lived through a very tumultuous era. He judged appropriately within his time. Malcolm X is a firebrand Afro-American leader who was famous for his violent speeches that, unlike Martin Luther King Jr, decried any pacifist approach towards white America. In Malcolm's view both races could never co-exist. Till last month the most famous biography of Malcolm X was the one by Alex Haley. Manning Marable's recently published biography had a shocker. Malcolm X had met with the violence prone white racist group KKK (Ku Klux Khan) to negotiate separate living spaces. Its akin to a Jewish leader negotiating with the Nazis. Marable goes on to write that after Malcolm X parted ways with "Nation of Islam" his views on racial reconciliation started to mellow and mirror King's approach. Lives like that of Gandhi, Malcolm X, Abraham Lincoln etc were all lived amidst very turbulent times, they were involved in redrawing centuries old social boundaries. Their lives caused tectonic shifts and they themselves had to first undergo such shifts within themselves.

It is one thing to call Hitler an anti-semite but to call Gandhi anti-Dalit only portrays an amateurish attitude towards a very complex life. Anyone is free to disagree with his convoluted, at time nonsensical too, logic of preserving components of Hindu religious structure but to attribute malicious intentions is sheer injustice. Let us learn to appreciate lives in their rich spectrum. Very rarely in life do we come across sheer evil like we saw in Hitler or Stalin or Mao. Even rarer, or shall we say never, is to see complete unsullied good.

A short note on Lelyveld's biography. Leyveld is no cheap sensationalist. He is a Pulitzer awarded writer who has worked in South Africa for decades. When evidence emerged that Jefferson had a child through a slave within hours that information was incorprated in the guided official tours at his residence in Monticello. Annette Gordon-Reed who wrote a biography of that episode was awarded a Pulitzer and to cap it was also selected as a "MacArthur Genius". Jeyamohan, a noted contemporary writer in Tamil, chides America for indulging in such tabloidism and slyly imputes a Christian conspiracy behind such maligning of a historical figure loved by Hindus. He forgets that America is the country where "The Last Temptation of Christ" was screened. Also see my earlier blog on free expression in USA http://contrarianworld.blogspot.com/2011/03/protecting-speech-we-do-not-like.html .

The Book I love Most

2011-04-15T17:55:00.000-04:00

I’d name “The Story of Philosophy” by Will Durant as the book that best mirrors my soul. “Story” pips the post against “Atlas Shrugged”.

First published in 1926, the book has never been out of print for 85 years. Durant’s magnum opus, “The Story of Civilization” spanning 11 volumes written over 3 decades is out of print. “Story of Philosophy” is still the most loved introductory book on Western Philosophy possibly outselling the more scholarly “A Brief History of Western Philosophy” by Bertrand Russell.

Durant had completed his doctoral thesis in 1917 and was teaching at Columbia University when he started writing on western philosophers for the “Little Blue Book Series”.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Blue_Books These books were intended for the working class and were extremely popular. Simon and Schuster evinced an interest to collect these lectures into a book and thus was born “Story of Philosophy”. Dr Durant had divided the book into 11 chapters with 9 chapters focusing on individual philosophers starting with Plato, running through Bacon, Spinoza, Voltaire, Nietzsche, and Kant etc to Bergson with roughly 50 pages devoted to each. The last two chapters dealt with “Contemporary European Philosophers” and “contemporary American Philosophers”.

In his preface to the second edition published in 1933, Durant, very disarmingly, notes “many of the criticisms were disagreeably just. The Story of philosophy, was and is, shot with defects”. That, was from an author whose book was successful and is being re-published in a revised edition. Then he charmingly apologizes for excluding scholastic philosophy, “forgivable only in one who had suffered much from it in college and seminary and resented it thereafter as rather a disguised theology than an honest philosophy”. Throughout the book Durant’s sense of humor and candor adds levity to an otherwise tough subject. He regrets having omitted Chinese and Indian philosophy and says he atoned for it in the first volume of his “Story of Civilization”.

Page after page after page is filled with quotes he has gleaned from prodigious reading to illustrate the subject at hand. He draws on Browning, Plato, Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky in the first page to outline the uses of philosophy. “We are like Mitya in the Brothers Karamazov – ‘one of those who don’t want millions, but an answer to their questions’”. The quintessential western attitude of self-deprecatory humor is evident when he quotes Cicero, “there is nothing so absurd but that it may be found in the books of the philosophers”. When he is not quoting others the accumulated wisdom of his readings is distilled into shining prose, he differentiates Science and philosophy, “every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement”.

Durant rivals a screenplay writer in introducing the philosophers. Racing through how geography of Greece contributed to its politics and culture he culminates with Critias being killed on a battlefield, “Now Critias was a pupil of Socrates and an uncle of Plato”. With that line he then open the scene for Socrates. His transition from the chapter on Aristotle to Francis Bacon is sheer mastery of drama. Within one year Alexander, Demosthenes and Aristotle had died, Durant writes the closing passage of Aristotle, “within twelve months Greece had lost her greatest ruler, her greatest orator and her greatest philosopher…For a thousand years darkness brooded over the face of Europe. All the world awaited the resurrection of philosophy”. One could imagine the drums roll with the curtain falling in between two acts. Then comes Francis Bacon.

