The Forgettable Legacy of Bal Thackeray

My first encounter with the late Balasaheb Thackeray’s outfit was sometime in 1973 on a day when his father died. Until then he was a minor chieftain, still trying to find his feet in the overcrowded political sphere of Mumbai and Maharashtra. But on that day, when his father died, he let loose his cadre on the hapless shopkeepers of Dadar and forced them to down their shutters. I happened to be in the market and saw how quickly the shopkeepers were intimidated into obedience. The Shiv Sena cadre consisted mainly of the Marathi speaking village folk that had come to Mumbai to eke out a marginalised existence working as daily-wage labourers in the city’s sweat shops. Balasaheb had cunningly used the son-of-the-soil stratagem successfully to give these rootless people an identity, while turning the non-Marathi speakers into demons who had wrongfully occupied their lands and deprived them of their rights on the jobs and in the economic activities of the city/state.

Soon, the Shiv Sena had grown into a potent political force catapulting its founder to a position where he could sup at the high table with the big guns of all the leading political parties of the time. His party was sought by all as an ally for he could deliver muscle to electoral campaigns that till then was provided by the underworld. Balasaheb also cleverly positioned himself as a champion of the Hindus when the Congress and the various parties left-of-the-centre began to woo minority votes following the failure of the Janata Party experiment in 1979. This, naturally, brought him closer to the BJP that rose phoenix-like from the ashes of the Jana Sangha. The slogan “Garv se kaho hum Hindu hain” found immediate resonance in the hearts of the Hindutva-wadis who were ready to turn India into a Hindu Rashtra.

However, for Balasaheb, Hindutva was only a step in the ladder to political power. Although he never deviated from his support to the Hindutva movement, the BJP would soon find out that his loyalties could not be taken for granted. Balasaheb would ditch them whenever it was convenient for him. Using his cadre to break into the labour movement in Mumbai, he gradually gained control over a very large number of workers’ unions. The death of Datta Samant and the decline of George Fernandez as a Union leader would make him the sole arbiter on behalf of the millions of workers across Mumbai and its industrial suburbs. At the same time the underworld also lost a lot of its influence due to many encounter deaths, and inter-and-intra gang killings. Dawood Ibrahim with his assistants fled to Dubai and Karachi while Chhota Rajan and other gang lords too had to flee to safe havens outside India. I do not know how much the Shiv Sena benefited from the absence of these unworthies, but it would not be idle speculation to think that Ram Gopal Verma’s film “Sarkar” was not totally a work of fiction.

On 10^th January 1993 I was in Chennai. My family was in Mumbai and I wanted to be there as that day was my son’s 20^th birthday. Mumbai had been witnessing terrible communal violence in the wake of the first anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya. Curfew had been imposed at night, and my friends cautioned me against travelling. However, I took the chance and booked a seat on the Indian Airlines flight that landed at the Mumbai Airport at about 10.30 p.m. There was no certainty of finding a taxi or any other kind of transport from the airport. One option was to book into the Centaur Hotel near the Airport and to spend the night there. Many of the business travellers on the flight did take that option. But the whole purpose of my trip was to be with the family. I came out to the taxi stand to look for a cab. Surprisingly, there was a taxi looking for passengers. The driver asked for my destination, and on hearing from me asked me to sit in the back of his cab. He said he would charge me Rs. 150 for the journey. I readily accepted and got into the cab. Soon he picked up three more passengers on similar terms, and within ten minutes we were out of the airport. The roads were completely deserted, with not even a soul on the Western Express Highway. The driver began talking and soon we learnt that he was a retired airman from the IAF. He commented that the highway was so free that it felt like a runway. His name was Arun Patankar, and he reassured us that we were safe with him. His white uniform signified that he was the owner of the taxi. In a trice we were at Mahim creek where two people on the road waved us to stop. Arun kept his foot down on the accelerator and flew past them. We reached Kohinoor Mills, where the Shiv Sena has its Headquarters, without any incident, and without seeing any sign of life on the roads. Here we were stopped by a police party who wanted to know where we were heading. Arun told the Inspector that he had picked up passengers from the airport, and was dropping us at our destinations. The Inspector told him that there was a rampaging Shiv Sena mob ahead, and advised Arun to lower the window glasses, to drive slowly, and to stop when asked. He said that in no case should he try to flee. We moved ahead and, sure enough, we were soon besieged by a mob armed with swords, hatchets, and staves. Arun, waved to the mob; stopped the cab; leaned out; and shouted, “Jai Maharashtra”. The mob wanted to know who he and his passengers were. We told them that we had come from Chennai and were visitors to the city. One fellow wanted to see our boarding cards. I showed him mine, and on seeing my name on it he wanted to know the names of the other passengers. Two of them had Christian names, while the third was a Tamil Hindu. Satisfied, the mob let us move but warned that we could again be stopped and therefore should move very slowly. On the sides we could see the smouldering remains of vehicles that had been torched. Menace had a palpable, physical presence and dark figures loomed in the shadows. Another group of armed men stopped us and the same exchange took place. We went past the Portuguese Church in Dadar and very soon were near Century Bazaar in Worli where the two Christian gentlemen got down. The third passenger was going up to an apartment complex in Prabhadevi. Apparently he lived in Chennai but some pressing reason had made him to come to Mumbai at these dangerous times. His brother was residing in the complex and he looked forward to celebrating Pongal with him and his family. We reached the gates of his complex where he got down and was kind enough to suggest that I too could stay in his brother’s flat and go home in the morning. I asked Arun how he felt about it. He said if I was willing to go, he would readily take me home. I thanked the last passenger and told Arun to turn around. Suddenly his car wouldn’t start, and for a moment I felt as if fate was telling me not to proceed any further. I was about to shout to the retreating figure of my co-passenger when the engine coughed into action. Arun drove away from the complex and was moving towards Dadar Bridge when another mob sprang from the shadows and shouted for him to stop. Arun stopped and repeated his slogan of “Jai Maharashtra”. One miscreant hit his taxi meter with an iron pipe asking him if he did not know that there was curfew in force and how he dared take his taxi out. Arun pleaded that he was only helping stranded passengers and actually doing a service to the public. The leader of the mob poked his head inside the cab and asked me my name. He wanted to see my passport since I claimed to have come from the airport. Fortunately, he accepted my explanation that I was a domestic traveller and did not insist on seeing my passport. He did not want to see my boarding card either, and waved to the mob to let us pass. That encounter was really frightening, and but for the presence of mind and the confident manner of Arun Patankar, I may not have been alive to tell the tale. The mob was ever on an edge and one wrong word or move would have resulted in instant annihilation.

