Hindutva Bigotry in America

Two years back I attended an event that featured Subramanian Swamy, a rabid Hindutva demagogue, in New Jersey and blogged about the event as "Subramanian Swamy and his parallel universe". Swamy who had recently been fired by Harvard University for a racist column worries me least unlike the Indian-Americans who were cheering his call for 'viraat Hindu'.

Indian-Americans, who are mostly Hindu, enjoy the liberal secular atmosphere of America. Today the White House celebrates Diwali, the First lady joins a Bollywood jig, Empire State Building lights up in tricolor on August 15th and Indians take out 'India day parade' in many American cities on August 15th gleefully waving the tricolor. Hindu temples, many are extravagantly lavish, dot the landscape across America and are mobbed during Hindu festivals. Schools in Edison, NJ have declared Diwali a holiday. Indians have an association for every language and caste in US with each declaring and fervently believing that they are the most superior. Local libraries, however cash strapped they are, buy Hindi books (and Mandarin and Korean). It is common to see Indians celebrate Diwali at offices replete with women bedecked in garish sarees. Corporate cafeterias serve Indian food. Princeton University Hospital serves Indian food for patients. Indian-Americans have been appointed as CEO's of mega-corps. The Smithsonian museums has organized an exhibition to celebrate the cultural contributions of Indian-Americans, a very recent group of immigrants, to America. E Pluribus Unum, indeed.

The single most frustrating attitude of many Indians is their steadfast and smug refusal to learn anything from America and American culture. Step into any Indian association function and you'd not see it conducted in any way different from how it'd be conducted in Chennai or Ahmedabad. And I don't say that as a compliment. We Indian-Americans enjoy the fruits and liberties of a pluralist society and yet how many even look at our Indian attitudes in the mirror? Indian attitudes on race, religion, caste and language remain very firmly Indian. I've time and again written how unflatteringly and overtly racist references to Afro-Americans and Chinese are made by Indians in personal conversations. All that  pales into insignificance when one looks at the sheer vitriolic hate propaganda by Hindutva brigade in US.

A Hindutva hate monger from US, using a fake ID on Facebook, posted a shameful article titled 'The untold census story' with a picture of a Muslim man driving a two-wheeler with 6 family members as passengers. The article stokes a standard Hindutva propaganda about increase of Muslim population percentage that outstrips Hindu rate of population increase. Its a fact. But to pretend that 130 million Muslims will outnumber 800 million Hindus is sheer fantasy. This trope about changing demographics and its implications for Hindus is a perpetual scare tactic by Hindutva brigade. That Hindu American, part of a million plus and counting influx of Indians, forgot that the US might not be a caucasian majority in 30 years. And that is due to just immigration, most of which is illegal, unlike India where minorities are citizens for nearly a 1000 years. And by the way the word 'minority' is a completely misleading term when we refer to a people number 130 million which is one half of US population.

Muslims have larger families in India and the 'family planning' drives by Government healthcare policies do not reach enough into those communities. An American commentator would look at reasons beyond scaremongering. Poverty and lack of family planning go hand in hand. Most Indian Muslims are stuck in grinding poverty. Also Indian healthcare policies for family planning only target women, given the male chauvinism of Indian males, it runs counter to Islamic principles. Simple but powerful facts that elude a mind filled with hate. By the way I know that entire American neighborhoods have been taken over by Indians driving out Americans who could not afford the rising prices anymore.

'Uniform civil code' is another pet fetish for Hindutva hate propagandists. Oh so innocently they would point to Western countries and ask "don't they have a single code for marriage etc". Western countries, unlike India, did not have to, until recent times, deal with religious minorities to a great extent. Let us take a few simple very mundane examples to see how Hindu Indian-Americans feel when they run into 'uniform' laws.

Americans love religion and religious people. It is common for a church to become famous and outgrow its size when the congregation multiplies. When that happens quite often the church, either by itself or at the request of authorities, would move to location thats suitable to the growing size. America has strict codes for parking spaces, how a large community center can fit into a residential area, traffic impact etc.

A temple in Chantilly, VA grew in size way beyond what was originally projected as possible size of members. Good. Great. Enjoy. With increased numbers comes problems. Indians, as Indians do, parked cars haphazardly in front of driveways of homes. Noise levels increased. Any home owner will be displeased seeing strangers, by the hundreds, streaming in and out of his/her neighborhood. Don't tell me that its not so in India. Complaints started pouring in and county officials requested the temple authorities to move the temple as churches do. Washington Post ran a story on this. The Hindu community dug in their heels saying that as per Hindu custom once the deity is consecrated in a certain place the good lord takes root there and cannot be uprooted. Unlike what Hindutva brigade wants for minorities in India the American authorities did not throw the book but opened a dialogue with the community and tried to work amicably.

Time and again temples run into one problem in America. Expansion. The concentration of Indians in pockets makes temples in that vicinity to grow exponentially. The relative affluence of Indian-Americans makes fund raising a cinch for temples. Many temples roll in considerable wealth. Customarily Americans like to keep their residential areas pristine with least commercial activity and when community centers like churches and temples rise up they would like it to blend into the neighborhood and not tower over it. It reduces property values. When temples present ambitious expansion plans they run into local opposition. Of course, without fail, Indians will cry 'racism'. As if one could construct a church or mosque in a Hindu neighborhood like Mylapore in Chennai. Sure there will be some racist element but by and large both civic officials and judiciaries have been firmly on the side of law. More often than not civic officials engage in dialogues. Nobody dare say smugly "this is America and the law is this go fly a kite".

Jamaica Bay in Queens is a protected site for bio-diversity and it is also the favorite dumping ground for Hindu ritual offerings. Park rangers have been repeatedly frustrated with the pollution of the bay by Hindus who make sacrificial offerings there and sometimes even float dead bodies as they do in Ganges. The bay is indeed referred to 'Ganges'. A New York Times articles notes that that park officials opened, yet again, dialogues with the community to impress upon them the idea that protected water cannot be messed with. A park official told NYT that he appealed to the Hindu spirituality of respecting the environment. Poor guy he does not know that Indians, Hindu or not, have no respect for the environment.

Empire State Building in Indian Tri-Color.

A Hindutva fanatic, from India, claimed that Christian and Muslim heritage in India amounts to only 'interactions' with Hindu heritage and in that too it only amounts to collisions. An American Hindutva fanatic eagerly clicked 'like' for that. I'll save the demerits of that argument for another blog. The American fanatic had learned nothing from America. Indians came to US by the thousands only during the dot com boom and thereafter. A very recent arrival. Yet America celebrates the new kid on the block. American mayors grace Indian association meetings and pay tributes to Indian communities. Carnatic exponent Chitraveena Ravikiran organizes a unique blend of Carnatic and Western classical music called 'Melharmony' with active participation from Wisconsin based musicians. Wisonsin has now declared a 'Melharmony day'. I've, as usual, my own carping about that but the point is how America is eager to embrace new cultures and how somebody living in America has failed to imbibe that trait.

The Smithsonian recently organized an exhibition on the most popular cultural export of India, yoga. In that occasion historian William Dalrymple, author of best seller 'Last Mughal', reviewed four books connected with yoga in New York Review of Books. He points out that Muslim scholar Alberuni had translated the yoga sutras of Patanjali. It was under the aegis of Jahangir, then Salim, that Hindus wrote and painted the asanas. Chief among them was, Dalrymple says, Govardhan. The Smithsonian exhibition was based on those paintings. Dalrymple also reviews two other books which pokes a hole through this myth of yogis being docile and peace personified. 'Sinister yogis' by David Gordon White and 'Warrior ascetics' by William Pinch speak of very little known violent side of Hinduism beyond the well known violence of casteism that is. Whether it is the inability to appreciate Gandhi or the achievements and failures of Nehru or the complex histories of religion and conquests I'd blame, squarely, the pathetic Indian education that not only fails to prepare the student's mind for subtleties but instead teaches dumb truisms. I am livid with rage and feel like puking at the illiteracy of my fellow Indian-Americans about how cultures overlap, influence each other and contribute, even if unwittingly or unwillingly, to each.

Indian languages are a recent entry to US and yet, thanks to efforts of community enthusiasts, American schools now accept proficiency in parents mother tongue by children as 'proficiency' in a foreign language and give educational credits. I disagree with that as policy but its a common 'trick' by many ethnic communities. Again, the point is how America embraces diversity.