Will Durant wanted to reshape how history was written by historians. He called his approach “integral history”. He would not write about historical events in isolation but present them as ‘integral’ to a larger picture. In just a paragraph Durant gives a vivid portrayal of England in the time of Bacon. “Her literature blossomed into Spenser’s poetry and Sidney’s prose; her stage throbbed with the dramas of Shakespeare and Marlowe and Ben Johnson and a hundred vigorous pens. No man could fail to flourish in such a time and country, if there was seed in him at all”. The very first paragraph on Schopenhauer presents in highly stylized prose in most succinct nature the cultural setting from Schopenhauer sprang forth.

The biographical sketches are brief and filled with wit. The chapter on Voltaire abounds in sharp wit and many a tongue-in-the-cheek remarks. The romance of Voltaire and Mme Du Chatelet is famous. Chatelet was married, no surprises to a marquise. With her husband’s knowledge, we are talking about the French here, she took Voltaire as her lover, “the morals of the day permitted a lady to add a lover to her ménage, if it were done with a decent respect for the hypocrisies of mankind; and when she chose not merely a lover but a genius, all the world forgave her”. Why was Schopenhauer so pessimistic? Our teacher turns a psychologist here. Schopenhauer’s mother, a famous author herself, was domineering and considered her son a competitor. “A man who has not known a mother’s love-and worse, has known a mother’s hatred-has no cause to be infatuated with the world”.

The care to introduce the philosophers is matched and sometimes exceeded by how Durant gently leads us into the complex ideas that those philosophers spent a lifetime to craft and expound. Baruch Spinoza’s ‘Ethics’ is considered to be the most abstruse philosophical text alongside Immanuel Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason”. Durant cautions us, “Spinoza is not to be read, he is to be studied; you must approach him as you would approach Euclid”. The teacher in Durant shines when he, a tad patronizingly but wonderfully, suggests “Read the book not all at once, but in small portions at many sittings. And having finished it, consider that you have but begun to understand it. Read then some commentary, like Pollock’s ‘Spinoza’ or Martneau’s ‘Study of Spinoza’; or better, both. Finally read the ‘Ethics’ again; it will be a new book to you. When you have finished it a second time you will remain a lover of philosophy”.

Immanuel Kant has the reputation of being the most obtuse philosopher. How could the hoi-polloi approach a book that Kant’s contemporary returned half read saying he feared insanity if he completed it? Durant the teacher becomes a cartographer. “Let us start at various points on the circumference of the subject, and then grope our way towards that subtle centre where the most difficult of all philosophies has its secret and treasure”. Then he plots the “roads to Kant” via Voltaire, Locke and finally Rousseau. Each section, less than a page, is like a master composer leading the listener through scales of ascending music which then bursts into a full symphony.

What about criticism? There is ample measure of it. Each philosopher is succinctly criticized by Durant the philosopher. He does not merely echo some opponent’s criticism but wears the robe of a judge himself. Francis Bacon is considered the father of modern science, especially experimental science. The Royal Society, in England, has a bust of Bacon as its patron saint. Bacon is chided that “while laying down the law of science, failed to keep abreast of the science of his time. He rejected Copernicus and ignored Kepler and Tycho Brahe”. Not content with that chiding Bacon gets scolded too, “In truth, he loved discourse better than research”. His work was “full of repetitions, contradictions, aspirations, and introductions”. Having criticized him sharply Durant then applies a balm, “he (Bacon) broke down under the weight of the tasks he laid upon himself; he failed forgivably because he undertook so much”.

Only death, the finale, remains. Francis Bacon contracts illness experimenting with a fowl to find how flesh can be preserved from putrefaction by being covered with snow. Bacon’s words in his will are cited “I bequeath my soul to God…My body to be buried obscurely. My name to the next ages and to foreign nations”, Durant the closes with, “The ages and nations have accepted him”. Nietzsche, insane in the twilight days of his life, hearing a talk of books muttered, Durant says, his face lit up, “Ah! I too have written some good books”. The concluding line is profound, “He died in 1900. Seldom has a man paid so great a price for genius”. Schopenhauer is concluded with the lines, “in an age when all the great seemed dead he preached once more the ennobling worship of heroes. And with all his faults he succeeded in adding another name to theirs”.

What impressed me deeply was Will Durant’s prodigious effort in reading not just the principal texts but biographies and criticisms. Out of his accumulated reading he weaves a tapestry that is rich and can be done only by a person who did not merely read but digested and subsumed all that he read in his bones and blood. Without that kind of assimilation the style of writing that glides from persona to another, from one idea to another, from one era to another is not possible. To that he adds a typical Western mind that does not stand in mute wonder in confronting hallowed names and much revered ideas. Foibles, fallacies and weaknesses of person and theory are not swept under a rug. Nor do we find tabloid sensationalism. Especially when dealing with Bacon’s personal weaknesses (he was corrupt and imprisoned) or Voltaire’s many foibles Durant is very conscious of their cultural milieu and is gentle. Durant does not shy away from playing favorites or discarding that which he considers inferior. He chooses Benjamin Jowett’s translation of Plato as the best to read amongst many. He picks his favorites amongst Bacon’s essays.