We crossed Dadar Bridge and at the roundabout found a police jeep patrolling the area. The police officer too wanted to know what we were doing on the road at that time when the city was under curfew. By then I had had enough, and instead of replying, I asked the officer to tell me where he was going. He replied that his patrol jeep was on a round and would be going to Thane. I asked him to stay with our taxi and provide us escort till Ghatkopar. He signalled for us to follow him, and we were again on our way. With the patrol jeep ahead, we reached my apartment building without any further incident. By then it was past one a.m. I offered Arun more than the Rs 150 he had initially demanded and suggested that he could spend the night in my home. He thanked me, declining both the offers. His home was in Dadar area and he would rather go back to his family, as they would be worried about his welfare. I paid him the fare, said good bye, and waited till the tail-lights of his cab went out of the compound of the apartment building.

I think Arun Patankar is a true hero of our times. To be concerned about total strangers, stranded by riots, not knowing how to get to their destinations, and to ply his taxi during such dangerous times, is an act of great courage and spirit. That he made a trifle more money than he would normally have made, does not take anything away from his bravery and public-spiritedness. He was putting his life and the means of his livelihood in extreme jeopardy just for the sake of ferrying totally unknown people to their homes. I am sure he would have safely made it back to his family that night. People like Arun are very rare and they carry with them the blessings and good wishes of countless strangers.

What can one say about the legacy of Balasaheb Thackeray? There can be no doubt that he created a powerful organization that could influence politics at the regional and national levels. His goodwill was sought by powerful industrialists, movie moghuls, and politicians from all the parties. He was Godfather to the large cadre of Shiv Sainiks who were ready to do his bidding without demur. He was able to bring India-Pakistan cricket to a complete halt, and neither the Central Government nor the powerful cricket baron, Sharad Pawar could make him budge. He exercised the power to censor films, publications, and art if they offended his Maharashtrian or Hindu sentiments. He could bring all activity to a full stop, as he did on the day of his death and on the following day of his cremation. Yet, for all the outpourings of grief by his followers and the paeans of praise sung by the media and the glitterati, one cannot but feel that their expressions were motivated more by fear than by any genuine love for the man. Perhaps the city of Mumbai was heaving a collective sigh of relief at the passing of this Tiger. Perhaps, it may be more appropriate to remember him as Mumbai's 'Tigger'. After all, wasn't he a cartoonist before he became a politician? His son and heir does not have the charisma of the father, nor is he in the best of health. His nephew, Raj, is a rabble-rouser without the sophistication of the uncle, and will remain a fringe player in Mumbai politics. I cannot see Raj Thackeray merging his MNS with the parent organization and playing second fiddle to Udhav. The Shiv Sena has reached the peak of its power and is now inevitably on the downward slope. For how long will the memory of Bal Thackeray survive in the collective consciousness of the people of Maharashtra is anybody’s guess. But, for me, it is Arun Patankar who truly symbolises the Maratha spirit of Shivaji, and not the saffron-robed, rudraksha-adorned Tigger of Matoshree, Bandra.

