Kristof: Is rape serious?

Nicholas Kristof, in this NYT piece, wonders why rape investigations in the US are so desultory. It makes for very disturbing reading.

This links up to something I've been thinking about for a while: law enforcement officials in the US usually fall over backwards in haste when dealing with sexual crimes against minors (and understandably so). Why this apathy towards sexual crimes against women? Isn't there a worrying double standard in operation here: somehow, women who are raped aren't as deserving of the help of the State as those children who are. Is this distinction sensible?

Voting rights for Indians abroad: a bad idea

I have an article in today's Telegraph on why Indian citizens shouldn't be allowed to vote when they leave the country. Comments, suggestions, insults most welcome here.

Feed him to the public

My friend, and former colleague, Vinay Sitapati calls for Varun Gandhi's prosecution, both by the courts and the Election Commission, in this well-argued Indian Express op-ed. As behooves a rabid free-speech fundamentalist, however, I believe that Gandhi should not be prosecuted, and that hate speech regulations have no space in a healthy democracy.

Quite obviously, I do not endorse, support, or agree with anything in the comments Gandhi allegedly made here. I object to his prosecution, however, on matter of principle. Hate speech deserves protection like any other form of speech, because:

a. It is not clear that regulation of such speech will solve the more fundamental problem
b. Hate speech shines a light on social discontent, and is thus an important educational tool
c. In a democracy, one must have faith in the maturity of the people.

To build on each argument in turn. First off, by prosecuting Gandhi, or by preventing him from running for elections, the government/EC risks turning him into a martyr, and sparking a communal conflagaration. Already, sections of the Sangh Parivar, bloggers, and members of the public have begun speaking in support of Gandhi. Prosecution is likely to inspire a greater groundswell of opinion in his favour. Further, given that hate speech laws take as their aim the protection of minorities, it only furthers the resentment members of the majority feel towards the State's 'appeasement' of such groups. There is no need to make Varun Gandhi into a martyr for the religious right.

Secondly, the fact that Gandhi made these sorts of speeches on the campaign trail implies that he expected them to work (unless he's a psychopath, in which case prosecuting him makes little sense in any case). If this reflects the state of affairs in the constituency he was campaigning in, then it's a serious problem for communal harmony in Uttar Pradesh. Gandhi's outburst, therefore, is educative in its effect. It shows up this glaring social problem, and necessitates action against communalism in UP. Prosecuting Gandhi, in addition to increasing communal tensions, is also likely to be merely cosmetic. The real need, of course, is to combat the communal sentiment he is cashing in on. And his speeches have helped to identify the problem. Were hate speech driven underground, the wounds of hatred would fester without our ever coming to know about it, till perhaps it was too late.

Thirdly, Gandhi's comments were made in a particular political context: that of seeking votes prior to a massive democratic exercise. If one is truly committed to the notion of a liberal democracy, then his punishment must be left in the hands of the people. Democracies work on the principle that the multitude is ultimately wise, because there is no other political standard for wisdom in such systems of government. Second-guessing the decisions of citizens is not just politically foolish (for the reasons I've listed above), but also disrespectful of the views of the people. If we have enough faith in the views of the people to choose the best government from the various options available before them, we should also have the faith to believe that they will not be swayed by the hateful rants of a self-interested bigot. To do otherwise is, in this context, to strike at the very edifice the Indian Constitution bases our government on: the collective wisdom of the people.

Is Indian secularism dead?

One of my first posts here was a qualified defence of the Indian version of secularism, which I took to mean a pluralist, inclusive approach to religion-state relations. This Indian secularism, I argued, was superior to the Western version because it was more tolerant than exclusionary; it did not require people to choose between communal identities in order to be good citizens. Additionally, this version of secularism was better in the Indian context, since it was informed by the Indian historical experience with a multiplicity of religions and institutional structures. European secularism emerged as a means of dealing with the conflicts which marked the modern religious experience in that context, and a forced importation of those principles into Indian law would probably have done more harm than good.