Francis Bacon in his essay on “Books” says there are books to read, skimmed and a few to be “digested”. “The Story of Philosophy” fits that last rare category of books to be digested.

Thiruma and Ramadoss: Perils of Caste Politics.

2011-04-11T23:51:00.001-04:00

This is a distasteful topic to write and will be even more distasteful to read. I ask the forbearance of the reader. As much as it might be disgusting to write in a certain vein using certain terms (caste based) I am convinced that anything less would be dishonest. Better to be disgusting than dishonest.

A month back when the Tamil Nadu election shenanigans started Tamils in USA started dividing along caste lines disguised under ideology. If somebody supported a party, his/her (usually 'his', Tamil women are silent on politics) caste would be cited as the reason by others who did not agree. Amongst friends charges of casteism flew thick and fast. One blogger tarnished another for the latter's support of DMK as thinly disguised Mudaliar casteism. The latter challenged the blogger to apply to Ramadoss the yard stick the blogger had applied to criticizing DMK. Needless to say the blogger was Vanniyar. Amongst friends, most are now US citizens and well educated, knowledge of who belonged to what caste is common place. NJ has caste based organizations which draw quite a crowd.

It is a common trope that lack of education is the root cause of casteism. I am disappointed to say that nothing is further from truth. Education, exposure to wider world, being part of a mature democracy in USA/UK etc etc have done absolutely nothing to mitigate caste impulses of most Tamils. Some Tamils in UK, I hear, are very particular about marrying off their children on caste lines, social ostracism akin to what is practiced in villages is not unheard of in UK.

I am no sociologist, nor do I aspire to be one. Many might find what I say is unfair or skimming the surface. However I'd ask the reader to pause, digest and THEN criticize.

I ran a cursory glance on the list of DMK alliance. One fact struck me. DMK had practically ceded contesting in most reserved constituencies to VCK (Thiruma). VCK in turn cheerfully says that even if DMK falls short of absolute majority they (VCK) would support it unconditionally from outside without asking for any share in the ministry. Of course then down the line the same VCK would then decry how Dalits are not represented in the corridors of power and for good measure would concoct conspiracy theories spun around the usual suspects, Brahmins.

VCK, in its website, laments "காலமெல்லாம் காடு கழனிகளில் உழைப்பதற்காகவும் தேர்தல் காலத்தில் வரிசையில் காத்திருந்து வாக்களிப்பதற்காகவும் மட்டுமே பிறந்தவர்கள் என நெடுங்காலமாய் வஞ்சிக்கப்பட்ட மக்களை அமைப்பாக்கவும், அரசியல் சக்தியாகவும் வளர்த்தெடுக்க வேண்டும் என்கிற அடிப்படையில் விடுதலைச் சிறுத்தைகள் கட்சி இயங்கி வருகிறது". If something passes for sleight of hand that passage gets the prize. Since 1930's, the much debated Poona pact, reserved constituencies where ONLY Dalits could contest have been in existence for 82 years. Here is VCK claiming that Dalits were only used as vote banks and lacked political power. DMK, the party that endlessly calls itself pro-backward, has been in power on and off for 45 years, with brief interludes by its ideological twin ADMK. (Staunch DMK sympathizers might cringe at that characterization). Here is VCK's chance to stake a claim to some plum ministry and leverage it to further the interests of their community yet they choose to "enthrone Kalaignar", in the words of Thiruma.

Thiruma, as part of ADMK alliance in 2006, called MK as traitor to Tamil race and challenged MK to prove if he had done anything of consequence for Tamil. He then called forth his people to vote for ADMK. Today, 5 years later, in 2011 he is singing MK's praises and is calling forth his people to vote for DMK. For 2004 what does VCK list as Thirumaa's accomplishment, "நாடாளுமன்ற பொதுத் தேர்தலில் தி.மு.க அணியில் தாழ்தப்பட்ட சமுகத்தினருக்கு உரிய 'அரசியல் மதிப்பு' மறுககப்பட்டதாக சட்டமன்ற உறுப்பினர் பதவியிலிருந்து விலகல்.(3.2.2004)." (http://vck.in/vck/pages/suvadukal/suvadukal.html) Incidentally in 2006 VCK got 9 seats from ADMK, in 2011 they got 10 seats from DMK. Probably the one extra seat is what they refer as " உரிய 'அரசியல் மதிப்பு'".

In the page that lists Thirumaa's achievements what struck me was how few issues were Dalit centric. Let's take two very recent issues that really affected Dalit community. First, the Ambedkar law college incident where one group of students (Dalits) beat another student (Thevar) mercilessly. The fracas had a larger background of Thevar students pointedly refusing to add the name of "Ambedkar" to a college function notice. One can guess why and easily trace the arc of hatred. Thiruma was missing. More recently tens of Adi-Dravida students blocked Mount Road in Chennai causing a gridlock. THe issue was the deplorable condition of Adi-Dravida hostels. Frontline (as DK/DMK people endlessly point out, 'Brahmin' owned) ran a detailed story that laid bare the gross decrepit state of those hostels. The food served was such that no human being could eat, rooms were no better than toilets, gangs controlled occupancy of the rooms and much more. Thiruma's voice was conspicuously absent. His beloved Kalaignar was the CM, hundreds of crores were being spent on these hostels. Needless to say who ran the mafia that controlled room occupancies. The achievements page has ZERO mention of any struggle to uplift access to quality education, access to hospitals in Dalit villages, no agitation for ending two-tumbler systems, no policy paper by educated Dalits on challenges faced by Dalit graduates, one could go on. Thirumaa as MP has posed only six questions in 2+ years since he became MP, not one of them pertained to any burning issue of Dalitsonly six times in the parliament, only 3 of those speeches have anything to do with Dalits and even then they were not of any substance.

