A Little Comparison

Being in the ethno-religious minority in the UK, I've been watching the news closely for signs of a fallout from the London blasts. While Muslims are understandably jittery, and there have been sporadic incidents targetting Muslim symbols, the police have been taking steps to prevent any large-scale attempts to breach the peace. In addition, religious organisations have been stepping in to emphasise the need to maintain comity, and it doesn't seem likely that any large-scale violent incidents will erupt as a result of the blasts.

Yet, there have no calls for bandhs, no calls for revenge, and very little chances of being able to create large-scale death and destruction. No one wants to attack Muslims because they had it coming, and there are no mainstream apologists for Islamophobia who want Muslims chucked out of the UK. 427 people had died 4 days after the Godhra carnage, no serious attacks have been reported against British Muslims almost two days after the London blasts.

I'm feeling ashamed. Are you?

Putting the Dead to Good Use

I'm breaking from my self-imposed hibernation to blog about this disturbing piece by Tom Hayden which wastes no time in using the casualties in London to make a case for withdrawal in Iraq. Let me make my point clearer -

a. I am not in favour of the Iraq war, and am all in favour of those who make sensible and clear cases against the war.

b. I am, however, against using victims of terrorist attacks as some sort of a justification for my stance in opposition to the war (which is essentially what Hayden is doing). These were innocent men and women and I'm shocked that they're being used as mere tokens in a political game. My fear is that making them purely instrumental in a debate of concern not only demeans the fact that these were human beings who died, who had valuable lives and contributed value to the community in which they lived, but also loses those of us against the war the moral highground. Hayden's argument is the Terry Schiavo case of the left - it uses individuals purely as political ends, and denies them dignity and humanity in death.

c. Interestingly, Hayden's post doesn't even once mention the terrorists who were responsible for the attacks, or the general moral illegimitacy of terrorist movements which target innocent civilians (whether in Baghdad or London). It is a diatribe against regimes which "forcibly occupy Muslim lands in the oil-driven search for dominance", but no mention of the forcible occupation of our public space and lives by a hate-driven lust for terror...

Well, that's my point of view. What do you think? Also, Andrew Sullivan gets it so much better.

Prithvi.

Must NRIs Return Home?

Last week, I sparked off an email war on the listserv (and off it as well). This particular battle was on whether citizens of the developing world can contribute more by returning home than they would if they stayed away from home. Here's what I had to say -

I feel that the assertion that returning to one's home country will make things better there is a simplistic one (atleast so far as my home country, India, is concerned), and there's someone far more eminent who agrees with me, see The Migration of Knowledge Workers: Second-Generation Effects of India's Brain Drain by Binod Khadria (Sage, 1999). Prof Khadria is Professor of Economics at the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

His basic argument is that while the first generation of immigrants from India did cause a net loss to the Indian economy (i.e. net remittances were less than the amount invested in their education and training in India), the second generation of Indian emigrants (those who left after economic reforms in 1991) is pumping huge amounts of money (in the form of investment in infrastructure, the stock markets, purchase of government bonds etc.) into the system. Also, a large amount of investment in non-profit sectors and charitable organisations comes from persons of Indian origin living outside India. It may also be argued (and I diverge from Khadria here) that the presence of highly trained Indians abroad contributes to a greater international awareness of India, and the emergence of Indian political groups in the US, the UK and Canada may be evidence of this heightened political awareness. Finally, Indians abroad have a significant voice in the governance of India as well, perhaps as a result of the money they're pumping into the economy. The government seems to be making a special effort to appease non-resident Indians with a slew of policy changes designed just for Indians living abroad (for eg, there is a newly formed Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, currently considering a serious proposal for providing tax breaks on investments made by Indians living abroad). Clearly Indians abroad wield a lot of influence with Indians back home (probably more than they would have if they stayed home. I had an interesting conversation with a fellow member of this list last term which went something like this - "Before I got here, home was the place I would eat, sleep and chase my dog around. In the past 9 months, I've received 8 wedding invitations, 3 marriage proposals and an invitation to guest lecture in about half a dozen universities. Suddenly home is a lot cooler").

Concerns have been raised about whether this position I am taking denigrates and devalues the position of those who wish to return to India. I strongly feel that it does not. I believe that one's choice to return to India is a personal one, and should not be externally imposed on others. Hence, while this personal choice is necessarily individual specific, I think there is no systemic, institutional or public obligation to return to one's country.