I'm no longer sure that I was right then. While it is incredible that the Indian version of secularism worked for as long as it did in the decades following Independence, the increased communalization of the public sphere seems to have rendered inclusive secularism a pipe-dream. Part of this may be explained by the ascension to power of the Hindu right, but I'm not sure that paints the whole picture. Firstly, the Hindu right has co-existed with the secular parties in India's political mainstream for a good while now. It's ideas have always been there, so why have they achieved salience only in the past 20 years? Secondly, the Hindu right's meteoric rise to political dominance on the backs of the Hindutva agenda is symptomatic of a greater willingness of the public to buy into their nightmare-peddling. The right didn't create its audience, the audience existed before they came to power. What, then, explains the greater sanguinity of the majority of the Indian population towards religious fragmentation and division in the last few years? Why have the Godhras and the Ayodhyas happened on our watch, rather than in the lives of the first generation of independent Indians?

This is obviously too huge a question to answer in a blog post. An entire book would perhaps be insufficient. I would, however, like to suggest one for the drift away from inclusive secularism towards an increased toleration for communalism in the public space. This draws on some of Pratap Bhanu Mehta's arguments in his brilliant Burdens of Democracy. The peculiar nature of the Indian constitutional system is that it tries to impose liberal institutions and political principles on what is still quite a feudal social structure. The moves to provide representative equality, exemplified by the burgeoning movement for reservations, does enfranchise previously repressed minorities. However, mere enfranchisement does not lead to a more inclusive, egalitarian form of government. What it does, instead, is create a more diverse political elite, which retains many characteristics of the previous regime. Politics in India still remains an effort to grab as much power and patronage one can for oneself (and one's immediate associates), it's just that the Mayawatis and the Mulayams are now as capable of corruption as the Gandhis and the Patnaiks of the past. This communalized race for public resources has an important effect on how people perceive themselves. One's conception of an Indian is no longer an important part of one's identity; rather, one regards oneself more in terms of how one is recognized by the State. It is more important, as a result, if I am a Brahmin, or a Dalit, a Muslim or a Hindu, because my interaction with the State depends on which of these categories I fall into. The line from group-based affirmative action to group-based political disintegration is quite easy to draw.

Now, this is not a post about caste. I use caste politics to make a point which would apply just as much to communal politics. A feudal state with a representative political elite is just as likely to reinforce communal disintegration as casteist fragmentation in political and social relations. This is because a caste- and religion-based political system is incapable of existing without reinforcing some set of prejudices. In Indian politics, therefore, there is no political independent of extant social relations; one cannot regard oneself as an Indian citizen without immediately also regarding onself as a Hindu/Muslim and Dalit/Brahmin (regional politics implies that parochial considerations play a large role here too. Asking what is good of India is likely to be answered with a response motivated by a perception of what is good for Bengal/Kerala/Northeast etc). Perhaps the integrated secularism preferred by the first set of Indian political leaders was destined to failure. A more robust secularism, which keeps religion out of the political sphere at all costs, might have led to a more robust nationalism in a time where the political elites were more representative of the population as large. I can't make the claim that this would have helped move India away from feudalism towards a more modern system of government, but it would have acted as a strong check on the influence of certain community-based ties on national government.

A Failure of 'Democracy'?

Foreign policy 'experts' have been predicting the death of the Pakistani state for a few years now. While their ideological motivations may have been somewhat suspect, recent events seem to suggest that the facts are catching with the prophecy.

Exhibit A: The breathtakingly audacious attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team. In the heart of Lahore, amidst what were considered unusually strong security measures for such an event.

Exhibit B: The Pakistani government's response: blaming India.

Exhibit C: The Pakistani military suspending operations in Swat, a region bordering Afghanistan and virtually independent of government control. Initial reports seem to suggest increased Taliban control over the area.

Exhibit D: Pakistan is facing a severe financial crisis, inspite of availing of an IMF-administered multi-billion dollar aid package in November, 2008. If the US doesn't come through on its promised aid package, the economy is likely to collapse. Note the package comes with terms attached: none of the money promised is going directly to the government, it is going only to USAID-supervised projects. This seems to suggest worldwide suspicion of the effectiveness of the Pakistani state machinery.

Exhibit E: The complete breakdown of institutional integrity in Pakistan, as exemplified by the recent Supreme Court decision banning Nawaz Sharif and his brother from holding public office, and the subsequent dismissal of the provincial government in Punjab by President Zardari.

