A Colonel General

The one aspect that has stood out in all the interviews given by General VK Singh is that he has been consistent and never once dithered to answer a question. Everything he has spoken is logically sustainable. He admits to certain disgruntled elements within. We are thus reassured that under this Chief matters are not being brushed under the carpet. In such a scenario some feathers will be ruffled and apple carts upset. For an institution as eminent in stature as the Armed Forces, upturned apple carts should be treated as hurdles in a steeple chase. One way of separating rotten apples some would say.

Anything unprecedented portends either evil or goodness. The way Gen VK conducted himself is unprecedented, in that there was a lot of media (and by default the Nation’s) attention focused on him due to events contrived or otherwise. So we can expect some good outcome, the optimist that I am.  He took over the reins in trying circumstances and vowed to start a process to ‘cleanse’ the system.  Some of us know that it was not a task as direct as it sounded. There has definitely been an attempt to right wrongs is evident. Just yesterday the financial powers of Service HQs have been tripled to ₹ 1500 million. The establishment has woken up to the fact that the Nation’s Defence is ill equipped. The bureaucrats are rattled. The focus is once again on corruption in Defence deals. The much touted ‘succession plan’ for Chiefs have been exposed. Some internal squabbles have come to the fore. As a veteran I feel some much needed churning in the innards of the Army is in progress. In the process a lot of muck has been exposed. I ask, how can we clean the room without removing the carpet and exposing the dirt. The whole exercise is definitely painful – what with dust in the air and everybody sneezing and some catching an allergy.  We can only hope that once the process is done with and the dust disperses we get a clean atmosphere.

I thought the Chief spoke like a Colonel and NOT a General...is that the difference?

In passing…whither intellect?

One other point of note in the transactions between our politicians on National TV is the tit for tat attitude; a complete lack of intelligence in discussing issues. Last evening a spokesperson for the movement against corruption was drawing attention of the panel to the various corruption charges against senior incumbent ministers (Not frivolous allegations but points already raised in Parliament) one panelist belonging to an entrenched National Political Party retorted “You make allegations against ministers what about allegations cropping up in the papers on members of team Anna?”. At that point I was overcome with an intense feeling of nausea and hurried to the loo.

Those were the days: The power of a NDA cadet

It happened during the summer term break in 1971. These NITs (like in Kurukshetra) were known as Regional Engineering Colleges (REC) then – one in each state. The college for Kerala is located at Thenjippalam in Kozhikode (Then Calicut) district. This college was in the news during the emergency, 1976, for a famous (infamous) case where an alleged Naxalite, P. Rajan, a student of the college went missing one fine day. To this day it is a public secret that the government of the day in collusion with the police tortured him and disposed off the body. Such was the reputation of that college in the early 70s, that ordinary people were scared to enter its portals. Situated bordering Wynad district, the cradle of Naxalism in Kerala, it was thought that the college served as a centre for ‘Intellectual Naxalites’ – a suspected reason for Rajan’s persecution.

My brother was given admission in this REC in 1971. As I was home for the break, I accompanied my brother to the college for the admission formalities. In those days I could feel an aura of invincibility around me as a NDA cadet, I thought, was the most powerful person outside NDA. After all, my name was published, as part of a list of successful candidate from the state,  in the vernacular (Malayalam) papers in 1969! Some said the complete list was published in the New Delhi editions of English language dailies. Alas one did not get to see that.

The college was about 40 miles from our house. The mode of transport was by bus where a one way ticket, for a journey of less than two hours, cost 120 paise! Once in the college and the admission formalities done, we headed for the college cafeteria (canteen, it was called by the students) despite protests from my brother who had apprehensions which we found were not out of place. Inside the cafeteria before we could find a seat we were hauled up by some ‘seniors’. My first and only taste of ‘ragging’ in an engineering college. By the summer of 1971, I could hold myself amidst a gossip in Hindi. I could make out that these ‘seniors’ were from the North who had not gone home during the break for some reasons. Even as the ‘ragging’ commenced, I surprised the group with some barbs in Hindi. Taken aback instantly, on queries I had to reveal to them that I was a 'senior' Cadet from NDA (there was only one NDA then as the political NDA had not yet taken shape!). Immediately on the revelation the whole atmosphere transformed into one of cordiality and I became the hero.  One or two among the ‘seniors’ were from Sainik schools and enquired after their ‘school types’ in NDA. By the time we left after lunch, my brother had many friends in the college.

That was the power of National Defence Academy…in those days.

What is the colour of RED

The colour RED recalls varied associations. An overheated metal or situation is red hot. The atmosphere is heated with boiling emotions in an environment of heated arguments. Red is associated with all hues of communism. It is colour red for a warning as in traffic signal systems. Ripeness of fruits is often referred to as being red (red ripe apples). Of course the colour of blood is RED.