This is without prejudice to the broader question of whether one should contribute to one's home state at all. I believe I should, but someone who has a more cosmopolitan (or more communist) world view than I do may well disagree. I just think that it is totally possible to enjoy the academic freedoms and research benefits which institutions in this country offer and still give back to the people of one's home country, perhaps more than one could by being back home.

Prithvi.

Taking over the ad world?

I was recently looking for some Indian ads which I was very fond of on the Internet (because a friend had forwarded me the unusual "Manno Bhabhi" ad). In the process, I discovered an incredibly interesting cultural revolution which seems to be taking place in the West - the use of Indian themes (and in several cases, Indian professionals) to market products which have nothing to do with India. There are several examples of this -

1. By far the best of the lot, Absolut's "Mulit" ad. This is an ad featuring an all Indian cast, but is a pseudo history of the mullet (as in the hairstyle), shot in a Bollywood-spoof style by a European film director. Mulit has spawned an underground fan following, but the funny thing is that it is an ad film intended for Western audiences, not for Indians.
2. The Cobra beer ads. I think these are the ones which started the whole trend. It makes sense that Cobra advertise their beers in this manner, given the origins of Cobra as the beer which goes with curry, and their India launch(see here for a brief write-up on Cobra beer). In addition to this, they're really funny. I would put the Tennent's beer ad in the same category.
3. The Coke Spanish Bollywood spoof. This is clearly not intended for Indian audiences, it uses a sort of Bollywood asereje, and is in Spanish. It is interesting however to see how wildly popular this ad has become, and the awards which have been heaped on it.
4. The Peugeot 209 ad. This ad has no non-Indian aspect to it - it's shot in Rajasthan (you can see from the buildings, the clothes the people are wearing and the car registration plates), features an Ambassador, a man talking to an elephant in Hindi/local dialect ("baitho, baitho"), a poster of Pukar on the wall and so much more. The soundtrack is Bhangra Knights v. Husan, which while incredibly popular in Europe, is an Urdu song. So here's the funny part - this ad has never been released in India (because Peugeot has pulled out of the Indian car market). This ad is made for the European market (maybe even the American one), and is incredibly popular, but it has no European symbolism.

What's interesting here is that with the exception of the beer ads, there is no ostensible connection between these ads, the product being sold, and the market in which they're being advertised. In spite of this, they've grown wildly popular (though I have no exact figures about how they've influenced sales). Why is this? Is the much anticipated Indian cultural summer finally here in Europe? Or is it just another form of product placement through cultural stereotyping (like the Cable & Wireless ads on Caribbean cellphones)? If it is the latter, given the poor consumer visibility of South Asians in Europe, is it just more economic sense to stereotype Indians rather than Eastern Europeans, the French, the English, the Germans etc?

Prithvi.

PS. Thanks to Manish Vij and Sepia Mutiny for the links.

The Pope's Legacy

I recently found an editorial by Polly Toynbee, who's writing I admire though often disagree with, as a reaction to the international adulation being heaped on the Pope upon his passing away. The rest of the post will only make sense if you read the article, and it is quite thought provoking though presenting an extremely controversial point of view.

I want to concentrate on one particular aspect of the Pope's legacy, I'll come back to whether we ought to be analysing his legacy at all in a subsequent post. This would relate to the impact the Pope's insistence on the unacceptability of birth control had on AIDS cases in the developing world. As Toynbee has pointed out in the article, the Catholic church (hereinafter "Church") has maintained a rigidly conservative line on the church's acceptance of birth control. I am inclined to believe, along with Toynbee, that this has resulted in a lot of deaths from AIDS in developing states (and perhaps even developed ones). This article formed the basis for an extremely informative discussion with a group of friends recently, some of whom were progressive Catholics. The most important points of difference which came up were:-

I. The Actual Impact Argument. One of the main points of difference which arose was about the actual impact which the Church's insistence on the unacceptability of birth control had on instances of HIV in Catholics. My argument basically ran as follows - by insisting that birth control was contrary to the tenets of the Catholic faith, the Pope failed to prevent several deaths from AIDS which could arguably have been prevented where the Pope to have (a) encouraged or (b) not discouraged birth control (though there would be a variation in numbers depending on whether the Pope adopted method (a) or (b). The first rebuttal was that the Church also advocated abstinence prior to marriage, and if this rule were to be followed, there would be no need to take a different line on birth control, since the rule on abstinence would be sufficient to ensure that AIDS did not spread as rapidly. My counter to this argument is that it is not part of the human condition to abstain, and/or to participate in monogamous relationships. Monogamy and abstinence are to be enforced, either by the imposition of external norms or as a result of an internal moral code. This is not the case with the purchase of birth control devices - it is not natural for human beings to practice birth control or to purchase birth control devices. Besides, the stigma attached to birth control as a result of the Church's sanction on them attaches a social deterrent to the purchase and use of these devices, which is not present in the case of the Church's sanction on extra-marital relationships (at least most often not in cases where males indulge in extra-marital relationships).