Many Brahmins in UK and USA eagerly shared on Facebook the news that a British school was teaching Sanskrit to its pupils. I saw nothing for Indians to be proud about. How many Brahmin run educational institutions would teach Urdu, a language of enviable richness for poetry, a language with hundreds of years of history in India itself? Indians love to beat their chests when somebody else adopts theirs ideas or culture but rarely do they feel they too need to not just return the favor but enlarge their own narrowness.

One American argued with a Tamil writer that Jesus Christ was a 'myth' and not 'history'. I just wish that he held his beloved BJP to the same standards and asked why bother about a temple for a mythical character. Hindutva brigade in California raised a ruckus over how India and Hinduism is portrayed in California textbooks. Of course, historical accuracy or the lack thereof is an inconvenient irritant when it comes to ones own cherished beliefs. Thankfully American educational system, which is adept in beating back Christian fundamentalists denying evolution, with support from Hindus with better sense beat back such an attempt. These are the same people who look at Muslims smugly for seeking to ban unflattering texts in India. These bigots tried to make an India out of America.

Oh, by the way these bigots might smirk at the attempts of some Christians to subvert the teaching of science but completely forget that a totally spurious subject called 'Vedic Mathematics' is peddled across Hindu neighborhoods in America.

Another pet peeve of Hindutva bigots is screaming about how Indian Muslims would cheer for Pakistan in a cricket match. It does happen and as much as I dislike it I'd not condemn it altogether because that is not as simple an issue as it is often presented. But how do Indian-Americans acquit themselves on the issue of loyalty to America? In other words shall we subject Indian-Americans to the same litmus test that the bigots want for minorities?

Whether it is 9/11 or the Devyani Khobragade issue I've heard and read Indian-Americans nonchalantly mouth anti-American idiocies. Most Indian-Americans still look at America through the prism of its foreign policy as they would judge a foreign country.

The India Day Parade held in observance of August 15th is the most faction ridden, we are Indians after all, and mostly Hindu flavored. Christians and Muslims have little or no presence in these parades which are dominated by Gujarathi Patels. In New Jersey two factions went to court seeking injunction against the other party from taking out a rally. The court informed the factions that it is un-American to prohibit anyone from taking out a rally. How little those Indians had understood America is evident in that lawsuit. This applies to the various Sangams too. I've not heard of Tamil sangams celebrating Christmas or Ramadan. In fact non-Hindu memberships in Tamil sangams is abysmally low. It does not even strike the organizers that this needs to be addressed. Diversity is still an alien idea to Indians as a concept to strive. Indians enjoy the fruits of the American idea of diversity without imbibing it as an idea in their own lives.

Macaulay had more appreciation of the richness of Indian heritage, Hindu and Islamic, than what any of the Hindutva bigots have, in 21st century, for other cultures, both foreign and domestic. Indians prattle endlessly about the racist tendencies of the colonizers but gladly indulge today what some, not all, dim witted Europeans showed towards others.

If one perused the headlines of New York Times and Washington Post over the last 5 years one would find articles that worry about growing income inequality, need for all kinds of diversity (gender, racial and ethnic) in books and movies, diversity at workplaces. An Indian-American heads Microsoft, women head IBM and GM and are now breaching combat operations in the army.

One of the articles in Washington Post dealt with whether women should be integrated into combat units of the army and addressed if women can do the same physical exercise benchmarks as men. An army commissioned report said that many of the physical exercises in the army tradition are practically designed with men in mind and bare little relevance to real military situations hence could easily be altered to accommodate women. This is how diversity is practiced in America. If glass ceilings should be broken then we need to question paradigms. Hate mongers live life in rearview mirror hashing out how to frame policies today remembering what Ghazni and Aurangazeb did 500 years ago. On that score a few myths need to be laid bare and some selective outrage need to be questioned. All that in coming blogs.

In deep red-neck Texas a University hosts a Muslim fraternity complete with prayer halls. America's universities were once headed by christian theologians and hosted chapels. Princeton University Chapel is a gothic grandeur. Today, Yale, Princeton, North Western and Georgetown universities have Muslim chaplains. JP Morgan Chase offers investments that adhere to Sharia guidelines. A New York Times article highlighted how Muslims are entering Wall Street now and 'shaking up' the old boys network.

Couple of years ago I spoke to the fake ID guy and broke up saying "I can say that if Muslims happen to work under you they will not be treated fair". I was reminded of that remark when I recently saw his Facebook posts and patted myself for my prescience. This guy who huffs and puffs hatred in every post about every imagined danger to Hinduism has not posted a single news article or comment about the inhuman treatments meted out to Dalit Hindus even today across India. That clearly show that selective outrage is targeted only at his imagined enemies.

Challenges remain and any country or any society can always do better and so should America. Amidst these changes these Hindutva bigots are a blot on a great religion and a great country (I mean America).

References:

1. "Hindus find a Ganges in Queens, to Park Rangers Dismay" - New York Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/nyregion/hindus-find-a-ganges-in-queens-to-park-rangers-dismay.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0

2. Subramanian Swamy at 'Hindu Unity Day' in NJ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4joynLxhFbI

3. My blog on Subramanian Swamy http://contrarianworld.blogspot.com/2012/07/subramanian-swamy-and-his-parallel.html

4. 'Fraternity life, Islamic style' - New York Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/education/edlife/greek-life-islamic-style.html

5. 'Muslims on Wall Street, Bridging Two Traditions' - New York Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/business/muslims-on-wall-street-bridging-two-traditions.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

6. Book Reviews by William Dalrymple - 'Under the spell of yoga' - New York Review of Books - http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/mar/06/under-spell-yoga/

Terror at Godhra and What Secularism is NOT

L.K. Advani gifted political discourse a poisonous word, 'pseudo-secularism'. 'Pseudo-secularism', Hindutva ideologues tell us, is the specious perversion of secularism whereby the minority community gets a carte blanche and worse an insulation from criticism whereas the majority community is game for criticisms and judgments ranging from the valid to the ludicrous. This criticism of secularism in practice is done solely with a view to discrediting the very idea of secularism and never for calling out hypocrisies. 

Political columnist and staunch anti-Hindutva ideologue Gnani Sankaran in a recent TV interview played into the Hindutva lobby by whitewashing the grotesque terrorist act of burning a railway coach full of Hindu pilgrims by a Muslim mob at Godhra which in turn set off the deadly Gujarat riots that left hundreds of Muslims and Hindus dead. 

From Guardian News Paper.

Asked why there was a failure to condemn Godhra Gnani tried to rationalize that those who died in the 'accident' were 'Kar Sevaks' (those who lend a hand for the construction of the controversial Ram temple in the place of the destroyed Babri Mosque). He further piled on that as a human being he feels sorry for the dead but just as one does not condemn the death of Hitler so too he cannot condemn this act. This is shameful, to say the least. Helpless women and children were killed in a cold-blooded and carefully planned act of terrorism. 

Ward Churchill, a University of Colorado professor, to cite a parallel, famously referred to the 9/11 victims as 'little Eichmanns' to suggest that the victims were not innocent and therefore it was ok to kill them. 

Even as George W Bush was being hated around the world he was loved warmly in Hindu India. Bush was a true friend of India but one reason why Hindu India loved him was because he unflinchingly labeled 9/11 as an act of Islamic terror. He bluntly said that he wanted Osama Bin Laden 'dead or alive'. To Indians who have been subject to acts of terrorism which its leaders would refuse to call it by its name this was welcome news. 

Identifying itself as 'progressive and liberal' many media outlets and intellectuals, usually on the Left, would be too eager to call out Hindu fundamentalism while imploring all India to be 'understanding' of acts of terror when the perpetrators were Muslims. If those who perished in Godhra were Kar Sevaks and therefore did not need anything more than customary sympathy what would Mr Gnani say of the poor patients in an intensive care unit at a Government Hospital in Coimbatore where members of Al-Ummah had planted bombs? Stop this hypocrisy. This hypocrisy is injuring the cause of secularism much more than what Modi and Advani can instigate. 