‘Seeing red’ is also associated with getting angry and loosing ones’ control. It is widely thought that 'see red' derives from the sport of bull-fighting and the matador's use of a red cape to deceive the bull. What is ironical is that the bull in a fight is angered by the movement of the cloth rather than its colour. These bulls like all cattle are colour blind.  Bulls charge at the red cape (called a muleta) because they are being provoked and tormented, and when they see the vigorous movement, they charge. Also the types of bulls used in bullfights are of a very aggressive breed and raised to be this way, so any movement will cause the bull to attack and it is the skill of the bullfighter (matador) that saves his day. The other reason the cape is red is so that the blood does not show! Also the bold and powerful color Red adds to the drama of the bullfight. 

A similar Bullfight is being played out in Poschim Bongla. The colour red is prominent while there is a blur as to the identity of the bull and the matador. In all cases the victims are the poor Bengalis. Recently, seeing red has gathered another dimension to its facets. Yesterday the firebrand CM of Poschim Bongla, Mamata Bannerji walked out of a live TV programme as she saw red in the audience because of the reddish questions put to her by those present. She said “the audience is representatives of CPM and Maoists”…and she says she has been voted to power in a democracy. That I say is really seeing red!

What this has done is, it has left many of us gentle persons red faced. 

Grandma for President

The sponsors of IPL have got it all wrong. The real followers of these games these days are grandpas and grandmas. We can’t blame them as, besides the cricketers and bookies, only they seem to have all the time for IPL cricket. So it did not surprise me this evening, at the dinner table when my grandma asked me “What is with this Sharukh Khan? Does he think he is the ‘badsha’ of IPL also?”

I:  Now grandma, the team Kolkata Knight Riders is owned by the cricket loving SRK. Last night I believe they won and he must have celebrated.

Grandma (G :) Celebrations! Bullshit. All the action last night, If the news channels are to be believed, was in the stadium after the match was long over!

I:  How come Grandma?

G:  After the match, they say, an inebriated SRK came down onto the ground and addressed all and sundry with the choicest Bollywood innuendos and raw Punjabi sweet talk. 

I:  Grandma, all that is what is known as ‘publicity stunts’.  This way everybody stays in the news, MCA, BCCI, IPL and SRK! Thus they make a cartoon out of all those who watch cricket!

G:  I get your point. In my company you are getting smarter. But son, cricket isn’t what it used to be. But all said and done IPL is entertaining and colorful with dance, party, Bollywood and fixing.  Yesterday I predicted a slower ball correctly and got a cup of tea from your mother!

I: How did you do that grandma? You couldn’t have fixed it.

G:  Ah son. I will tell you the secret. Don’t tell your mamma else I will not be able to earn my cup of tea. This bowler here has a signal for the wicket keeper to  indicate his next ball will be a slower one. I noticed this by chance!!!

I:  You watch too much IPL grandma.

G:  But what else do I do all day? The other day I tried watching Loksabha TV and there I found everybody discussing cartoons as if there was a National emergency. When I was your age MPs talked about  issues like privy purses, banks, wars, emergencies et al.

I:   But grandma why do MPs discuss kindergarten subjects in the house these days.

G:  They do not know anything else son. Do you expect them to discuss the census data vis a vis progress? Unfortunately majority of elected representatives are uneducated people who have criminal cases pending in courts. Other just do not have a clue about Nation building and governance. To them democracy is about winning elections by any which means. Period.

I:   Where is the country going grandma?

G:  Oh! Fear not. Make me the President and I will set all right.

I:    But grandma….

G:  putr..banake to dekh. That is the problem with our country…shai bante chunte nahim ham…..See son…these Defence people keep asking for CDS and stuff but when I become the President, as the supreme commander of the Indian Armed Forces, a power given to me by the constitution, I will exercise my powers.

I: But grandma...how can you……

G:   I will train my guns on the parliamentarians and ask them to behave.

I:   They will throw you out Grandma…..

G:   That is the point son…by then the damage (I mean un-damage) would have been done….thoda soch to lo!

I:  Grandma, you are a genius!