II. The "You can't Teach an Old Dogma New Tricks" Argument. The second rebuttal to my original argument was that Roman Catholicism was an essentially faith based religion, which had certain dogmatic cardinal principles which were central to the faith. To expect the Pope to change one of the central tenets of the faith, one of the most respected and highly regarded tenets was to expect too much of him, for then it would mean a betrayal of the Church's beliefs which he is expected to uphold. I'm not sure how convinced I am by this argument. Protecting human life is also one of the most central tenets of the Catholic faith, and in cases of conflict which have arisen between this tenet and others, the Church has preferred to respect the right to life of the corporeal existing human being (as in the application of double effect to abortions). Why can't this be done in the case of birth control for persons facing a very high risk of AIDS?

III. The "Papal is Bull" Argument. The final rebuttal is that the Pope has limited influence over the decisions which people make in their reproductive lives. The choice of whether to use condoms or other AIDS-preventive devices is an expression of social relationships between partners, and there is little the Pope could have done to change that, even if he were to have declared contraception and birth control acceptable. I disagree with this argument because it denies the social impact which the Church has on procreative choice. By outlawing birth control, the Church denigrates condoms, and imposes a social cost on their use. This social cost then can easily translate into non-use in relationships of dominance (as between sexually active men and women, for example). If the Pope were to have encouraged the use of birth control, it would go a long way in reducing the social costs associated with condom use, and therefore perhaps have saved many more lives. An ancillary point in support of this rebuttal is that several Catholics, and some churches, use birth control anyway. While I agree with this, the fact remains that this is occurring in spite of the Church's stance. Those Catholics and churches, which allow for this are indeed deserving of praise, but does this excuse the Church for it's failure to preach what right-minded followers of its faith are practising?

The Modi Shindig

I An Introduction

For those who aren't clued into it, the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, was recently denied a visa (both diplomatic and tourist) to the US for delivering a speech to a congregation of Non Resident Indians. The ostensible reason for this was the indictment by the National Human Rights Commission of India of his participation in the Gujarat riots of 2001, though the Indian press has been quick to offer many conspiracy theories about the "real reason" behind the denial of the visa. The Hindu nationalist elements in India have gone to town about the perceived "insult" to Indian pride, while the rabid segment of secular-liberal civil society can scarcely hide their glee at what they regard as just desert for Modi. Like most other political situations which create ideological faultlines (see Terry Schiavo's case in the US, the screening of Jerry Springer - The Musical on national TV in the UK etc.), the extremist nature of discourse surrounding the Modi visa denial tends to overshadow the less divisive aspects of the matter, aspects which are probably as relevant as the broader ideological debate.

This post, therefore, is an attempt to explain why I'm slightly more agnostic about taking pleasure from Modi's visa denial than some extremist liberals. I propose to look at this from two points of view - (i) the arbitrariness of the decision to deny Modi a visa (ii) the seeming insignificance of the matter from the US' perspective.

II Spot the odd one out

In the recent past, Pervez Musharraf, Chandrika Kumaratunga and Gerry Adams have all been granted visas to visit the USA. President Musharraf has been severely criticised by several international organisations for suppressing democracy in Pakistan (doh) and also for promoting religious discrimination in that country (or continuing to tolerate it); Chandrika Kumaratunga has been accused of the most horrendous human rights atrocities being committed against suspected Tamil militants in custody in Sri Lankan jails and Gerry Adams we all know about. Like Modi, none of these persons have been convicted for the commission of any of these offences, and yet all of them have been accused by some human rights organisation. Clearly then, the issue is not one of meeting certain criteria, because the criteria laid down in the International Religious Freedom Act applies to all of them. This arbitrariness also seems to be reflected in the recent denial of permission to Ram Guha for entry into the US.