Secularism is not denial of any religion but that principle by which each person gets to practice his or her own religion and the state steers clear of favoritism. Karunanidhi, supposedly a self identified atheist, would never lose an opportunity to poke fun of Hindus or their cherished beliefs but would meekly submit himself to adorning a Muslim skull cap or accept blessings from Christian priests. When Narendra Modi refused to adorn a Muslim cap offered by a Muslim priest there was furore. Secularism is not where one gets to impose his religion on another. As constitutional functionary Modi should not be showing any favoritism and that is all we can ask of him. And Modi, though a chief minister, is an individual too who is free to worship or not worship as he deems fit. My issue with Modi is not that he is Hindu or worships at a temple. 

Congress party is a master of playing vulgar politics wherein, while lecturing on secularism, they would seek the diktats of the high priest of Jumma Masjid. Asked if his party is encouraging dynasty politics by promoting his son M.Karunanidhi gruffly replied 'my party is not the Sankara Mutt'. Hindu outfit leader Rama.Gopalan shot back "it is only in Jumma Masjid that the inheritor is a son". 

Even in movies it is Hindus or a section of Hindus, especially Brahmins, that come in for liberal ridicule. I'd support it as free speech and also self-depractory irreverent humor towards gods is a very Hindu trait too. But when such liberty is exercised only towards one religion it smacks of hypocrisy. 

Not even Muslim theocratic states spend on their citizens for undertaking Haj. It is absolute hypocrisy for a secular state to be paying for religious pilgrimage by one community. The cost to the exchequer in 2009 was a whopping Rs 800 Million ($140 Million) approximately Rs 70,000 per person. The Indian government spends Rs 200 per Hindu pilgrim on a pilgrimage to Mansarovar in Tibet. Ironically several Muslim leaders themselves have said, as it is factual, that this is against Islamic law. A Muslim is supposed to undertake Haj on money saved by him. 

All that said it is also often true that Hindus wield considerable power as voting blocs and that power is time and again used to cover up for crimes of the high and mighty.

The Mumbai blasts of 1993 were a direct consequence of the total impunity with which Bal Thackeray was able to carry out a riot killing hundreds of Muslims in Mumbai. The Sri Krishna committee said that Thackeray operating like an army general. Thackeray did not spend even an hour in jail. 

It is not uncommon to see Hindu sadhus wield enormous political power and even in the face of overwhelming evidence of illegalities they are seldom arrested. Whether it is Bangaru Adigalar or Baba Ramdev the much feared Indian Income Tax department is toothless. 

Gnani is at his gadfly best when he called out the hypocrisy of India's TV channels ranting over the siege of Taj Hotel in Mumbai, during the attack of November 2008, where the rich and powerful were holed up. He wrote a column decrying the selective outrage of TV channels that almost totally ignored victims at the train station who were poor unlike the Taj patrons. I wish Gnani apologized for that thoughtless remark and strengthened the idea of secularism. 

The myths of pseudo-secularism are aplenty and deserve a debunking separately which will follow soon. I wrote this column today so I could do that debunking without anyone asking about this. Pseudo-secularism is a bogey of hypocrisy with a sinister agenda and I shall deconstruct it brick by brick.

References:

1. Gnani's interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVi_kaWfnMA

2. Ward Churchill's comments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Churchill_September_11_attacks_essay_controversy

3. Modi refusing Muslim cap https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-09E-t9RJj0

4. India loves Bush http://www.pewglobal.org/2006/02/28/india-pro-america-pro-bush/

5. Coimbatore Bombings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Coimbatore_bombings

6. Frontline (sister publication of Hindu) whitewashes Godhra http://www.frontline.in/static/html/fl1915/19150110.htm .

7. Haj Subsidy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haj_subsidy

8. Column by Gnani on Hotel Taj siege - 'Hotel Taj: Whose icon is it' - http://openspace.org.in/node/808

How Obama Became Bush (and Worse)

Barack Obama came to his history making inauguration in 2008 like a Caesar. His entourage rolled into Washington DC like a Roman triumph. Millions flocked to see the nation's first black President take oath and turn their back on George W Bush who departed for Texas with an approval rating that was the worst for any departing president since Nixon. Bill Clinton won in landslides and became the first democrat to win two terms after FDR and yet he never won 50% of the popular vote. If seen in terms of popular vote it is a fact that a majority of the country voted against Bill Clinton. Clinton's approval ratings, even today, is something that Obama can only yearn for. Bush scraped by the 50% in 2004 after the humiliating controversial win of 2000. In 16 years no candidate had so comfortably won the plurality of the popular vote as Obama did in 2008 and then repeated in 2012. Today, Obama's approval rating matches that of what Bush had at his 5th year. If predictions come true Obama would've led Democrats to a defeat in the coming midterms the same as Bush did in 2006.

Gone are the soaring dreams. Gone are the lusty cheers of 'yes we can'. To cap it all, this week fellow liberal and Democratic Senator, from California, Dianne Fienstein has accused CIA of spying on computers used by Congressional staff. The man who rode to office promising America that he is the opposite of Bush now looks not just like Bush but, alas, like Nixon.

Edward Snowden, I now agree, is a hero. He laid bare an Orwellian state at great personal cost. Whatever his motivations maybe what he did was a signal service. The tentacles of Obama's state apparatus has shocked a nation beyond compare. New York Times called it 'data hoover' (referring to a popular vacuum cleaning brand name).

The unravelling of the Obamacare rollout was an embarrassment for a candidate who sought to prove that 'smart' government will disprove the critics of 'big' government. Big government is not to be feared, the candidate reasoned, if it was smart. After spending $300 million the government rolled out a website that was unmitigated showpiece of shame. Time magazine cover story ripped into what a botched rudderless rollout it was. Obama sailed to his unexpected re-election on a much a written and admired data operation. When it was his money he engaged the best. When it was the tax payer money he was disconnected and did not care what was happening.

President Bush, much to his own detriment, refused to fire Donald Rumsfeld even as Iraq slid into chaos and Abhu Ghraib became notorious. He was pilloried for sticking by loyalty. Presidents don't like to fire senior staff because it shows they erred in picking them up in the first place and accepting that something went wrong seriously. Obama has steadfastly refused to fire his Secretary of Health Kathleen Sibelius for the Obamacare rollout debacle.

Bush came to office pledging 'nation building at home not abroad'. Candidate Bush said America will no longer be the world's 911 and that America must be a humbler power. Then 9/11 happened and the rest, as they say, is history. Obama came to office vowing to end wars. He succeeded in ending the Iraq war but drags on in Afghanistan. He stunned his voters by retaining Bush's Secretary of defense Robert Gates and then proceeded to infuriate his voters by adopting Bush's Iraq surge model in Afghanistan.

When Romney said that Russia is America's enemy number one the media, the Obama campaign and finally Obama himself mocked him for that. Obama delivered a punch line at a Presidential debate on foreign policy telling Romney that "the 80's called and they want their foreign policy back". America laughed and Romney was defeated. Today Romney has the last laugh while Putin shows Obama who is America's enemy. Now a majority of Americans also agree with Romney.

Obama, who thinks his gifts of oratory are unmatched powers for persuading anybody to 'follow' his lead told the Russian Prime Minister Medvedev that after the 2012 election he'll have more 'room' to negotiate. The remark, which Obama thought was said privately, was broadcast to the world courtesy an open mic. War weary America shrugged it off saying "well thats ok. He is right in a way" and re-elected Obama.

'America is declining' is a theory floated by anyone who wants to write a bestseller. Its a cottage industry. Obama believes that he is midwifing America's transition from a super power to a 'first among equals' nation. American exceptionalism is now a dirty idea. Unable to tame spending Obama is goading the Pentagon to downsize the American military to levels before World War II. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor America was less prepared for war than Netherlands. The new idea that's gaining currency is that no longer America needs to have an army of this size to fight two ground wars. The new wars are won with drones and cyber hacking we are told.

When Bush left office many predicted that Obama will America lovable again. After all candidate Obama was cheered by thousands of Germans even without any significant foreign policy ideology. Apparently Germans forgot that once upon a time they cheered Reagan's bluntness in telling "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall". Today America is hated no less than it was under Bush. In parts of Pakistan, Eastern Europe and other places there is nothing but hatred and disdain for Obama's listless leadership theory of 'leading from behind'. 'Leading from behind'? What's that? France wanted to invade Libya with America leading from behind. They ran out of ammunition, literally, in one week. So much for a world that can carry on without America.