There are many more such incidents which shed doubt on the effectiveness of Pakistan's democratically elected political establishment, but these should suffice to make the point. Has the State in Pakistan finally failed?

I want to end on a provocative note. Sections of the international media greeted the end of Musharraf's rule with joy, relief and great hope. However, as New America Foundation President and veteran journalist Steve Coll points out in a recent New Yorker essay, South Asia's chances for peace will probably never be as good as they were under the General. With his departure, a ramshackle civilian administration has been besieged with challenges at every step, and has found itself hopelessly unprepared. Perhaps there's a lesson to be learned in this: that democracy itself (defined here as a system where the government is elected by the people, and nothing else) is an insufficient good. Without civic institutions and independent constitutional mechanisms strong enough to ensure the nurturing of a democratic culture, the mere fact of representative government is useless in resolving the problems which face a country emerging out of authoritarian rule. Ruthless corrupt tyrants are just as likely to emerge through elections as they are through coups, putsches or revolutions. This is especially so in countries which have no experience with constitutional government. Democracy isn't just a function of the ballot, it is a mode of political life. It is a form of political organization where citizens can exercise a check on the operation of their governments through independent institutions, like courts, the press, watchdog organisations; not just by pulling a level or punching a card every 5 years.

Perhaps, then, democracy isn't good for Pakistan. Perhaps military rule with limited provincial elections, a small but dedicated activist element, a robustly free English language press, and a moderately independent judiciary is what it needs right now. Till such time as peace comes to visit the region, and the seeds of democratic sentiment take root, perhaps authoritarian rule is the least worst option.

Another free speech assault

In a shameful incident, the editor of the Statesman was arrested for publishing this article by Johann Hari. The arrests were made pursuant to s. 295A of the IPC, which Tarunabh breaks down for us here. The article itself was unexceptional in every regard, and certainly can't be reasonably construed as an attack on Islam as a religion. Rather, it criticised the efforts of certain states to put forth an 'Islamic Declaration of Human Rights', intended as an alternative to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which permitted the exercise of civil liberties only within the limits set by sharia.

One could use this as a pretext for bemoaning the loss of respect for individual liberties in India, but I'd like to make a much more basic point here. If civil rights are only available at the behest of bureaucrats (as it is in the case of s. 295A), they risk being lost forever. The whole point of a pluralistic liberal state is to permit non-conformity, dissent, and criticism of others. By placing bureaucratic restraints on speech and expression, we stand to lose the vitality and energy which makes the right to free expression so valuable and important for culturally variegated societies like ours.

Chaddi charades

Sagarika Ghosh has an article in the HT about why the Pink Chaddi campaign is a bad idea. While I don't agree with all of what she has to say (if young Mangaloreans think that wearing Shoppers Stop threads and downing Kingfishers gets them closer to Carrie Shaw, good for them. India has greater problems to worry about), I think it's fair to ask a few questions about the point of the campaign. Given the following, how effective is the protest likely to be:

a. The bunch of former Bajrang Dali-s who make up the Shri Ram Sena are no shrinking violets. Mailing them pink chaddis is not going to send them into hiding behind their wives' pallus; if anything, it's likely to enrage them even more. In any event, most of the chaddis are likely to be intercepted en route by lascivious mailmen. Initial responses to the campaign from Pramod Mutalik to suggest that he is far from blushing.

b. Perhaps it is about the principle of the matter; horrific acts of violence against women should not be permitted, and right minded individuals should express their protest in as forceful a manner as possible. Sure thing, but is the mailing of pink chaddis really the best way to launch a vigorous defence of liberal democratic values? As Ghosh points out, this is a move guaranteed to alienate many who are otherwise opposed to such disgusting displays of aggression. If the aim is to create a popular movement against vandalism, hooliganism, the colonization of public spaces and misogynistic moral policemen (and women), surely alienating potential supporters right off the bat isn't such an outstanding idea? If, however, the move is intended to sensationalise, then it's unfortunate that such a serious issue is being tackled in this callow fashion. The socio-cultural problems underlying such incidents are not going to be resolved (or even illuminated) by mere eyeball grabbing.