Reservation quota is a pet topic of Ramadoss and Thiruma. Quota are presented as cure-all panacea for any ills that may plague their societies. Its not out of place to note that nearly 50% of PMK candidates are crorepathis, as per their own election affidavit, including a history sheeter, Guru. Nearly 50% of all candidates are crorepathis (not one of them is Forward Community, all are BC/MBC).

Whether its Ramadoss or Thirumaa or any caste leader they all do serve a constructive purpose when they start out. Ramadoss made it possible for many in his community get ahead thanks to his tree-felling agitation that garnered a seperate quota for MBC's. The bane of reservation is that the first few years or a decade only benefits the applicants there after the creamy layer corner all the seats. Today if one analyzed the so called backwardness of many students admitted, especially in MBBS, it would be difficult to point to any student and say "he is a true beneficiary as intended". Put simply Ramadoss' grandchildren, studying in premium convents in Delhi, are eligible for quota just like any dispossessed Vanniyar. It is anybody's guess as to which child would ace the +2 exams and really enjoy the fruits of that quota.

Ramadoss and Thirumaa have done gross injustice by treating their communities as voting blocks. Its sad that the people too, by giving their loyalty, do injustice to themselves. Does it matter to a Dalit or Vanniyar that KamalHassan named his picture as "Mumbai Express" or that Khushbu advocated safe sex? Yet both Thirumaa and Ramadoss, aided by their goons, caused havoc to both Kamal and Khushbu.Khusbu ironically is campaigning for Thiruma's alliance. (Another irony is a North Indian girls with a HIndi tattoo campaigning for DMK, a party that once tarred any Hindi hoarding in TN)

Ramadoss sets the standard for unscrupulous politics. The man who vowed that neither he nor his family will seek power shamelessly barters for his son's Rajya Sabha seat. This man, who Thirumaa exults as "thamizh kudi thaaangi", sent his son to Montfort school. My cousin, a die hard admirer of Ayya Ramadoss, was transfixed by how eloquently Anbumani spoke at Johns Hopkins University. The same cousin, like other Ayya followers, then cheers Ayya for fighting for Tamil medium education.

Both Thiruma and Ramadoss cheer the "heroine" of the election, DMK's manifesto. Veeramani, enthused that the DMK manifesto for 2011 is a heroine just as 2006 manifesto (promising color TV's) was a hero. Veeramani then proceeded to sternly tell tamils that voting for DMK is the only way to stave off Arya rule that is waiting to take over and spoil Tamils. While Kalaignar TV and Tasmac spoiled Tamils Veeramani went missing. The DMK manifesto is totally silent on funding better schools, providing good teachers, more schools, student accessories etc. Ramadoss, now wants exclusive quota and Karunanidhi cheerfully says "I've never said no to him, I'll gladly concede this". A friend commented, with no compassion, "now FC students will have to study even harder, this is good". Today FC's need to score 99.5% to get MBBS or Anna University. I don't know what that friend meant by "study harder". Hitler treated the Jews no worse.

Thirumaa would shriek every now and then on Eelam. He met Prabakaran and started thinking he was one himself after all did not his party's logo sport a tiger too. Incidentally a descendant of a member who was murdered in Keezhvenmani, the most notorious caste conflagration, is contesting the election. There is no support for her from any so-called Dalit enthusiasts. DMK government, supposedly friends of Dalits, was then blamed for in its inaction leading to Keezhvenmani. If Rajaji had been CM, Veeramani and his ilk would be croaking till today ad nauseum about Aryan conspiracy. Even today this conflict is not spoken of in bold unvarnished terms without raising the shackles of many 'caste' hindus (euphemism for non-brahmins who practice casteism).

Politics makes strange bed-fellows. VCK being part of ADMK, a Thevar dominated party, was an irony given the number of fatal clashes between both communities going back all the way to 1957 Immanuel murder. ADMK enshrined Muthuramalinga Thevar as a demi-god, renamed Chamiers Road in Chennai as 'MuthuRamalinga Thevar road'. "Guru Poojai', celebrating Muthuramalingam, became a huge affair during Jaya's first tenure, Madurai would be tense and paramilitary forces would be needed to keep the peace. When MK named a bus corporation after a Dalit, Madurai burned. Journalist Vasanthi who went to Madurai recorded how even 10 year olds swore death to anybody who boarded those buses. Whether its a ten year old or Facebook group moderator casteism is alive and kicking. Education, age etc are nothing when it comes to such animal instincts.