Liberals who chafed at Bush's legislation for secrecy and torture are now squirming in shame seeing Obama draw up lists of who should be killed in the Oval office. When Obama administration frames guidelines in such a way as to undercount civilians killed in drone attacks the preening pompous liberals squirm in silence.

Trying to discredit Hillary and Bill Clinton Obama often decried 'the politics of divisiveness'. Bill Clinton retorted that he fought the fights that needed to be fought. Obama's voters swooned at the promise of a new era of civility and comity in that most fractious blood littered battlefield in all of earth, Washington D.C. Today Obama announces in his state of the union speech that going forward he will working without Congress with a 'pen and a phone'. What a fall from the lofty arrogance of a silver tongued orator who thought he could remake the world with words.

Ah, words. Who would've thought that Obama will be the least persuasive salesman on every key policy initiative that he sought to roll out. His admirers blather that he talks 'professorially' that many fail to understand and therefore fail to support his policies. I guess in their idea a professor is one who is inarticulate and confuses his pupils. Obama went to Bill Clinton, that famed triangulator, to help sell his dreams.

During the heated primaries of 2008 the most heated debate was at South Carolina. Seeing her dreams of a coronation slip away Hillary turned pugnacious before the South Carolina primaries. Obama, in a back handed compliment, told a radio interviewer that Ronald Reagan was a transformative president. Hillary pilloried him for calling Reagan as transformational. Then Obama qualified that what he meant was not a compliment.

I watched Reagan's speech at the Brandenburg gate in which he flung the gauntlet to Gorbachev and clearly spelled out the contrast between the free world and communist totalitarianism. He did not mince words. He underlined the vast destruction that communism inflicted on half the world and the sickening poverty it brought upon continents. Its a clarity of version and boldness in articulation that Obama can only dream of.

America is not a country in decline. America is ready for turning the 21st century too like the previous as an American century. What America needs is a President, a leader, who sees that America is that fabled city on a shining hill.

Today Washington Post reports that NSA has the ability to record 100% all the telephone calls made in a certain country (identity unknown) and also replay calls made 30 days prior. What a denouement for a man who declared in his first inaugural speech, an unremarkable speech, that America need not choose between values and security and that such choices are false choices indeed.

Obama has earned his place in history as America's first black President. Nothing more. 

Arizona's Intolerance, GOP's Bigotry and Liberals' Hypocrisies

I am often asked why is it that I don't write about issues and problems relating to USA. I usually don't feel like writing about them because US is very good at a vibrant discussion. Also, say on Ukraine, can I add to what Anne Applebaum writes? Today, having witnessed a good deal of debate on a shameful bill in Arizona I do feel that I need to write because I think some issues have been swept under the carpet or glossed over.

Arizona state legislature has passed bill SB1062, called in short as 'Freedom of religion' bill. The bill awaits Governor Jan Brewer's, Republican, signature. The bill was spearheaded by state GOP. Republican presidential nominees John McCain, senior senator from Arizona and Mitt Romney have called on the governor to veto the bill. Megacorp Apple has issued a warning that the governor should veto the bill. NFL has threatened to cancel next year's Super Bowl in Arizona costing the state many millions.

The bill gives the freedom to business owners to refuse service to customers if they thought such service, depending on who the customer is, would violate the owners' religious beliefs. If a gay or lesbian couple entered a store the store owner could refuse service to them on grounds of his/her religious belief. This, the bill's sponsors say, protects the religious freedom of business owners. And, forcing the owners to serve everyone would violate the personal religious freedom of a business owner.

A lot of ire, deservedly, is directed at GOP and Republicans in general for this bigotry. This is a shameful bill. Afro-American TV anchor Van Jones said on CNN that not too long ago considered blacks to be inferior based on their own interpretation of the Bible. Jones asked, a supporter of the bill, if such discrimination too should be protected as freedom of religion. The guest nonchalantly pointed to the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to US constitution to say that it cannot be done because discriminating on the basis of race was illegal but there is no such amendment to protect against sexual discrimination.

Liberals are chortling over GOP's moment of harakiri. That's sheer hypocrisy. As part of Obamacare all employers were mandated to provide free birth control to women employees. Catholics who run a lot of hospitals and schools rose up in uproar saying that they, as Catholic employers, cannot go against their religious tenets and pay for employees birth control. Catholic hospitals also don't perform abortion. In Catholic Ireland abortions were such a strict no-no that an Indian Hindu woman was allowed to die by the hospital during childbirth rather than perform abortion. In an election year Obama buckled and declared, pompously, that Catholic employers need not provide birth control options to their employees. The erstwhile constitutional law professor finagled a loophole. Obama said the insurance companies, not the employers, will provide birth control options at no cost to the employees or the employers. This is utter nonsense. And of course insurance companies passed on the cost into the premiums. I'd have supported Obama if he had stood his ground and said "your religious beliefs are yours to keep but you cannot impose it on an employee who works for you". Surprisingly this has never been brought out by anybody.

I am a capitalist and even a libertarian to a great extent but I cannot support legislation like this saying "oh well employers and business owners who discriminate will lose customers and that, automatically, will weed them out in the market place". Thats idyllic laissez faire libertarianism. Many times employees and customers will not have a choice. Ayn Rand and Barry Goldwater opposed the Civil Rights legislation on the grounds that the government should not interfere and that free market will weed out racist businesses. That will work in theory not in practice.

Few years back Somali Muslim cab drivers in Minneapolis refused to take passengers from airport if the passengers were found carrying alcohol. Not many Christians were too happy with that. Cabbies refusing a passenger have had their licenses suspend and fines imposed. The cabbies went to court against the fines but lost the case. Interestingly its only Somali Muslim cabbies who acted thus. An Iranian Muslim told Washington Post that he would service anyone. Somalia is home to very radicalized Islam. I am sure Arizonans who cheer religious freedom would be quick to condemn the Somali Muslim cabbies because they are Muslims. The Christian right loves to talk of religious freedom when it is theirs.

America's founding fathers revolutionized the world with the doctrine of separation of church and state. However, America remains a very religious country that still tears itself apart on the question of abortion and sex. Oftentimes public policy is driven by religious feelings. Its a shame that American Presidents preside over 'National prayer day'. I don't have anything against Presidents being believers but that belongs in his personal life. As constitutional head a President has no business presiding over any prayer. I am ok with something like George Bush holding a multi-faith prayer service after 9/11. Thats a President using a cultural binding force during a time of great national calamity and its not institutionalized unlike the Prayer day.

This bill again puts the GOP in a harsh light. If the GOP has any dreams of winning the White House any time soon they need to put bigotries behind them. Many republicans are decent egalitarians but this fringe element, the vocal minority, is bringing disrepute. Unless the lunatic fringe is curbed the GOP will send itself into oblivion.

The only real champion in this ugly mess is Capitalism. The threat of withdrawing big business from Arizona is what is really giving the governor a pause to think. Businesses are in the fore front today to foster diversity, racially, ethnically and sexually. Companies realize that diversity, of all types, is key to a vibrant and therefore successful organization. A less talked about angle is the role of capitalism in bringing down walls of bigotry. Slavery and racism were never about capitalism or labor rather it was about a people's bigotry. Slave holding agrarian south was defeated by relatively more capitalist industrialized prosperous North. Apple which is on the verge of opening a new Sapphire glass factory creating 2000 jobs. Apple CEO is gay and he has warned Arizona that passing the bill will make it difficult for Apple, an inclusive company, to operate in Arizona. I'd love to hear liberals cheer the power of a big corporation.

National Book Award winning author Andrew Solomon wrote critically acclaimed book "Far from the tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity". The book deals with how parents come to terms with mentally disabled children and accept them for what they are. Solomon said his experiences as being a gay son, the different one, gave him perspectives that he would not have had if he had been heterosexual.

References:

1. 'Some Muslim cabbies refuse fares carrying alcohol' -- Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/25/AR2006102501727.html
2. 'If you drink some cabbies won't drive' - CNN - http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/25/oppenheim.cabbies/index.html?eref=rss_latest
3. Apple warns Arizona Governor http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2014/02/25/3328891/apple-arizona-anti-gay/#
4. Arizona Bill SB1062 http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/51leg/2r/bills/sb1062p.htm

Rajiv's Assassins : Justice Delayed, Justice Served and Justice Forgotten.