c. There's a more principled objection I have to this business. The whole point of the Shri Ram Sena's attack, it seems to me, is to assert that the consumption of alcohol in a pub at 3 am is somehow prurient, or sleazy. By launching a campaign which is centred around items of clothing imbued with sexual significance, the organizers risk endorsing the message of the Shri Ram Sena - that drinking in pubs is morally equivalent to being sexually liberal. Now I'm absolutely not claiming that there's anything morally wrong with sexual liberation; indeed India could well do with much more of it. All I am saying is that given the conservative nature of social mores in the country, this is hardly an effective plank on which to gain widescale sympathy for the victims of these horrendous attacks. It is also not clear to me that the campaign is a good way to educate the public about the need to respect individuality, for messages which alienate don't usually do a great job of educating.

Therefore, it strikes me that the Pink Chaddi campaign suffers from an identity crisis. On the one hand, it appears to be an effort to create a genuine mass movement against bigotry. On the other hand, it also appears to be a unique way of celebrating individual freedom, like the New York Central Park love-ins of the 1970s. The problem, of course, is that it can't do both. The latter aim, laudable as it is, contradicts the former; for it goes against the sympathies of many members of the public. And in failing to take into account the social conservatism of the Indian public, the campaign may just be falling into the Shri Ram Sena's trap.

PS: Pratap Bhanu Mehta makes a point which indirectly supports my conclusion above. In his wonderful op-ed, he argues that the Mangalore attacks indicate how poorly respect for rights is socialized in India. The solution, of course, is to launch social movements which aim at creating a broadbased rights culture in India. Sending goondas pink chaddis in the mail isn't going to get us very far down that road.

The hope and despair of 'Slumdog Millionaire'

Ian Jack, former editor of Granta, has a column in the Guardian discussing how attitudes towards Indian attitudes towards 'poverty porn' have changed. He uses, as framing devices, the differing responses to Louis Malle's highly controversial Phantom India and Danny Boyle's universally applauded Slumdog Millionaire.

"A foreign director [Malle] comes to India and shoots a film that in part depicts considerable cruelty, poverty and squalor. The Indian government is outraged when the BBC broadcasts the film. There are official protests; severe restrictions are imposed on the BBC and any other foreign organisation that wants to film in India; the director never enters the country again. Forty years pass. Another foreign director [Boyle] shoots a film in India in which the cruelty, poverty and squalor are even more horrid. It wins four Golden Globes and 10 Oscar nominations. Most of India is delighted; domestic film-makers are chided for the timidity of their vision and mindless escapism of their output"

Why the change in response? What happened over the last 40 years to make Indians more accepting of such depictions of poverty?

"The reasons are complicated, but perhaps the main ones are that Indian society is a thousand times more confident, that the word "vulgar" has vanished from the critical lexicon, and that the world has grown very small"

The rest of the article fleshes out this hypothesis, drawing (among other things) upon a section of India's response to Mother India, Pather Panchali, and an interview with Vikas Swarup. It's very interesting, and provides quite a bit of food for thought, but I have one little doubt about it all. If Boyle had shot a documentary which went into corners of India rarely discussed in the foreign (indeed, even the Indian) press, and which didn't emphasise as much the triumphalism of the Indian spirit, would we still be as unflinching in our praise?

Terror in the time of apoplexia

Mukul Kesavan brilliantly rips into the English-language television coverage of the Mumbai attacks in yesterday's Telegraph.

'During the crisis, the foregrounding of the Taj was inevitable. It was the site of the longest battle and the hideous drama of its near-destruction was bound to be framed by any sensible cameraman. But it’s still worth making the point Shyam Benegal made, that the dozens of people killed in VT (or CST) station and their grieving relatives and friends got very little screen time. When VT figured in the coverage, it was there for CCTV grabs of the T-shirted terrorist.'

It isn't news to anybody that the English media (even the Booker Prize winners among them) are notoriously susceptible to class prejudice, but Kesavan quite perceptively notes that the Mumbai attacks allowed for unveiled expressions of class resentment:

'Usually, privileged English-speaking Indians have the tact to be politically correct in their public statements; but in the middle of terror and tragedy, the sense of social self-preservation that keeps them from crassness, disappears. “Go to the Four Seasons and look down from the top floor at the slums around you.” That ‘you’ is us: Telegraph-reading, hotel-going people, who, in the heat of the moment and because of the death of people we know (or know of), become the world.'