Today VCK and PMK are bed-fellows. Vanniyars are instrumental in preventing Dalits entry into temples, notably the Draupadi temple. Burial grounds are still separate for Dalits. Pappapatti and keeripatti panchayat elections are bywords for anti-Dalit violence. Only the communist party fights for desegrating Dalits who live behind walls in some towns. No wonder Thirumaa is not vocal on any of that. Instead he is vocal on Tamil, Eelam, Babri Masjid etc that are of no concern to a Dalit villager. He claims that his friendship with Ramadoss has prevented caste clashes in the south. Is this is how one has to maintain peace one wonders?

Thiruma's politics has been counter productive, misleading, and of no use to Dalits. His failure to speak out on issue owing to political compulsions is inexcusable and questions the very need of his party's existence. Ramadoss's politics while yielding fruits in the short run has proved to be inimical and again, of no use, to vanniyars.

Politicians focus on short term gains and even by that standard both of these leaders, especially Ramadoss, have torn into the fabric of the state. Today TN stands divided along caste lines as never before. While it was a practice of political parties to field candidates along caste lines today that is the first criteria. Every election analysis by individual or vernacular magazine starts without mentioning what caste is dominant in a constituency. Only then does the analysis go into the needs of the constituents. Reservation quota politics is largely to blame for this state of affairs. India has enshrined casteism in an iron framework.

DMK which came to power having as its main cause the upending of Brahminical hold on power (a questionable trope by itself) has much to answer for why caste parties exist despite having had access to untrammeled brute power for 50 years. That each caste, every one of them listed as backward or 'most-backward', feels they need to have their own political outfit despite the fact that the dominant political parties paid homage to uplifting each supposedly backward community. What is the rationale for PMK's existence? Why did DMK fail to address that community's need within its political framework? Why VCK? Where did DMK and ADMK fail to give expression to the aspirations of Dalits? That castes felt the need to organize exclusive political outfits to further their interests show cases the failure of the polity.

Another dimension I see to the rise of caste parties is that such exclusive organizations nurture a confrontational attitude. When Vanniyar, Thevar, Dalit, Chettiar etc all jostle within one political outfit there would be a tendency to be more accommodative. The diversity of a political party brings an ideological sheen that passes purely sectarian concerns. Caste parties take sectarianism to a level that tarnishes its members and creates schisms that are more permanent.

The election results on May 14th will hold the key to the future of TN.

Obama Pivots Towards Re-Election

2011-04-05T21:42:00.000-04:00

The Obama administration has a profound sense of irony. Obama announced his formal re-election bid on Monday. The same day his administration reversed its position to prosecute 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) in a civil US court. KSM will now face a military tribunal in Guantanamo. In a very revealing comment Tom Daschle, mentor to freshman senator Obama, said in a documentary that he advised Obama to run for presidency despite being a freshman senator. Daschle said he told Obama "since you are new you will not have any votes to defend". Yes, that's how Obama started, emboldened that he had nothing to answer for. After 4 years Obama will have a lot to answer for.

When Obama delivered his, barely noteworthy, inaugural address he chided Bush for undermining the image of America with military tribunals and Guantanamo. Bush was wistfully looking away into the heavens while the pompous lotus eater delivered platitude after platitude after all never having had the need to shoulder any governing responsibility Obama had sailed into office powered by bromides.. Actually for all those who liked some parts of Bush's presidency especially the clarity on the necessity of wire tapping, Guantanamo, military tribunals, advocating a surge strategy to shore up a sagging war, tax cuts etc Obama is our candidate. On every one of those President Obama brazenly overturned candidate Obama. At least he is not ideologically beholden.

The problem for his beloved left wing is that he is not ideologically beholden. When Obama and Pelosi presided over the worst drubbing Democrats had received in a generation the chatterati were busy lecturing how he should learn from Bill Clinton but everyone wondered would he learn. Learn, he did, in lightning speed. Obama replaced his outgoing chief of staff with a dyed in the wool Wall Street veteran sending his worshippers into an apoplexy. To add insult to that injury, in what he dressed up as pragmatic politics, he shook hands with republicans extending the much reviled Bush tax cuts. Does anybody remember how every democrat shrieked from every available roof top how those tax cuts were for the rich and how they HAVE to be rolled back? Obama was its cheer leader only to abandon it with zero concessions from the republicans infuriating the left.

Obama's constituency is less than glassy eyed now. Many independents have deserted him by the droves. Republicans who voted for him are no longer in his camp. The left is mostly bitter. When he named abrasive foul mouthed Rahm Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff the 'Change' candidates sheen started dimming. When he appointed one ex-Clinton official after another the 'change' devotees started scratching their heads as to why they did not vote for Clinton herself. Finally he capped it off by appointing Hillary as secretary of state. The real rub was re-appointing key Bush appointee Defense secretary Robert Gates. Of course his spin masters went overdrive calling him a Lincoln for our ages. If appointing ones electoral foes is all it takes to become a Lincoln then one could argue that any cigar smoking politician is a Churchill re-incarnated.

Obama, to his credit, also has several signal achievements. Health care reform is still a battle that is far from complete. He completely muddled the reform then regained the initiative but failed to sell it as an achievement. Ending 'dont ask don't tell' for the military making it possible for Gays and Lesbians to serve openly corrected a long standing sore point in the last bastion of moral conservatism, the US military.