It is unconscionable that a death row convict has to wait for a decade, with his life hanging by a thread, to learn whether or not he would die or live. That is barbarism. The convict may be guilty of a barbarous crime but it does not behoove any nation that seeks to think of itself as a land with laws and humanitarianism. Even the most despicable death row convict is deserves to have a 'clean' death. Not a tortured death. Nothing is greater torture than to keep in suspense a convict's fate. India's Supreme Court, the one remaining institution of some semblance of competence in India, has delivered a landmark judgment in telling India's government that they owe it to death row convicts to ensure a speedy response for mercy petitions. Kudos to Justice Sathasivam and team.

Bringing Rajiv's assassins to justice is less important than justice being done for all and for all time to come. The Indian state is very cavalier in its attitudes towards human lives and the Supreme court has now ensured that this pernicious and barbarian attitude of sleeping over mercy petitions will come to an end.

Indian laws do not envisage life imprisonment as 'true life imprisonment' unlike, say, US laws where convicts can be sent to jail with no hope of parole or getting out alive. Some deserve that punishment. I do not subscribe to characterizing judicial punishments exclusively as 'opportunities for reform'. Sure such an opportunity should exist but there are crimes where judgments can only be punishments.   It is not my wish to see Rajiv's killers, especially Murugan, who was intrinsic to the heinous plot, to be freed but the paramountcy of law and legal precedence is far more important. The three killers along with the other four should be released post-haste. This humiliating episode should make the Indian state realize thus far and no further.

However, I do not subscribe to cheering the convicts as 'innocents'. They've been pronounced guilty, repeatedly, by all courts including the now much loved Supreme Court. The officer who recorded Perarivalan's confession statement gave a bombshell interview saying that he left out a key sentence in recording the confession. The officer said he omitted recording that Perarivalan did not know that Rajiv was the intended target of the bomb attack for which he had procured the batteries for. Yes, his ignorance of intended target may have indeed spared him the gallows. That said it is sheer propaganda to claim that the officer exonerated Perarivalan.

Photo Courtesy: The Hindu. From L to R - Perarivalan, Murugan and Santhan.

 
Alongwith Rajiv several others died. Several were policemen of very low ranks. Son of one such policemen had posted a comment, in a vernacular magazine, recounting how his family ran from one hospital to another looking for his father only to find him later as a mangled corpse riddled with projectiles and torn apart. In the melee that ensued everyone was only worried about Rajiv and the aftermath of his assassination. Congressmen who today lament about the other victims did not bother about them until today when such victims are convenient bogies for sympathy.

Mrs Arputham, now many call her venerably Arputhammal, as mother waged an unrelenting struggle against the mammoth and inhuman state. That Perarivalan is today spared from the gallows is greatly due to her herculean efforts. In her own interview while claiming that her son was innocent she does concede that their family, like many other Tamil families she says, helped LTTE. Thats a partial truth with dangerous self-blindness. Out of the millions of families maybe a few hundred families actively involved themselves with the LTTE. Their family, thanks to its association with DK, was actively involved with helping LTTE. Nalini's brother, Mrs Arputham says, accosted her son. Even if one were to agree that Perarivalan did not know about Rajiv as target the 19 year old adult should've realized that he is being accomplice to a possible murder. As such, it is shameful to make a mother's grief as witness to a son's ignorance.

Another pornography of grief is propagandizing a pleading letter by the daughter of Nalini and Murugan. I feel sorry for her. I do. But sorry does not put Humpty Dumpty back. Her parents were part of an assassination plot that, incidentally, murdered 14 others. Many of the other victims were sole breadwinners for their families and their families were plunged into penury where as a sympathetic Sri Lankan diaspora sheltered Nalini's daughter and brought her up in London. I've written before that India should not have bothered about the dilemma of the state creating an orphan by executing Nalini and Murugan. The state would not have orphaned their child. Nalini and Murugan orphaned their daughter by indulging in a crime as a couple. The case of US executing Julius and Ethel Rosenberg is pertinent to recall here.

A very perverted argument in this discussion of Rajiv's killing is the angle of IPKF. Mrs Arputham talking to Hindu said "How can we justify Rajiv's approach to Eelam. How many Tamils were killed by IPKF? How many women were raped by IPKF?". I've heard many say "well Rajiv deserved it". Nothing is more vulgar and unjust. Such people make it appear as if Rajiv Gandhi sent the Indian army with an express mission to kill and rape Tamils. Rajiv, with all his faults, was no Pol Pot. Jeyawardane ensnared, amateur politician and overnight PM, Rajiv, in a civil war. Prabhakaran, as he would time and again, broke the truce launching a war against the Indian army.

Yes, there were incidents of IPKF raping women. Even today Indian army has that stigma in peace keeping forces in Africa. However Mrs Arputham and millions of Tamils conveniently forget that IPKF too suffered heavily due to guerrilla tactics of LTTE. When a military officer visited my school in 1988 several of us asked about this rape incident. He, by what appears in hindsight now as nonchalantly, said "there are biological reasons". But he added a less spoken truth too. He said IPKF would avoid frisking young girls, many children actually, but the same girls would cross a checkpoint and pull out a grenade from within their skirts and toss it. IPKF was also not given a free hand in crushing the enemy. They had to fight with one hand tied behind their back. Indian army suffered large casualties due to muddled policy making in Delhi.

In media we do not often hear from two sides. Tamil media in a jingoistic overdrive is giving a megaphone only to Mrs Arputham. We seldom hear from the then investigating officers or army leaders of IPKF.

North Indians are aghast that Tamils might be celebrating the release of three assassins. Thats unfair and short on memory. Gandhi's assassins are worshipped by quite a number of people. Indira's assassins were mourned and celebrated in Gurdwara's across Punjab. It is despicable but thats the reality. And lets not forget that murderers of thousands of Sikhs sat in ministries. One man's terrorist is, sadly, another man's freedom fighter.

Tamils who accuse the rest of India of not caring for their concerns are being unfair. How many Tamils cared for Simranjit Singh Mann who was held in prison for 4 years in connection with Indira's assassination and later acquitted. How many Tamils even know about the case of the 'Jodhpur Detenus'. After Operation Bluestar nearly 365 Punjabis were arrested and were collectively referred to as 'Jodhpur detenus'. Many, without any justification, were incarcerated for nearly 4 years. How many Tamils even know that K.P.S. Gill became the fabled Super Cop thanks to the mass graves that he helped populate? Interestingly S.S.Mann told Rediff in a 1999 interview that Rajiv's assassins should be pardoned. India is a land of 'million mutinies' with communities rarely being emotionally unified on an pan-Indian level.

As always the ever irrepressible Jeyamohan waded into the this issue with a lengthy blog at the end of which he facetiously professed ignorance about state craft and political science. He need not have added that disclaimer the blog was evidence of his near total lack of knowledge in the topic.

Jeyamohan glorifies the LTTE assassination as if it was some ideological political reaction to the prevailing ideology, albeit, a violent one. Then he attribute to Nehru what was originally a Jeffersonian thought, that a truly democratic form of government should allow subversive protests even if it meant overthrow of an existing governing system. This is wrong on two levels.

First, Nehru, shaped by Gandhian freedom movement with pan-Indian nationalism as its bedrock, was dismissive of separatist movements. Nehru was extremely intolerant of any separatism, including non-violent ones. He would ridicule the Dravidian party clamor for separatism, with some justification but not wholly, as 'nonsense'. He would not hesitate to not just arrest his friend Sheikh Abdullah but exile him to far away Tamil Nadu too. Nehru, incidentally, was an admirer of Stalin and Lenin. The Indian state has always crushed with an iron hand any and every separatist movements. From Naxalbari to Punjab to Kashmir India has time and again showed that it is not a soft state.

Second, Prabhakaran was not espousing any alternate ideology or form of government. Rajiv's killing was a politically motivated targeted assassination with no qualms of conscience about collateral damage. The suicide bomber was clothed in deadly bombs enough to kill more than one. Prabhakaran wanted to ensure that Rajiv was killed no matter how many others were killed along with him. Prabhakaran would repeat the Rajiv style assassination two years later to kill Ranasinghe Premadasa. To honor acts of cold blooded murder as quest for alternate ideology only shows that Jeyamohan needs to stick with what he knows best and refrain from topics he knows nothing of.