Crassness. From the Latin crassus; solid, thick, dense, fat. What an excellent word to describe what passes for media analysis on English-medium TV channels today.

PS: Nivedita Menon has a somewhat less restrained, but equally thought-provoking, post here.

Bombay terror attacks: important phone numbers

US State Dept hotline: 1-888-407-4747
Canada Foreign Affairs: 1-613-996-8885 (from Canada); 1-800-387-3124 (elsewhere)
UK FCO Emergency phoneline: +44 (0)207 00 800 00

(from Twitter)

Mumbai Police Control Room:
(+91-22) 22621855
22621983
22625020
22641449
22620111

Police Infoline: 1090

South Region Control Room:
(+91-22) 23089857
23089855
23070505

(PLEASE USE THESE NUMBERS RESPONSIBLY)

(From Mumbai Police)

Blood is required at JJ (+91-22-23739031) and St George's Hospitals (+91-22-22620240). Please call before venturing out.

(From Mumbai Help)

Adverse reactions to the Obama transition team

The choice of Rahm Emanuel as Obama's Chief of Staff ('CoS') has led to some adverse reactions in the Middle East, and also among sections of the Indian media. Much of this is the usual underinformed (if not downright bigoted) response to the appointment of Jewish officials to positions of authority which intermittently emanates from these sources, but the responses are notable for they show how closely the Obama transition is being watched abroad. The CoS is an interesting executive position, previous office-holders have been variously referred to as the 'Second-Most Powerful Man in Washington' and 'the gatekeeper of the Oval Office', but the position is usually associated with internal organisation and external negotiations and is not clear how much influence Obama's CoS will have over the making of foreign policy. In light of this, another interesting question arises: are certain foreign leaders (or media elites) now having second thoughts about the Obama administration, and looking for excuses to justify their growing unease? International reactions to future appointments to his Cabinet (notably Secretaries of State and Defense) will be quite illuminating.

Global views on the Obama election

The New York Times reports on reactions to Obama's win around the world. It's interesting to note that this article's (highly unrepresentative) sample of respondents often take the election win as being a reflection upon the American political system, as much as a means of expressing their resentment towards George Bush. The observations of Philippe Sands, Professor of International Law at UCL, and Francis Nyamnjoh, of the CODESRIA, also make a lot of sense:

"'People feel he is a part of them because he has this multiracial, multiethnic and multinational dimension,” said Philippe Sands, a British international lawyer and author who travels frequently, adding that people find some thread of their own hopes and ideals in Mr. Obama. “He represents, for people in so many different communities and cultures, a personal connection. There is an immigrant component and a minority component.”

Francis Nyamnjoh, a Cameroonian novelist and social scientist, said he saw Mr. Obama less as a black man than “as a successful negotiator of identity margins.”

His ability to inhabit so many categories mirrors the African experience. Mr. Nyamnjoh said that for America to choose as its citizen in chief such a skillful straddler of global identities could not help but transform the nation’s image, making it once again the screen upon which the hopes and ambitions of the world are projected"

If these observations are true in part, then it becomes virtually impossible for Obama to sustain these levels of support within the international community. Given the different, often contradictory, reasons for his appeal, and the fact that his primary base is domestic, Obama is sure to dissatisfy some of his supporters soon after assuming office.

The Obama Effect I: Blacks in Britain

In the past few months, for better or for worse, young Americans have been swept up in the heady wake of hope and optimism that follows Barack Obama wherever he goes. While there are far better places to track the growth of the Obamenon in America, this blog will take a little detour from its usual subject to follow international media reactions to Obama. This is in the hope of gaining some insight as to why this particular candidate, whose story is as much global as it is typically American, has brought forth such a uniformly positive response from the rest of the world, particularly when the American brand itself is taking such a tarnishing everywhere.

First up, an article in the Guardian looking at how the Obama effect is trickling down to black communities in Britain, and observing that Obama and Lewis Hamilton are now role models at 'the beginning of the greatest week ever in black history'. Note that both the Obama story, and Hamilton's, have similar inspirational overtones, both of them transcending economic hardships, tough family situations, and racial stereotyping to make it to positions of historic significance. It would be interesting to see whether the initial euphoria translates into something more tangible; as the article calls it, a 'new narrative' for black Britons.