The economy of match fixing

The specter of match fixing is raising its head again. I wonder why such a great hallabaloo surrounds this inane activity where the common man (you and me) lose nothing. In a land where legislator fix question in parliament it is not such an earthshaking matter to ball a no-ball in return for some quid. No balls are bowled anyway and they are part of the game. If at all fixing takes place I must say it is being done with elegant finesse. Only sting operations about really nonexistent fixing are thrown up. First up a sting operation is not the same as investigative journalism which is reporting actual events of public importance being brushed under the carpet for personal gains. In a brash language a sting operation is akin to ‘situating the appreciation’. Find a gullible fellow (murga), offer him something he can’t refuse and trap him into doing an indiscreet act. Once the act is done and captured on magnetic media he is made the fall guy. It is a different matter when the President of a national political party, aspiring to Govern, is trapped accepting bribe. When you trap a fringe player who gets a pittance for his trade while all other players around him wallow in millions is sheer bullying. I fail to understand the point to be proved. If it is to establish that there is a constant attempt to fix matches, which we all know is present, the efforts are aimless. On the other hand when an attempt to fix a match with the connivance of authorities in the shady deals is established we have to sit up and act. It is like this; In spite of an efficient police force, intelligence agencies and an hyperactive judiciary, there are murders, dacoities, robberies and a plethora of other crimes committed in the society every day.

These shenanigans of spot foxing are another dimension of fooling the public (You and me). If no balls are being balled so be it. If catches are being dropped let them. As it is, it is not cricket anymore.

So, yesterday instead of watching IPL, I read a book. “Break out Nations” by Ruchir Sharma. In the book Ruchir S attempts to overturn conventional wisdom (if ever there was one I would say) and paints a new panoramic view of what to expect from the world economy in the coming years. It is not about few lakhs of black money…it is about the lives of our children and grandchildren.

I recommend this book. You will like it.

Point to Ponder

There would be no point in pointing your efforts to make a point if there was no point at all in the first place. That is how important point is in our dealings and correctly pointing to the point.  But then we can’t get our point across if we are unable to make our point clearly. Then in case we fail to put forth our point pointedly, there is absolutely no point in pointing the finger at somebody else for the failure. It is imperative we know our point and present our point of view so as to bring it into sharp focus for acceptance.

We get exasperated when somebody does not see our point even when we present it clearly. In such an event we have to present our point from a different perspective. The point is that it  is not the other person’s fault that he does not see your point. Your pointing has to be focused on the point.

Then people like Karan Thapar often ask pointed questions – like the one he did not ask JJ “When will you be visiting Bangalore next (for the next hearing of your case in regard to disproportionate assets)? Pointed questions are best a form of cowardice where the asker is timid enough and does not have the spunk (or whatever depending on who you are) to ask a direct question. Here is one case when the pointed query is not directly pointed at where you want it to point, yet is known as a pointed question. Ha! A bit confusing is it? Nay, I am sure you are smart enough to get the point.

Sometimes people get into pointless arguments. Like what happened in the Loksabha yesterday in regard to the cartoon. The point was about the cartoon and all present being cartoons in real life, they probably thought it was about them. That was a pointless thought anyway as the elite gathering was largely behaving like pointy jokers. Anyway, anything that has happened in the Loksabha in the last decade is pointless banter. But yesterday the bickering on the cartoon issue took the pointless debate beyond the pointless.

Some people come to the point directly while others dither and lose their way and are unable to get to the point. Some of you may wonder “what is the point in all this pointed writing”. That is the catch as at times you can make a point even without a point.

When Didi met Momma

My cousin Dorai was visiting India from the US. He is a retiree US citizen who makes an annual pilgrimage to his land of birth. When he is in India we manage an evening together. We discuss everything under the Sun including the Clintons. It was during one such sojourn early last year he mentioned the then relatively new US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. Monika Lewinsky was not mentioned as she was a dead horse. That was when Dorai mentioned that Hillary C was a replica of our own Amma (Jayalalithaa J) - intolerant and determined. It would have been a pleasure beyond compare to be eavesdropping on the meeting between Didi (Mamta) and Momma (Hillary).

Writers’ building that houses the PB secretariat , is a massive red building which was originally built as a residence for the British East India Company's clerical and administrative staff called as writers, hence the name Writers' building. This building summarises the political revolution of Bengal. The Chief Minister's office is also located in this building. It was in this building the two met. As at times I can become invisible i listened in to snatches of the talks. 

Didi (D): Good morning Hilly welcome to PB.

Momma (M): Good morning Didi. Thanks. Congrats; you have managed to oust the dirty commies from power…an act as great as that of Rani of Jhansi.

D: Jhansi? Is it as big as Britain? The country still has a queen like in England eh?

M: Ok. Let us get to the point direct.

D: No…No… No…I will not discuss your direct investment in retail….

M: No didi…I mean let us directly get to the topics in hand…we do not have much time you see….

D:  What do you mean? In Kolkotta time stops when I say so.

M: Now that you are the boss, sorry, Didi I think PB is ready from investments from the US (hiding the fact that the US itself is  bankrupt and will have to borrow money from China or India to invest) …

D:  Yes, Yes. We have plenty of land too in Nandigram and Singur which I denied to industries from India.

M:  But I thought you were part of India and your party is part of the Federal Government.

D:  I know. I know. But if I behave like that they will kick me out before the next elections. If you don’t invest in PB, I will go to China.