All the rest pale into insignificance before the gargantuan task of steady the US economy that was staring into the abyss. Though Bush took the key unpopular decisions Obama continued them (yet another reason for those like Bush's leadership on crises t o support Obama). He again angered the left appointing as Secretary of treasury a typical Wall Street guy, Tim Geithner. He continued to anger the left by re-appointing Ben Bernanke as Fed Chairman. Now the left was wondering if the Obama Presidency is nothing but soaring (as they call it) oratory papered over Bush+Clinton appointees.

The economy, no credit to Obama, is doing better. That its not doing better is entirely due to Obama and democratic congress muddling over the so called Financial regulation. Unemployment while edging down is still at 8.9%. Under-employment is much higher. Housing is stuck. Home prices fell appreciatively last year and continues to fall.

So, can Obama be defeated? Yes. Is his defeat to be taken for granted? Not at all. In the post-world-war-II presidency only three times have sitting Presidents been defeated. Gerard Ford lost due to the shadow of Watergate and his pardoning of Nixon. Carter was defeated for his defeatist attitude. Despite winning a war and despite the economy starting to rebound an increasingly out of touch George H.W.Bush lost. Reagan and Clinton won the presidency by convincing Americans that they need to change their president and that they are better off with a new comer.

A republican candidate has to convince average Americans that they would fare better under a new president. Name calling, whining about Obama, scaremongering etc will not win the presidency. A candidate has to articulate an alternate vision, convince voters that he/she would deliver it.

While Obama has fired the first salvo, Republicans are still sitting out. Obama is now setting the agenda. Obama's money machine is now going into overdrive. Obama is widely expected to become history first $1 Billion candidate shattering all spending records. Of course he will decline public funding. In 2008 he broke his handwritten pledge to take public funding. Of course a few editorials bemoaned that hypocrisy his spin masters won the day saying he needed to unshackle himself to face the republican message machine and thinly disguised corporate donors. Today the same reasons are offered. It was a blatant lie in 2008, its a blatant lie in 2012.

While many names are doing the rounds amongst republicans no one is a clear front runner. This is a first for the GOP which believes in anointing a candidate unlike the raucous Democrats. Any republican candidate has to raise money for a lengthy primary and then raise more money to face Obama the money machine. Note that any money Obama raises is reserved exclusively for the general election.

A sitting President has some formidable advantages. He owns the bully pulpit. He is still the President anything he says or does is effortlessly afforded important news cycle. His constituency is out there to propagate and defend his positions free of cost.

The challengers are not without advantages either. In debate after debate during lengthy primary season Obama will have to endure partisan criticism on prime TV with no way to offer defensive repartees. An entire year would go by before he could offer face-to-face rebuttal. While Obama's cash advantage is forbidding, that alone cannot guarantee an electoral win else Rockefeller would be president. Obama himself learnt that lesson during the Pennsylvania, Texas and Ohio primaries. Despite being the presumptive nominee he outspent Hillary 3-to-1 only to lose. Despite his cash advantage over McCain his win, while solid, was not a landslide and was not an easy one.

In a final ironical twist Obama enters his election year having invaded a Muslim country. I intend to blog separately on the Libya War. Suffice it to say yet again President Obama conveniently overruled candidate Obama. As candidate Obama had said US President can send armed forces into a conflict, without express approval from Congress, ONLY when there was imminent threat to national security. At all other times, then candidate opined, the President has to seek congressional approval. As President he gladly sent US armed forces into combat, in a situation that has no imminent threat to US security, without even meeting congressional leaders let alone getting Congress' approval. Coming to think of it I wonder is there any position of his that he has not repudiated.

Jayalalithaa: A modern Cleopatra

2011-03-28T23:04:00.000-04:00

The passing away of Liz Taylor has rekindled interest in her blockbuster “Cleopatra”. I’ve watched it many times and recently I was struck by how much Jaya and Cleo have in common.

Mark Antony comes to Cleo to negotiate a treaty. Cleo asks Antony to kneel. Antony is livid and reminds her that he is pro consul of the Roman empire. Seething with rage Cleo retorts, “I asked it of Caesar, I demand it of you”. Ministers prostrating at Jaya’s feet (a practice started by MGR) reached such levels that they became staple jokes. Once she was to chair a meeting of IAS officers. The officers all waited for her to enter the room, standing. No one dared to sit even in her absence. The worst incident was when Sedappatti Muthiah, now with DMK, prostrating to her in the Assembly after he got elected as speaker.In an interview after losing power in 1996 Jaya claimed that she did not like it and told her party men not to do it. I guess she was vying to make her name synonymous with 'self deluded'.

Cleopatra’s love of the extravagance is well known. Jaya, in her first stint, astounded TN with flagrant display of extravaganza. 1000 car retinues followed her. Cho Ramasamy memorably said "அவர் ஐய்யங்கார் இல்லை ஆயிரம் கார்" . Her royal highness need a/c's on stage. Cleopatra and Jaya were obsessed with astrology. If Cleopatra's dinners were legendary so were Jaya's. Jaya's meeting with Narendra Modi was known more for the lavish spread of lunch than for any policy discussion. How Jaya received her guests, at door or not, was itself news.