Link: A great week in black history?

This article, of course, is being posted a day before the Presidential Elections of 2008. Irrespective of tomorrow's outcome, I think tracking international media opinion as a reaction to the result tomorrow is bound to provide for some interesting reading. Future themes follow two tracks: in the event of an Obama win, how long will his love affair with the rest of the world continue? In the event of an unlikely loss, will the sense of despondency and rejection have other effects on marginalised communities who look to the Obama ascendancy as a source of hope and validation for themselves? Will it further affect America's reputation among other countries?

"Neo-liberalism" and the Chinese Success Story

The University of Chicago is considering setting up a Milton Friedman Institute. Some professors are strongly opposed to such an establishment, and have written a letter to the Provost and the President stating their objections. One of the chief objections is:

'Many colleagues are distressed by the notoriety of the Chicago School of Economics, especially throughout much of the global south, where they have often to defend the University’s reputation in the face of its negative image. The effects of the neoliberal global order that has been put in place in recent decades, strongly buttressed by the Chicago School of Economics, have by no means been unequivocally positive. Many would argue that they have been negative for much of the world's population, leading to the weakening of a number of struggling local economies in the service of globalized capital, and many would question the substitution of monetization for democratization under the banner of “market democracy.” '

A Militant Defender of the Legacy of Friedman responds to this letter, ridiculing the 'Global South Objection' in this fashion:

'I can think of lots of words to describe what’s going on in, say, China and India, as well as what happened previously to countries that adopted the “neoliberal global order” like Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea. Billions of people are leading dramatically freer, healthier, longer and more prosperous lives than they were a generation ago.

Of course, we all face plenty of problems. I worry about environmental catastrophes, and their political, social and economic aftermath. Many people are suffering, primarily in pockets of kleptocracy and anarchy. Life’s pretty bleak about 5 blocks west of the University of Chicago. In my professional life, I worry about inflation, chaotic markets, and their possible death by regulation. There is a lot for thoughtful economists and social scientists to do. But honestly, do we really yearn to send a billion Chinese back to their “local economies,” trying to eke a meager living out of a quarter acre of rice paddy, under the iron grip of some local bureaucrat? I mean, the Mao caps and Che shirts are cool and all, but millions of people starved to death.'

Which is all well and good, but it leads me (and at least one other blogger) to ask the question: since when did China become a beaming poster child for the success of the neo-liberal agenda? How close, socio-politically, is the Chinese state to the neo-liberal dreamworld? Or, as Daniel Davies puts it far more eloquently:

'What is the intellectual journey that took the Davos crowd from laissez-faire via free trade and the WTO, to regarding China as a success story?'

Any thoughts?

A blow for free speech

Here's an excellent piece by V Venkatesan breaking down the legal details associated with the FIR (and subsequent summons) issued against Ashis Nandy. It is a refreshing change from the usual equivocating defences of Sections 153A and 153B of the IPC (which criminalise "promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony" and "Imputations, assertions prejudicial to national-integration" respectively) on grounds of maintaining civil harmony, national security, religious comity and what-not. Perhaps the best objection to these provisions is that of P Ananda Charlu, former President of the Indian National Congress:

"[S. 153A is] a dangerous piece of legislation and has been impolitic (among other reasons) by necessitating government to side with or to appear to side with one party as against another. In my humble judgment, it will only accentuate the evil which it is meant to remove. Far from healing the differences which still linger, or which now and then come to the surface, it would widen the gap by encouraging insidious men to do mischief in stealth…"

The point is similar to that made by Louis Brandeis when he noted that "sunlight is the best disinfectant"; the criminalization of politically unpalatable forms of speech merely pushes their expression underground, and thus prevents the State from taking positive steps to redress the grievances which lie at their root. More notable is the fact that Ananda Charlu was making his point in 1886, well before Brandeis, and at a time when freedom of speech in India was virtually non-existent. Ironically, not withstanding India's independence and the constitutional guarantees for the protection of speech, we now seem to have moved further away from Charlu's position than closer to it.

Thank God for Earthquakes?