I support the death penalty because some crimes are so heinous that the perpetrators, by committing those, forfeit their right to live. The Delhi rapists, Timothy McVeigh, Ajmal Kasab, all deserved to die. It is silly, as Jeyamohan does, to tie necessity of death sentence to lack of adequate police. In fact if the police-population ratio is very low it is all the more reason to scrap death sentence because the crime may not have been investigated properly.

Amidst the Modi wave thats sweeping the country a word thats often tossed is 'pseudo-sceularism'. Coined by Advani it refers to what Hindus call as preferential treatment of Muslims in the name of secularism. Muslims like Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru have been executed without much delay unlike Hindu killers like the Rajiv assassins or Naxal leaders (as listed by Jeyamohan himself).

Jeyamohan bares his Hindutva self when he argues that Islamic terrorism, which has international support, should not be spared. He even calls for expedited justice so that no fantastic attempts, like a flight hijacking, take place to trade hostages. By citing an exceptional one time fact Jeyamohan calls for tribal justice against Muslims. India executed Afzal Guru without even intimating his family despite an entire state being on the edge of violence. How many flight hijackings took place to release him. The Muslim terrorists at least only hijacked a flight Khalistan terrorists blew up an entire aircraft killing hundreds of Indians and today we have a Sikh Prime Minister. Some pseudo secularism this. Lets not forest brigand and murderer Veerappan taking an erstwhile matinee idol as hostage and demanding the release of his acolytes in prison who were accused of murdering a police official. In fact many Muslims have been arrested without any shred of evidence and held in prisons. What can Jeyamohan tell them? By the way Punjab separatism too had its supporters from outside. What about LTTE that had a robust international network to lobby and raise funds? Save your outrage Jeyamohan.


I've an overriding concern with the Supreme Court judgment though. Now I don't want subsequent mercy petitions to be disposed of hastily and petitioners executed hurriedly to avoid being seen as lethargic. The Supreme Court should lay down rules for transparency in the mercy petition process and hold subsequent governments to account.

The one part of Mrs Arputham's crusade to free to her son that is really honorable and a signal service for families of other convicts is the attention she has brought to how inhuman the Indian prison system is. Mrs Arputham was subject to cruel humiliation, including, once, being asked to use a toilet without closing the door, for her attempts to see her son in prison. The Supreme Court should duo motto take up that issue and put an end to such travails. The mark of a civilized society is one in which even a murder convict can claim human rights.

A bitter mother who is few steps away from complete victory Mrs Arputham minced no words about Karunanidhi and Veeramani, two of Tamil Nadu's most duplicitous self styled custodians of Tamil interests. She labeled them aptly as turncoats. Poor Mrs Arputham had to undergo such himalayan personal travails to know their true colors.

The seven convicts may see justice served, though delayed. But, with a heavy heart, we need to remember that Rajiv and the remaining victims will not get their justice.


My earlier blogs on this issue:

1. The Rajiv Killers and the Death Penalty Debate http://contrarianworld.blogspot.com/2011/08/rajiv-killers-and-death-penalty-debate.html

2. Jethmalani's Travesty and Hypocrisies Galore in Tamil Nadu http://contrarianworld.blogspot.com/2011/08/jethmalanis-travesty-and-hypocrisies.html

Other References.

1. Mrs Arputham's interview to Tamil Hindu - http://tamil.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/ராஜீவ்-கொலை-பெரிய-தப்பு-அற்புதம்-அம்மாள்-நேர்காணல்/article5723757.ece
2. 40 of Jodhpur Detenus release - Article from India Today - http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/while-40-jodhpur-detenus-are-released-long-wait-continues-for-the-rest/1/329192.html
3. Jodhpur Detenus and withdrawal of draconian laws - Article in India Today - http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/release-of-jodhpur-detenus-withdrawal-of-draconian-laws-step-in-the-right-direction-taken-in-punjab/1/323257.html
4. S.S. Mann's interview in Rediff - Mentions clemency for Rajiv's assassins - http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/release-of-jodhpur-detenus-withdrawal-of-draconian-laws-step-in-the-right-direction-taken-in-punjab/1/323257.html
4. Jeyamohan's article on 7 assassins http://www.jeyamohan.in/?p=46899

Balu Mahendra: Artist, Plagiarist and Philanderer

Roger Rosenblatt eulogized JFK Jr  in Time magazine saying "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". That eulogy best captures the passing away of director and cinematographer Balu Mahendra.

David Lean's filmed his classic 'Bridge on the river Kwai' in Sri Lanka. An impressionable young boy watching the filming was inspired to become a filmmaker. The boy, Balu Mahendra, later graduated from Poona Film Institute with a gold medal in cinematography. Indian cinematography would never be the same again. Balu got his first of many awards for his cinematography in the very first film, Nellu, by Ramu Kariat. Within 3 years Balu had struck out as director too. Balu, whose language was art, frequently crossed linguistic barriers. His first movie as director was 'Kokila' in Kannada. The debutante director garnered an award and his style of subtle movie making was noticed. 

Mahendran redefined Tamil cinema with 'Mullum Malarum'. He dragged Tamil cinema out of the histrionic excesses of Sivaji Ganesan, Karunanidhi, K.Balachander, K.S.Gopalakrishnan, MGR and others. Mahendran's movie introduced subtlety to the Tamil viewer. In an era when color films had debuted not too long ago it was not uncommon to splash the screen and the viewers eyes with garish costumes and in your face colors. Into that era came Balu Mahendra who helmed the camera for Mahendran's cinema and for his part introduced the Tamil viewer to silhouettes. 

Balu's first movie in Tamil cemented Mahendran's style. Titled 'Azhiyatha Kolangal' it was a coming of age movie about adolescent boys, their escapade, their sexual awakenings and their obsession for a comely teacher. The movie was rumored to have shades of 'Summer of '42' but it was also autobiographical. Recounting his school days in Vikatan he would say "fed up seeing the village fatsos we were enamored of slim and fair Indhu teacher" ('மொத்துமொத்தென்று முறுகித் திரண்ட எங்கள் கிராமத்துத் தடிச்சிகளைப் பார்த்துப் பழகிப்போன கண்களுக்கு, இந்து டீச்சர் சற்று ஒல்லியாக, உயரமாக, சிவப்பாக, ரொம்ப அழகாக இருந்தார்கள்). A dusky Shobha would play the role of Indhu teacher. The songs were filmed with montages of Shobha and Pratap Pothen walking, hand in hand, gently romancing against a silhouette, sharing a laugh, a tease here and a tease there but never once, unlike the tradition of movies, would they lip sync the songs. Salil Chaudhary, Salilda, had scored the music. I recently watched a clip of "Summer of '42" and Salilda's music, dare I say, is inferior. The movie shocked many viewers in conservative Tamil Nadu. While Balu went mostly for subtlety he too, like Mahendran in 'Nenjathai Killathe', gave ample space for the plain ribaldry of the ever redoubtable Vennira Aadai Moorthy. 

Shobha would become the first scandal in Balu's life. A torrid affair ensued. Even as Shobha went on to earn the National Award her personal life was on a slide. It is said that she would act like a truant child around 'uncle' Balu Mahendra. One day Shobha committed suicide and Balu was suspected as having played a role. 

Balu would later tell in an interview "I was crucified'. That was unfair. Shobha was the victim not he. He added that stung by the controversy he vowed silence until after a year when he "threw down Moondram Pirai" as answer. Balu Mahendra brought to screen, with fantastic acting by Sri Devi, a platonic relationship between a nubile woman who, due to an accident loses her mind and is also amnesiac, acts childlike (not childish) and a young man who happens to meet her in a brothel but ends up rescuing her. Kamal Hasan earned a National Award for his heart rending performance in the famous climax. A third factor in the success of the movie was then sex goddess Silk Smitha. That even a sensitive filmmaker like Balu had to rely on the uninhibited oomph factor of Smitha made people chuckle at the commercial compromise. He later did accept the compromise but he added that Smitha's presence served a purpose. Kamal rebuffs Smitha's seduction and thus lends credence to the fact that he could have an asexual, sort of platonic, love with a nubile girl. Balu, sanitized his relationship with Shobha thanks to an artistic movie made with commercial compromises. Their relationship, to be sure, was anything but platonic or even the implied paternalism of 'Moondram Pirai'. 