Both were thrust into the world of men at a very young age. Jaya had just finished her 10th exams when her mother pushed her into movies. Jaya's first movie was rated as "A" because she appeared in sleeveless tops, being less than 18 she could not see her first movie in the theaters. Cleopatra had her Caesar. Jaya had MGR. Both lived down their lives as "the other woman". Cleopatra was not a native Egyptian. Jaya's lineage is not clearly known. Cleopatra, modern historians assert, was a very shrewd and intelligent person who used her seductive skills to protect her fledgling kingdom. Jayalalitha has impressed many with her shrewdness and decisiveness. Both are equally impulsive thus undoing what they achieved. Both were avid lovers of books. The movie shows Cleopatra being anguished seeing the famed library of Alexandria burn. Jaya is supposed to be a voracious reader.

When Cleopatra first meets Caesar, in the movie, she jeers that Rome needs Egypt for money and grains. She clearly understood who needed whom and why. She needed Caesar to overcome her brother. Caesar needed her riches. Knowing the power equation she tried to use it to her best interest. When Mark Antony tries to summon her very cleverly Cleopatra makes him understand that Amtony needs her more than she needs him. She had the money. She could choose to deal with Antony or if she wishes Octavian.

For decades Congress had taken Tamil Nadu for granted. When Indira drubbed in North after Emergency only the south provided her succor. Though MP's from Tamil Nadu occasionally wielded some ministries never where TN MP's respected as a power bloc. All that changed one summer when an imperious Jayalalitha pulled the rug from under Vajpayee. North India was dumbstruck seeing a woman from South address the press from the Rashtrapathi Bhavan, in Hindi, saying she had withdrawn her support to the BJP government. Her misadventure cost India Rs 5000 crores, she lost her clout as BJP returned back to power aided by her bete noire DMK. But TN was never taken lightly after that.

Both shared a love for pearls. The best known photo of Jaya in her younger days showed her wearing a single strand of pearl necklace. The foster son marriage (now disowned) showcased that she could easily outdo Cleopatra in shameless display of wealth. World press billed it as Rs 100 crore marriage.

Cleopatra was ruthless to anyone she deemed a threat. Thugs in autos became a sad joke about Jaya's first regime. Subramaniam Swamy, Chidambaram, Seshan, advocate Vijayan all bore the brunt of her anger.

Above all Jaya and Cleo share a fatal trait, the unseemly desire to self-destruct themselves. Mark Antony commanded a good army but Cleopatra compels him to fight Octavian at sea, a task that his army is highly unsuited for. The Battle of Actium is a disaster.The movie depicts how Cleopatra deserts Antony. Antony then deserts his army chasing her. When it appeared that Jaya's comeback has very good chances she went and ruined it by her sheer arrogant treatment of Vaiko. Tamil Nadu was just astounded to see Vaiko being humiliated and wondered if she would ever learn.

Cleopatra and Jayalalitha are shrouded in mystery. Jaya, even in this modern age, is a puzzle that nobody has understood or found a clue to. She is not an approachable person, she has written a thinly veiled auto-biographical fiction yet much remains unknown about her. Just like Cleopatra we know Jayalalithaa only through men whether its her opponents or the media. Only in 2010 did Cleopatra get a female biographer.

Corzine and Karunanidhi: Bribing Voters.

2011-03-27T21:55:00.000-04:00

There is lot of brouhaha on Karunanidhi's freebies (and Jaya's response). Offering subsidies for weaker sections is indulged in by politicians across countries, sometimes out of a good intention but mostly as a means to fleece votes. DMK rode to power based on providing subsidized rice to the poor. So what differentiates the color TV scheme, and its repugnant offsprings that threaten to derail a state by tearing into whatever was left of the deplorable moral fabric of a people, from other subsidies?

Jon Corzine, ex-governor of New Jersey, provides a good template to differentiate subsidies and voter bribes masquerading as freebies. NJ is a state that is practically broke thanks to corrupt politicians and public exchequer busting benefits to unions. Here was Jon Corzine who ran on a platform to reform NJ with his vaunted business skills. After all he ran the most feared money-machine on Wall Street, Goldman Sachs. Corzine, democrat, got elected. NJ's woes worsened, NJ rolled down a slippery slope of financial ruin. Corzine was roundly defeated in his re-election battle by a very unlikely candidate. Chris Christie, Republican, set about bringing order to chaos and stumbled upon a stash of $90 million dollars that lay undistributed. Corzine, the good Democrat that he was, had levied a TAX on cable TV provider Comcast in order to subsidize Cable TV programs for elderly in hospice care. Christie flew into a rage asking 'since when was watching Cable TV (not broadcast TV channels, like ABC CBS etc, that are already free) a fundamental right that needed a tax on a corporation'.