M:   No. Please No. We the US are keen to invest in PB. The areas identified for US investment are IT, software sector, manufacturing, deep sea port, tourism, health care education and retail.

D:  That is not possible.

M: Beg your pardon.

D: Retail; investment in retail is not possible. If I say yes now I will not get money from the GOI nor will they underwrite my loans. 

M:  For a minute I was scared. That is fine. We will get into it through the backdoor. Then that is agreed. We will need publicity.

D:  That is taken care of. The Bollywood superstar Sharukh Khan is the brand ambassador for PB.

M:  Oh SRK. We know him well in US as well. What a cracker of an idea! Just send him to US when the chips are down, the immigration in the US will take care of his publicity. Splendid, Didi, splendid!!!!

D:   Yes Hilly, with SRK it seems US and PB are made for each other…

M:   One last request.

D:   Yes anything for you buddy.

M:   Why don’t you change the name of this building to ‘Talkers’ Building’ in commemoration of this historic talks between us.

D:   This way, Hilly and Momma was ushered out of the building quickly.

Maoism is a myth

The census data is the pulse of a Nation. It reveals a lot about the Nation’s health. In the case of India, the recent census data shows a great proportion of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, as compared with ‘others’, do not own an asset – consumer durables like telephone, TV et al. Three states however deviate from this trend; they are Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Kerala. The percentage ownership of assets by ‘others’, in these states is far lower!!!  The worst ratios are in states like Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Tripura, Jharkhand, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh where a large majority of SCs and STs do not own any asset. An ‘uneducated’ ( remember we are not supposed to discuss these while in uniform – and some feel even after shedding the uniform) ‘retired’ soldier like me see in these bold statistics why ‘Maoism’ in its present avatar is rampant in the latter states mentioned above. Whether perceived or real the notion of criminal elements joining the ‘cause’ and hijacking it is unimportant in the circumstance. One obvious truth of the much touted positive and progressive results of the economic liberalization is its failure to usher in an inclusive growth. At best it has helped to increase the assets of haves in a distorted proportion. In the process the rich have become super rich and the have-nots are rendered poorer.

I am not attempting an essay on communism or socialism. Neither is this an attempt to condemn capitalism, for these are only terms coined by degenerate elitist societies mostly for partisan needs and creation of wealth. The recent indiction of one of the crown princes, Bo Xilai, of the Chinese Communist Party has been abruptly purged ahead of China’s once-in-a-decade leadership change this autumn. He has been involved in a maze of accusations involving deceit, money and nepotism. Pure communism too has been a failure. Over the years we have seen that monolithic Governments, democracy, communism are all equal failures when it comes to sustained inclusive growth.

The system of Governance in India has failed to regulate growth. In our exuberance to break away from the shackles of centuries of occupation, the people of India were fed with a wrong concept of freedom to the extent when you request a guy to remove his vehicle which is parked in the middle of a road he says “Does your pop own the road? If you want, get through from the side” (Literal translation from Bollywood Hindi). Exploitation continued even after Independence by denying education to the underprivileged especially those in the hinterland. When land became scarce due to unregulated growth and indiscriminate mining operations the interiors of the country was encroached upon by unscrupulous elements with the connivance of the authorities, depriving the underprivileged their means for sustenance thus giving paving the way for revolutions of the Naxalism genre. The name or the colour of the flag is immaterial here when rights of people have been trampled upon. It is in this light the difference in census data, say between Kerala and Bihar are significant. Mind you the ratio of SC, ST and backward classes to ‘others’ is almost similar in the two states mentioned. When Naxalism first raised its ugly head in Kerala in the 1960s, the notion then among a large section of the public in Malabar was that a Naxalite is one who likes his/her country more than the rest of us, and is hence more concerned than the rest when people suffer. At that time the economy of Kerala, which had not started getting remittances from the Middle East, was tottering. It was not surprising then, given our (Kerala) state of the economy at that time and remnants of a feudal system (my family has lost some leased out farmlands in central Kerala to the land reforms act of the Left Government of the state in the mid 60s) still in vogue a large section of the people probably were Naxal sympathizers. In Kerala the proximity of the common man to the Naxalites helped both sides to see reason before the situation worsened. After all the Naxalites are Indians…more Indian than maybe many of us.

I do not see any proactive action by the Governments of the central states to right the wrongs done in the hinterland. Such movements have never been squashed with guns. Use the Guns as temporary deterrent…but the solution lies elsewhere. Break the nexus of local politicians and businessmen. It is beyond the scope of this democratically elected Government which is not ready yet to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Sadly it does not care for anything else; except a few people like the district collector of Sukma, Alex Paul Menon. 

     Maoism is a myth. Those Indian people are only asking to restore what is theirs.