Simon Jenkins, in this fine Guardian piece, analyses how the earthquake in Xinjiang is a foreign policy blessing for many:

"You don't have to be cynical to do foreign policy, but it helps. A sigh of relief rose over the west's chancelleries on Monday as it became clear that the Chinese earthquake was big - big enough to trump Burma's cyclone."

Add to that China's relatively good behaviour, and then, Jenkins notes, the Western prophecy (of sit-and-wait-it-out-till-democracy-magically-blossoms) miraculously self-fulfils itself:

"To add to the relief, Beijing was behaving better than it has over past calamities. Since this might have been thanks to the west's "positive engagement" with China's dictators - even awarding them the Olympics - we could possibly take credit from the week's tally of disaster. Sorry about that, Burma."

Some of it is knee-jerk comparisons to Iraq and Afghanistan, but the piece is informed, at its heart, by a profound dissatisfaction with the motives of Western mandarins:

"After days of hand-sitting and abuse-hurling, the thesis that "diplomatic pressure" is going to burst the dam of Burma's hostility seems naive. I have read not one observer who believes this regime will admit aid workers, while many accept that it would be unlikely to contest a dump-and-run airlift under appropriate air cover. If the west refuses even to plan such an operation, it would be more honest to admit to doing nothing and stop counterproductive abuse of the regime.

What is sickening is the attempt to squeeze a decision not to help these desperate people into the same "liberal interventionist" ideology as validates billions of pounds on invading, occupying, destabilising, bombing and failing to pacify other peoples whose governments also did not invite intervention."

This deserves to be read.

Expose: India is classist

Vir Sanghvi, in this quite hilarious article, stumbles onto a shocking fact about India:

"We are still shamelessly class-ist. We regard certain professions as so contemptible that any reference to them is treated as an insult."

And in what context did he reach this radical conclusion?

"[MP from Kerala] Abdul Wahab was supposed to board an Indian Airlines (now called Air India) flight at Kozhikode airport on Tuesday. He arrived at the aircraft late, escorted by the Indian Airlines manager. The aircraft’s pilot began shouting at the manager and complaining about the delay.

Why there was a delay is a matter of some controversy. According to Wahab, he had reached the airport on time, and had waited patiently in the VIP lounge to board. He suggests that Indian Airlines may have taken too long to emplane him. The pilot initially claimed that he had arrived late and expected the aircraft to be held up for him, but this claim has now been tempered.

What happened next, however, is clear. Wahab told the pilot to stop shouting at the Indian Airlines manager and said that he was no more than a ‘glorified driver’."

Hit the link for the best of what passes for class analysis in the mainstream media nowadays. I'm going to find myself a hockey stick.

Free speech for non-citizens?

There's one aspect of the recent furore about the treatment of Taslima Nasreen which I believe hasn't received sufficient attention: the question of her citizenship. Unlike the producers of Jodha(a?)-Akbar, for example, she is not a citizen of India. She is a visitor at the courtesy of the Indian government, and as such is subject to restrictions on the enjoyment of certain rights which Indian citizens can avail of freely. To argue that what the Indian government has done in her case is unconscionable (and I refer here to her being asked to leave, not about her 'house arrest') is to take a position on an issue about which reasonable disagreement can exist.

The Constitution's founders, in their wisdom, founded the republic on the following basis:

'We the People of India having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign Democratic Republic and to secure to all its citizens...liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship' (the Preamble to the unamended Constitution)

The limitation of the enjoyment of the right of free expression was quite deliberate, as may be seen from the wording of Art. 19(1)(a):

'All citizens shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression'

Understanding the Constitution as it stood in 1950, therefore, it appears quite evident that certain freedoms are not automatically available to non-citizens of India. Parliament may, at its discretion, have extended these freedoms to such individuals, but this is not mandated by the Constitution. Thus, there's nothing immediately unconscionable about restricting the speech and expression rights of Taslima.