However, regardless of what the actual reason for refusing Modi a visa is, every State has the right to determine who it allows onto its territory, and who it should grant a visa to. Few legal procedures exist to allow for review of these sorts of decisions, and very rarely is much political capital expended in seeking to right a perceived wrong which arises from decisions of this nature. There isn't much India can do to protest the US' decision, and arguably there are more important aspects to Indo-US relations to sort out than this. To talk of just desert for Modi, though, is to take a long leap - we have no idea of knowing why Modi was denied a visa, and given the sort of people who have been granted the visa, it's unclear why a random and arbitrary denial of a visa should be taken as a means of vindication in lieu of a properly adjudicated process of justice delivery (unless of course mere denial of a visa is regarded as sufficient punishment for the acts Modi is alleged to have committed). This is why I believe that there's little to rejoice in Modi's denial of a visa - it has little to do with providing justice to the victims of Gujarat, it is unlikely to make Modi feel repentant for what he's been accused of doing(or provide sufficient punishment for it) and it has just provided the Hindu Right with a cause to revive itself around.

III They Don't Really Care About Us

The core of the right-wing argument protesting the denial of Modi's visa is to claim it to be a sign of "disrespect" towards India. This may well be the case, but even if it is, it is not just a problem with the US government's stance towards India, but a reflection of the general lack of interest about Indian affairs in American society. Preliminary support for this can be gathered from the attention given to this denial by the American media - the NY Times carries a 129 word report on column A3 of page 4 of the edition of 19 March, the Washington Post does slightly better by giving it newspace on page A21 of the edition of the 19th, and A18 of the 20th. Other than the Indian community in the US (which seems divided on the propriety of the denial of the visa), few Americans are aware of the whole incident. By raising the "national insult" flag, the Hindu Right is drawing attention away from the important lesson which lies behind the denial of a visa to Modi - that for the US government, as well as for members of civil society, it doesn't matter if this constitutes a national insult or not. In such a situation, it is quite pointless to agitate on the basis of the disrespect being caused by the denial of the visa because it is not likely to result in Modi obtaining a visa (since the US government has no interest in doing so), pressurising the Indian government is unlikely to have any results (because issuing of visas is a purely internal matter for any State in the world) and the feelings of offended Indians don't count for much internationally.

IV The Way Forward

What this incident should be utilised for, therefore, is to introspect about why it is that India has such low presence in the context of the US' internal politics. Why is it that certain leaders would not be denied a visa into the US, but certain Indian leaders would? Why don't Americans care about this apparent discrimination? Why is the supposedly powerful and influential Indian lobby in the US unable to bring about a change in the perception of India there? Ideology-based arguments merely obfuscate this most central concern which arises from the whole visa denial incident.

Secularism in India

Ok, this is a topic which started off much debate on one of the lists I'm on. I posted two articles from a recent edition of the Indian newsmagazine Outlook, which seemed to reflect two different positions on the notion of secularism as it was understood in the Indian and South Asian context. These articles are part of a debate between Ashis Nandy and Kuldip Nayar. Nandy's article, titled "A Billion Gandhis", essentially argued that secularism as understood by Nehru in its Western sense (i.e. separation of Church and State) was a "dry import" which was artificially imposed upon India. According to him, India has traditionally always had a multicultural ethos premised upon tolerance (a sort of "Hindu secularism"), and hence Western secularism was a pretty needless imposition. Nayar criticises this identification of Indian multiculturalism with Hinduism, and believes that such a notion could be powerful ammunition for proponents of communalism in India. I got an interesting response from a friend to this debate, which was:

First a question of definition and context - in India, no other word is bandied around so much as secularism - the press discusses it, politicians make a living out of it, and almost every Indian has an opinion on it. Our constitution mandates India to be a secular state, but Indian secularism is not a strict separation of church and state - it would be closer to what in the Western context has now been understood as 'multiculturalism' (this itself should be enough to refute Nandy's claim - the fact that the Indian variety was so different from how secularism has been understood in the West). Nandy's post-colonialism makes him blame almost everything on the colonial state. While it is true that the British policies led to the concretisation of 'Hindu' and 'Muslim' identities in the popular psyche, crediting them with running a secular administration is what they certainly did not do. A number of colonial British policies were clearly designed to drive a wedge between the two communities, their oft-quoted 'divide and rule' policy. But secularism was certainly a reaction of the then Indian elite (led by Nehru) to the problem of increasing tensions between the two communities in the aftermath of partition of the country based on religious lines. That Pakistan chose to become an Islamic state made it still difficult for Nehru to justify why India was not becoming a Hindu state, since that was the 'logic' of partition.
Anyway, that much history aside, the main problem of Nandy is that he comes from a romanticisation of everything traditional, and while he claims to be a non-believer, the Hindu colour of his ideas is unescapable. At another place, Nandy claims that 'Hindutva' (that is political militant hinduism) is the death of 'hinduism' (the traditional, rural, tolerance-based religion). A lot of his love for rural tolerance is mostly, for him, Hindu tolerance. His tolerant India is surely hindu India, because he sees the essence of hinduism as tolerance (I am not disputing or affirming the truth of this claim, but the fact is that this does exclude other religions as fundamentally tolerant). He, actually, says that the Hindu Right in India is actually christianising/islamising hinduism.
He gives himself away when he says:
> These ideas of tolerance in ordinary people and everyday life are
> tinged
> with popular religious beliefs, however superstitious, irrational and
> primitive they may seem to progressive, secular Indians. Modern India,
till
> today, has not produced a single hero of secularism except for that
> fading
> star, Jawaharlal Nehru.
He is more direct in his other writings as to which 'popular' religious beliefs he is referring to. Of course, the above question may not necessarily be a critique, and is open to demonstration that in fact the basic belief in hinduim is tolerance. (that still does not prove that the same is not true with other religions - and even if it was, it does not discredit secularism, which teaches tolerance irrespective of religion). However, one very crucial aspect that Nandy almost entirely ignores is the context of caste - his tolerant rural India continues to discriminate on the basis of caste, and only the modern, urban (western) secular state has considered it worth to intervene and disrupt the massive caste infrastructure (with whatever digree of success or failure).
The only point that Nandy gets right is his claim to Gandhi's legacy - this much is true - Gandhi did employ religion to fight religious hatred, and employed religious symbols for his political struggle. Indian secularism truly owes its debt only to Nehru.

And I responded by saying:

I don't necessarily agree that the notion of secularism as understood in India can so easily be equated with multiculturalism. The point Nandy has made in the past is that it is not clear what secularism is meant to be in India, for some it is separation of State from religion, and for some it is a more pluralist recognition of the rights of all religions. This is reflected in constitutional decisions of the Supreme Court on the content of the notion of 'secularism' in the constitution, for instance. Nandy's critique is of one such stream of thought - that of purely Western secularism, symbolised by the separation of State and church, which he believes is impossible to recreate successfully in Indian socio-political discourse. ('If secularism only means the traditional tolerance of South Asia, why do we need an imported idea to talk about that local tolerance?') Nandy is essentially contrasting two modes of achieving amity (Gandhi's religion-based method with Nehru's Occidental secular method) and nominating his preference between them. By declaring Nehru to be the only advocate of secularism in India, Nandy is implying that the current practice of secularism in India (i.e. as among the people of India) is closer to Gandhi than Nehru (who represents the political class in India), and for him this is a desirable outcome (ergo the title 'A Billion Gandhis'). Hence, according to Nandy, the traditional (Hindu/Gandhian) notion of communal amity which is prevalent in South Asian multicultural communities is a workable alternative to Western notions of secularism (which is what is sought to be imposed on them by the political elite). One possible criticism of Nandy could be that he errs in believing that the entire ruling class in India takes one view of secularism (in the Nehruvian sense), whereas in reality even the ruling class is more fragmented than that. This would not detract from the essence of Nandy's argument, that in a struggle between traditional notions of secularism and the Western one, it is the traditional which should prevail, atleast in the South Asian context.
The point about traditional notions of religion reinforcing caste structures is a valid one, but some also appear to believe that the 'modern, urban, secular State' is replacing caste structures with class ones. Is this necessarily a positive step?
Also I believe Nandy's romanticising of other traditional Indian concepts (including that of 'sati' - widow immolation) should not influence analysis of his notions on secularism, as each has its own context.

What do you think?

Prithvi.

Introductions

There are so many media blogs out there, what's so special about this one? Why does it have such a boring title? Why does it exist?

Well, to answer the easy questions first - there's nothing special about this blog, and I couldn't think of a clever enough title for it which would convey what the blog's about, so that takes care of concerns (1) and (2). There are several reasons for why I've decided to waste webspace by putting this blog up:

1. Ever so often, I come across interesting articles on the Net which I post to friends and listserves of which I am a member. However, given the limited membership of the listserves (and the very limited patience of my friends), I rarely get feedback or comment on these articles. This blog is therefore, primarily, a means of promoting interaction and discussion on certain issues which interest me.

2. Blogs have taken off in a big way, and blogger.com seems to be going very strong. I have no backups for the stuff I send, and write, and they exist solely on my computer. Posting to this blog is some sort of insurance against computer-related disasters.

So I look forward to comments, questions, suggestions and further posts from people out there, I promise to post all comments which are not "offensive", whether or not I agree with the content in them.

Happy blogging to me!

Prithvi.