Of the many movies that Balu directed only two standout for not just being uncompromising but even artistic integrity. 'Veedu' touched a chord in the hearts of many a middle class member because it spoke to their yearnings. shunning the standard Indian formula of songs the movie was made on sparse budget with dusky Archana as spinster who tries to build a small home. The puckish old man played by Chockalinga Bhagavathar was a hit. Yet, compared to Satyajit Ray's 'Mahanagar' it will remain a valiant effort not an achievement. Balu's talents as director are way overrated. Just because he sought to make movies that had a leisurely pace, lingering shots, sparse dialogues and of course lovely cinematography all of which contrasted with a sea of utter mediocrity in Tamil cinema the movies are exaggerated as artistic excellence. Fear of old age haunts any man let alone an artist. Balu made his one other uncompromising movie 'Sandhyaragam'. Literally meaning 'song of the twilight hour'. 

If Scorsese has a fetish for gangster movies Balu's fetish was making movies themed about extra marital affairs. He would plagiarize 'Mickey and Maud' to deliver a laugh riot in 'Rettaivaal Kuruvi' where a photographer will have two wives. Then he would turn to the subject again in a a Tamil remake of Mahesh Bhatt's 'Arth' as 'Marupadiyum'. When the heroine walks out on her husband, a movie director, learning of his affair with an actress a song wails in the background "a woman wishes to be garlanded but once, can she live with a man who garlands a woman a day, would such a marriage be civilized". By now Balu Mahendra had another affair, with Archana from Veedu, after Shobha. 

After 'Marupadiyum' he made forgettable movies most of which bombed in the box office. Mounika, who starred in a movie as a nymphet, would go on to become his second wife. She would support Balu in his lean years when he was reduced to making short films, based on short stories, for the drab national television. As a person who loved literature he chose excellent stories but crippled by lack of money he could get only Mounika and few low budget actors to star in the shoddily produced episodes. Kamala Hassan, another habitual plagiarizer, roped in Balu to do 'Sathi Leelavathi' that was rip off of Meryl Streep starring 'She Devil'. 

Balu Mahendra made movies that were either 'inspired', albeit uncredited, or totally plagiarized. 'Moodu pani' was inspired by Psycho. 'Julie Ganapathy' was plagiarized from 'Misery'. Lets remember that Balu sat on the jury for National Awards. For a man who took pride in his work and had a healthy ego to end his movies with a sign off 'A film by Balu Mahendra', this plagiarism, par for the course in Indian movies, will remain a blot.

Even after many directors, including childhood friend Bharathiraja, deserted Ilayaraja, who had grown titular and stale, Balu stuck by his friend. Ilayaraja had run out of steam by the early 90's and his scoring for Balu's movies made after that had mediocre music and thanks to Raja's antics about lyric writers there were not much decent lyrics either. When an artist sacrifices perfection for the sake of relationship art suffers. Mediocrity creeps in and finally destroys.

Balu Mahendra's penchant for literature did not translate into bringing any Tamil classic to movies other than the short film series. Bhim Singh brought Jayakanthan's classic tale 'Sila Nerangalil Sila Manithargal' to screen. We cannot speak of a Balu Mahendra 'oeuvre'. Anyone who sets Balu's directorial abilities on a pedestal has not probably had even a modicum of introduction to Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Aravindan, Shahji, Ray, Benegal, Girish Karnad and others. His last movie 'Thalamuraigal' bombed at the box office. Few quoted the last words of the movie: "don't forget Tamil or this grandfather". I was surprised to see that chauvinism in Balu, a man who made movies in Hindi, Malayalam and Kannada besides Tamil. The man had lost his creative juices a decade back and the last movie only confirmed that the creator had died before the body died.

In an interview he would claim, insanely, that Gandhi said "I'll not hit your body but I'll hit your brain". Cooly he would ask the demure air headed interviewer Anu Hasan "which is bigger violence? hitting body or mind?" Anu Hasan would be grinning incapable of comprehending the nonsense that Balu just spilled just to support a violent movie made by his disciple Seeman (who was sitting next to him). He was no intellectual. Like many of his compatriots he had not much to say beyond films, specifically the technical knowledge of movie making, and a smattering of literary taste. In the later years he would have another paramour after Archana. His third. In another interview he would extol that his legal wife Akila epitomized the ideal Indian woman and needs to be worshipped. She could've done well with a little less worshipping.

Balu's extra-marital affairs were front and center to not just his life but to his movies too. As such they are of topical interest beyond just salaciousness. Tamils while being conservative when it comes to the morals of their fellow citizens they will tolerate, in fact applaud, their politicians and movie fraternity to flout all morals. Bigamous politicians are feted. Archana and Easwari Rao stood at the near the head of Balu's lifeless body caressing the casket. Balu's wife Akila sat in a chair nearby. Life is stranger than fiction indeed. In what caused a minor sensation Archana and director Bala prevented Mounika from seeing her beloved. This was a gross disrespect to Balu who had openly and categorically stated that he was indeed married to Mounika. 

Balu Mahendra, Balachander, Kamal, Rajini, Ilayaraja and many others were part of anyone who lived in Tamil Nadu in the 80's and 90's. They shaped our ideas of entertainment and art (which I had to unlearn with effort). Musing on mortality is something that hangs over my thoughts always. Just last week as I was listening to an 80's song I was thinking ruefully that they are all aging and many cannot even walk. The grim reaper awaits several of them. When Rajini had a serious health scare I felt sad. Seeing Kamal, the ever youthful and nattily dressed man, have jowls for cheeks and sagging eyelids I cannot help notice that an era had passed.

The outpouring of love for Balu Mahendra, not just from his contemporaries, but amongst a younger brood of directors and cinema technologists was astounding indeed. It does speak volumes of the man. Kannadasan once ignited a rumor that he was dead just to see how many really loved him. Balu's soul can take comfort from how his cherished proteges flocked to his funeral. Balachander and Bharathiraja openly sobbed. Balachander whenever he suffered losses from his artsy movies he would produce a commercial movie, usually starring Rajini, but directed by somebody else. In his hey days Balu would scold Balachander saying "if I decide to do prostitution I'd do it myself not pay somebody else to do it". 

Two things irked me about the funeral though. First, for a man whose art was all about subtle aestheticism his funeral had no semblance of it. It was rambunctious, disorganized and shorn of any beauty. His body was tossed about hither and thither while being loaded onto the caravan and while being brought down. People were just milling around and jostling each other both when his body lay in state and all through the funeral. I wish there were a few sensible eulogies. Only Kamal Hasan wrote a half-decent obituary. I was disappointed to read the eulogies of Bala, Bava Chelladurai and Suka. They were moving testimonies of their relationship with their mentor but every one made it a point to record how they screamed in agony and how their families too copiously cried. This is pornography of grief.

We are all mortals and we hope the reaper would not take us before we had our fill of this life. When film musician Mahesh died young of cancer Kamal wrote a beautiful obituary for his friend titled "Mahesh: Celebratory worshipper of life" (Mahesh: வாழ்க்கையின் ஆராதகன்). Even now only Kamal spoke of man being mortal and that he came to the funeral as an expression of thanks to the life that Balu had led and for the impact he made on many lives in that period. I can sympathize that for Bava, Suka and Bala it is a deep personal loss. But Balu, aged 74, had been ill for a few years. For those who claim to produce works of art it is surprising a lack of appreciation of mortality as a fact. Death is not even understood as an ever present shadow. 

Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman shockingly died young due to heroin overdose. He was a drug addict. Friend and Oscar winner Aaron Sorkin shocked many with a touching but blunt eulogy in Time magazine. Sorkin said "So it’s in that spirit that I’d like to say this: Phil Hoffman, this kind, decent, magnificent, thunderous actor, who was never outwardly “right” for any role but who completely dominated the real estate upon which every one of his characters walked, did not die from an overdose of heroin — he died from heroin. We should stop implying that if he’d just taken the proper amount then everything would have been fine."

We are yet to learn how to mourn and how to measure a life. 