I don't think it should automatically follow, either, that the Indian government has an obligation to extend these constitutional freedoms to non-citizens in general, and to Ms Nasreen in particular. An Indian's citizenship is a valuable part of her identity, we have certain peculiar rights and obligations to enjoy and uphold by virtue of our constitutional position in the Indian state (since the Union of India rests on the endorsement of we, the people). To extend the enjoyment of the rights available to Indians to everyone else wholesale is to depreciate the value which one's own citizenship has. We have certain rights by virtue of our Indian-ness; either we have been born to the country, and have political, cultural and/or social ties (however distant) to it, or our parents do, and we enjoy the same ties by virtue of our relationship to them, or we have demonstrated a commitment to the idea of India by living there for a certain period of time (these are the requirements of Art. 5, and the Citizenship Act). Ms Nasreen is a political refugee, and it is quite a matter of pride that she chose India as her base away from persecution (as did the Tibetans, but more about them a little later), but she chose to live here at the pleasure of the government, and on the terms which it imposed on her, as on other visitors. In this respect, she is different from those who protested her presence in the country: the government is constitutionally obliged to respect their wishes, but it is not so required to protect her speech rights. When caught between the demands of (some of) its constituents, and the interests of a visitor, the government chose the former. It can well be debated whether this was the right postion to take, this is a matter on which reasonable disagreement can exist. It is unfair, however, to hold that there is only one position which the Indian government could morally take on the issue, to do so is to ignore the ethos of our Constitution: that being Indian means something special, and the enjoyment of the rights of Indian citizenship are a mark of distinction in this respect.

This is not to appear to be a rabid nationalist, far from it. Cosmopolitan arguments carry a good deal of influence with me, and I cannot deny that I have fully enjoyed the protection of good laws in the countries I have lived in as a guest. However, cosmopolitanism is not a universal value, it is possible to have reasonable (and morally acceptable) disagreement about whether a State should be cosmopolitan or not (e.g. Bhutan), and the degree to which it should be accommodating of the rights and interests of others who are not part of its political constituency. In light of India's experiences with imperial domination not too long ago, it is perhaps not surprising that its citizenship requirements are so onerous. Perhaps some day this will change, but that day is not here yet.

A word about Tibetan refugees and speech rights: I am a strong critic of the government's policy to bar Tibetan refugees from protesting in Delhi. This needs a longer discussion than a post-script, but I will outline my position in brief here: given the strength of the Tibetan government-in-exile's association with India, and the invaluable contributions of the Tibetan community to the State and the regions where they have settled, it is unfair to deny them the protection of the rights which other citizens enjoy. Questions of line-drawing, and substantive distinctions may well arise, but I think the point should not be over-emphasised too much. It would be tough to compare the contributions of the 100,000-odd Tibetan settlers in India with those of Ms Nasreen, and not just for reasons arising out of numerical superiority.

A short requiem for Indian civilization

In which civilized country does this happen?

'Seventy-five-year-old Rajpati Devi of Kharagpur died on the streets of Calcutta early on Thursday, after being denied entry into a government-run hospital through the night.

The liver cancer patient died unattended after being referred by Nil Ratan Sircar (NRS) Medical College and Hospital to Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, where she was refused permission to even enter the premises.'

But all is well, for the babus are in action. Or are they?

' “We have not received any complaint yet. I will get in touch with the institute director and ask for a report once we get the complaint,” state health minister Surjya Kanta Mishra told [Telegraph] Metro late on Thursday.

The vice-chairman of the institute’s governing body added that the health department would “definitely look into the matter” once it received a formal complaint.'

I understand how well-intended concerns about the use of the label 'civilized' to create distinctions between nations are, but sometimes politically correct squeamishness just has to take a back seat to proper indignation. Can anyone, with a straight face, claim the mantle of civilization for India anymore?

PS - this post has been festering for a while, mainly in response to this, this, and this. If, as Emerson had us know, the true test of civilization is the kind of man it turns out, we've come a long, long way from the India which produced Tagore.

A New Bengali Radicalism?

Ashis Chakravarti, in this Telegraph column, wonders if the Nandigram protests in Kolkata provides 'two simple messages':

'One, Bengal at last perhaps wants an alternative to the CPI(M). Two, the search for it cannot end in a return to the Seventies'

I'm not sure if this is true for all Bengalis, but as an analysis of the change in attitude towards violence among the bhadralok (especially those who had openly embraced militancy during the Naxalite period), the column makes for interesting reading. There's also more to the Ghare Baire reference in the piece than Chakravarti lets on, but that's matter for a different post.