THAT captures the venality of what Karunanidhi unleashed. Progressive taxation and welfare schemes for the weaker sections is part of every economic system in the world. its part of politics in every country. Promising subsidized rice or shielding the poor from the ravages of the market is one thing, to dole out what is classified as 'luxury' is sheer bribery. Till date Rs 10,000 crores (or possibly more) has been spent on doling out the TV's. I've DMK friends who non-chalantly says "what could he do, it was a strategy". Beware, those are traitors to people who would not, in their blood lust to see Karunanidhi get elected, hesitate to sacrifice any Tamilian. When MK promised the TV's not many believed he would follow through that's why he could not ride to absolute majority based on the TV promise but that catch promise helped him become a minority government. MK has earned credibility in keeping up the promise because his targets are elsewhere. Thanks to him today Tamilians have been reduced to beggary. There is an unseemly eagerness to see what MK would announce? Vikatan had a very chilling comment by a woman "உசிலம்பட்டியில், 'ஜெயலலிதா வந்தா, சட்டம் - ஒழுங்கு சரியா இருக்கும். அதிகாரிங்க பயப்படுவாங்க. நிர்வாகம் சரியா நடக்கும். அதனால எங்களுக்கு என்ன பிரயோஜனம்? கலைஞர் வந்தா, டி.வி, மிக்ஸிலாம் கிடைக்கும். அதனால கருணாநிதிக்குத்தான் ஓட்டுப் போடுவேன்’ என்றார் ஒரு பெரியம்மா." Even if one ignores her credit to Jaya for good administration its frightening to think that a citizen values her personal safety negotiable with a freebie. It was pathetic to see DK's Veeramani applaud this manifesto as 'heroine' and call for Tamilians to help elect DMK and defeat Aryan designs. Periyar must be turning in his grave.

The poor do not realize the pernicious effects of such schemes. The middle class and the rich think "I do not care, it does not affect me". Not a SINGLE citizen is left untouched by the direct and indirect effects of such schemes. A good example is the Kalaignar Insurance Scheme. TN, like the rest of India, runs Government Hospitals which are provide almost free medical care to anybody who comes, thousands of crores are already being spent on those hospitals and doctors. Yet the conditions in those hospitals are deplorable and they are rife with corruption. Even the most poor man 'prefers' to go to a private clinic. MK comes riding as the knight in shining armor and announces a scheme to cover medical care for 'life threatening' diseases. Private hospitals and doctors rush to advertise that they welcome patients under that scheme. Reason was simple, profiteering. Hospitals overcharged, doctors over billed, prescriptions were padded, pharmacies and drug manufacturers prospered, tests were ordered unnecessarily, again prices were inflated. A total web of corruption ensnared the medical fraternity. Of course the poor patient got his heart repaired. What he did not realize was that in the process of this all round thievery medical costs soared due to an inflationary aspect for EVERYONE. This same poor patient now when he goes for an ordinary illness, which is not covered, pays inflated costs. THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH.
The laws of Physics eventually catches up. Government set aside only Rs 500 crores to be given to insurance companies. The inflated bills, systemic fraud etc now has compelled insurance companies to deny bills. By the way the insurance is provided by private insurers not government owned LIC's. Now add on the inflationary cost to get insured.

When food prices soared some dimwits blamed capitalism and the fact that India is now trying to liberalize. Take the Kalaignar Housing Scheme. Cement prices and construction material prices have soared due to demand thus raising the cost of construction. There is shortage of labor, their prices have shot up. When cement price hots up MK steps in and forbids the cement manufacturer to raise his prices beyond what MK thinks is fair price. Each of these schemes destroy and skew the operation of free market. What is worse they skew it in favor, not the poor, but the corrupt. The poor slum dweller thinks he gets a home but thanks to corruption and unfair pricing controls what he gets is a home of pathetic quality. Now having contributed to inflating labor prices, the woman carrying bricks who enjoys her new pay is now forced to pay more for the vegetables she buys. Round and round it goes distorting every economic activity beyond recognition.

I'll NOT blame the poor man or woman who votes for DMK drawn by such schemes. They do not know better. I've seen literate PhD's (from American Universities), people who are educated and have been exposed to a much wider world, behave no better than the woman who said "கலைஞர் வந்தா, டி.வி, மிக்ஸிலாம் கிடைக்கும்". Education, I find, is often of no avail. In fact I now wonder what is the purpose of being educated, especially when I think of casteism amongst Tamilians in US & UK. That needs a separate blog by itself.

What is the difference between politicians like these and a drug peddler? Who is a leader? What makes a person a leader? I think of Gandhi who made Indians rise up to the best within them. A famous scene in the movie 'Gandhi' is the depiction of Salt Satyagraha at the Dharasana Salt Works. Charlie Sheen, playing Webb Miller of NYT, files a report (I quote from wikipedia in full)

"Not one of the marchers even raised an arm to fend off the blows. They went down like ten-pins. From where I stood I heard the sickening whacks of the clubs on unprotected skulls. The waiting crowd of watchers groaned and sucked in their breaths in sympathetic pain at every blow.Those struck down fell sprawling, unconscious or writhing in pain with fractured skulls or broken shoulders. In two or three minutes the ground was quilted with bodies. Great patches of blood widened on their white clothes. The survivors without breaking ranks silently and doggedly marched on until struck down. When every one of the first column was knocked down stretcher bearers rushed up unmolested by the police and carried off the injured to a thatched hut which had been arranged as a temporary hospital."

A leader is one who makes a people rise about their collective weakness. Not one who makes a people collectively weak and corrupt. TN is being reduced to abject beggary. Like Bharathi said:

விதியே... விதியே! தமிழர் சாதியை என் செய்ய நினைத்தாய்?’