Wendy Doniger, Jeyamohan and Arundhati Roy : A Primer on Free Speech

Jeyamohan, when he is not falling at the feet of his guru Ilayaraja and Arundhati Roy, when she is not cavorting with Maoists and raining vitriol over America, will do a segue way into defending, half heartedly, free speech.

Ideas on free speech, secularism, human rights and individual liberty are all very recent ideas. The US constitution, written toward the end of the 18th century, was probably the first to prohibit its own legislature from ever writing a law that will 'abridge' freedom of speech. The first amendment remains America's most cherished right in the bill of rights. Even today Britain has censors. Denying holocaust is a punishable crime in Germany.

Wendy Doniger (Source Wikipedia).

Indian constitution framers, unlike Americans at Philadelphia, retained a lot of archaic British laws especially those that gave untrammeled powers to the state because now the pigs were ruling (its a metaphor from 'Animal Farm'. Please.). Even today in India the local police station has to certify that a stage drama can be performed. A colonial era rule. The rules against free speech or loopholes to harass free speech practically mirrors colonial rule.

Free speech is not about allowing decent or agreeable or intelligent speech. Free speech is about allowing 'speech' without riders or caveats. If at all any caveat is to be used it is hate-speech and for that the threshold has to be a high bar. Britain had allowed Mullah's who preached with inflammatory rhetoric to continue preaching. Otherwise speech need not be intelligent or even decent.

A land mark case for free speech in India was the case of vernacular magazine Nakkeeran vs Tamil Nadu state. Nakkeeran had started publishing the auto-biography of a very sensational murder convict, Auto Shankar. Shankar had run brothels patronized by high officials. The officials sought to muzzle the magazine. Nakkeeran editor Rajagopal went to India Supreme Court. The Supreme Court in a landmark judgment upheld Rajagopal's right to publish the names. The judgment cites, surprisingly, landmark US cases on privacy. The series, lets remember, was just salacious, no public good came of it. Indians assume that high officials have salacious affairs. It was not news.

Larry Flynt, publisher of porn magazine 'Hustler', caused another landmark judgment in US. Flynt published a fictional story about evangelist Jerry Falwell portraying him as having sex with his mother in a barn. Falwell went to court. Larry Flynt went to US supreme court and won acquittal on free speech grounds. Free speech is not about defending what everyone will love. The reason that Flynt and Rajagopal need to be defended is because any abridgment of free speech in the name of morality or decency is a slippery slope and such excuses are more often than not abused to muzzle what somebody does not like.

Jeyamohan voiced a thinly veiled conspiracy theory that Christian West, that Wendy Doniger was born into, uses the tool of free speech to ridicule Hinduism and India. He forgot that American director Martin Scorsese made Nikos Kazantzakis's 'Last Temptation' into a movie with scenes of Christ having sex.

A New York City museum had an exhibit of a crucifix in a jar of urine. Art, said the artist. NYC Mayor Rudy Guiliani threatened to cut off city taxpayer dollars to the museum unless the exhibit was removed. Then he had to backdown in the face of a loud criticism. Oh there was also the case of a portrait of Madonna (Mary) with cow dung on her breast. A movie referred to crucifix as a sexual object. In 'Jesus Christ Superstar' Christ sings and lusts. British author Philip Pullman wrote a searing parody and a laugh riot in 'Good man Jesus and scoundrel Christ' to ridicule the 'established' church. The back cover succinctly said 'this is a novel'.

James Joyce's 'Ulysses' was banned in US but publisher Random House, in what could happen only in USA, arranged for a shipment and invited a lawsuit. Random House went to court and overturned the ban. Later D.H. Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterley's lover', 'Tropic of Cancer' and 'Fanny Hill' would have to face the court and be freed.

India has a long history of banning books or inconveniencing authors deemed bad. Nirad C. Chaudhuri invited ire over his 'Authobiography of an unknown Indian". Stanley Wolpert's 'Nine hours to Rama' remains banned in India along with Scorsese's 'Last temptations of Christ'.

In India free speech will find defenders depending on who is offended. Arun Shourie, who later joined BJP, was strident in his defense of Rushdie's freedom to write 'Satanic Verses'. Self styled secularists like N.Ram and A.G.Noorani defended, gladly, M.F.Husain's freedom to depict Hindu goddesses in the nude. Then the same duo stridently criticized Dutch newspaper Jyllands Posten for publishing cartoons of Prophet Muhamed which they said would hurt the sentiments of Muslims. Arundhati Roy was conspicuously absent during the cartoon controversy when half the world boiled.

Both Arundhati Roy and Jeyamohan offer half-hearted ham handed defense of Wendy Doniger. Neither defend free speech in totality. Roy, conveniently forgetting draconian Indian laws, scolds Penguin for buckling so quickly instead of going to Supreme court with their 'resources'. Poor Roy misses the irony of capitalism's comforts.

Jeyamohan's first blog on Doniger was a shameful exercise in logic. Saying the West has two approaches to India, one, respectful and two, supercilious ridicule of a civilization they don't understand. So saying he rips Western authors who, in his opinion, ridicule Hinduism  due to misunderstanding often with ulterior motive to destabilize India. He scolds them for 5 paragraphs conveniently forgetting the many, many Western authors and even colonial officials who respected India highly. In fact I'd say that Westerners have a healthy curiosity and great deal respect for India unlike what Indians have of, say, America. S.Ra, Nanjil and Jeyamohan displayed ignorance and prejudices about America during their visits here.

Finally on a grudging note Jeyamohan concedes that bans are ineffective and may actually serve to publicize the book. This by a man who was practically lynched in the internet for ridiculing two most loved cinema heroes of Tamils. Novelist Sujatha could read Jeyamohan's Vishnupuram because Sujatha felt that Jeyamohan was being uncharitably obscene about Hinduism. Though Jeyamohan had  the words against banning books in 'bold' it was buried too late into the article and did not sound sincere given the tone of the rest of the article.

Many have quoted Wendy Doniger's, less than flattering, passage about Bhagvad Gita. Little do many Indians outside Tamil Nadu know of K.Veeramani's "The other side of Gita". Veeramani and his mentor E.V.Ramasamy reveled in ridiculing Hinduism in the name of half baked ideas they called 'rationalism' but other than a few feeble attempts they always shied away from ridiculing Islam or Christianity. This hypocrisy does exist in India. But I am pained to see Hindu friends cite these and argue for an intolerant attitude. That does not behoove a great and open religion like Hinduism. I'd have to congratulate the people of Tamil Nadu for ignoring with maturity the antics of EVR.

'Economist' asked Germany to repeal its ban on holocaust denial which is a punishable crime there. 'Economist' reasoned that bigotry should be met with scholarship not censorship. Limping out of one of humanity's greatest racist massacre the ban had a meaning in the initial days of de-nazification and has no place today.

A more critical issue of free speech is the privileges of legislators and the judiciary. Indian constitution has strict limits on what can be reported about the happenings in legislatures. I remember a full page article by Arun Shourie, who often butted heads with MP's, titled 'Their privileges and our rights'. Famously Tamil Nadu Assembly speaker P.H.Pandian claimed he had sky-high powers and sent to jail a cartoonist for depicting MLA's as pickpockets and thieves.

Indian judiciary is very thin skinned when it comes to criticism. When US Supreme Court awarded the Presidency to Bush a newspaper column called the justices 'robed pirates'. It is common to see strident and harsh criticism of not just judgment but of justices too in US.

Dreaming of a free India Tagore wrote "Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, into that heaven of freedom, let my country awake". I'd conclude with that oft attributed quoted which best defines defense of free speech: "I disagree with everything you say but I shall defend, to my death, your right to say so".

References:

1. Arundhati Roy's letter to Penguin India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Wendy-Donigers-book-You-must-tell-us-what-terrified-you-Arundhati-Roy-writes-to-Penguin-India/articleshow/30306451.cms
2. Jeyamohan's first blog on Wendy Doniger http://www.jeyamohan.in/?p=46489
3. Hustler Magazine Vs Jerry Falwell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hustler_Magazine_v._Falwell
4. James Joyce's Ulysses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._One_Book_Called_Ulysses
5. Nakkeeran Rajagopal Vs State of Tamil Nadu  - This is a compelling read. The entire judgment is here - http://www.indiankanoon.org/doc/501107/