The First Castrato

About two weeks ago I finished reading Manohar Malgonkar's book 'The Men Who Killed Gandhi'. The work was first published in 1978, but somehow, had not come to my attention. I have read Malgonkar's fiction; 'The Combat of Shadows'  being the first. It is a passionate novel, set in the tea plantations of the North-East, with revenge as its theme. Malgonkar writes with ease and felicity. His understanding of the Indian mind is second-to-none, and his characters come alive in the narrative. Later I also read 'The Devil's Wind', a novel set around the 1857 Sepoy Revolt, whose main protagonists are the leaders of that revolt. 'A Bend in the Ganges' is also set in the times before Indian independence and the Partition that let loose a river of blood across the subcontinent. All Mangonkar's fiction is full of passionate drama, with many melodramatic scenes of cinematic intensity. I have always wondered why no film-maker has attempted to bring 'The Combat of Shadows' and 'A Bend in the Ganges' to life on the silver screen. These two novels are admirably suited to the medium of cinema and would make for excellent viewing in the hands of a good craftsman.

'The Men Who Killed Gandhi' has been reprinted in 2008 by Roli Books and this new edition has been richly enhanced by some, hitherto unpublished, documents and photographs of the many characters involved in the actual conspiracy, and the subsequent trials. There are also photocopies of the statements made by the indicted people as well as by the investigating agents. There are photocopies of the actual Air India tickets bought by Godse and Apte when they embarked on their deadly mission from Bombay to Delhi. There are also copies of the entries made in the Visitors' Index book maintained by Hotel Marina, New Delhi, where Godse had stayed in Room No. 40 when the first attempt on Gandhi's life was made on 20th January 1948. There are also pictures of the two firearms procured by the conspirators to perpetrate their foul deed, and a complete account of how these came into their possession.

'The Men Who Killed Gandhi' is a painstaking journey that began in 1960 as an assignment from Life International, and it came out as a story in its February 1968 issue. But, by then, Malgonkar had realised that his story and the research behind it warranted a book, much more than just a magazine article. So, he sat down to enlarge the story with inputs from several sources, of which the Kapur Commission's report proved to be most invaluable. The edition that was finally published in 1978, was until then, perhaps the most factual account of the conspiracy that led to the assassination of Gandhi. But, as Malgonkar writes in the preface to the 2008 edition: "The book first came out when the country was in the grip of the 'Emergency', and books were subjected to a censorship of the utmost ruthlessness. This made it incumbent upon me to omit certain vital facts such as, for instance, Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar's secret assurance to Mr. L. B. Bhopatkar, that his client, Mr. V. D. Savarkar had been implicated as a murder-suspect on the flimsiest grounds. Then again, certain other pertinent details such as the 'doctoring' of a confession by a magistrate whose duty it was only to record what was said only came out in later years." This edition, according to the author, "is the complete single account of the plot to murder Mahatma Gandhi." The edition brought out by Roli Books has been a great success which can be ascertained from the fact that between 2008 and 2011, it has undergone five impressions.

After having read and pondered over this wonderfully produced volume, I moved on, quite by chance, to read an almost innocuous novel titled 'The Last Castrato' by John Spencer Hill. The story is set in Florence, Italy, a city that is said to overawe visitors by its sheer volume of culture. Situated on the banks of the silvery river Arno, the city has a domineering influence on people when they first espy Brunelleschi's Dome, or Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise. The quaint, fairy-tale-like Ponte Vecchio straddles the river like a magical bridge promising some wonderland on the other side. Florence can be both  intimidating, and yet captivating.

The novel recounts a saga in which the victim of a crime committed almost three decades ago, exacts his revenge on the wrong-doers, by slitting their throats and severing their vocal chords. The victim, it appears, was criminally castrated by a group of aspiring musicians who called themselves the Camerati Dell'Arte, the Companions of Art. In their attempt to restore Renaissance opera to its original roots, they decided that they needed the voice of a castrato. They abducted a young peasant boy, plied him with laudanum, and then proceeded to emasculate him. However, they were unable to market their music because the recording companies guessed that the boy had been criminally assaulted and did not want to have anything to do with the group. The boy, however, never forgave the Camerati and exacted his revenge upon them in the most macabre manner that he could devise.

There is obviously no connection between these two books, one a factual account of a  conspiracy launched by five fiercely patriotic individuals who, although they held Gandhi in high esteem, felt that he had betrayed the cause of the Hindu majority, and therefore, had to be violently removed from the scene. In the end, their fanaticism got the better of their patriotism, and they succeeded in killing Mahatma Gandhi, who, if he had lived, may have 'changed the shape of India's polity and society'. The world, according to Pramod Kapoor, the editor of the volume, may not have been as violent as it is today. The second is a totally fictional work, in which a wronged individual seeks revenge for personal satisfaction.

However, it is rather ironical that Italy played a small role in the murder of Mahatma Gandhi. Of the two guns that Godse procured for the deed, it was the 9mm Beretta, an automatic pistol, made in Italy, that fired the fatal shots. The pistol had found its way to India from Ethiopia after the Second World War. Fate had decreed that an Italian weapon would be used to remove the Apostle of Peace from this earth.

Ironically, it was again the connection with an Italian; this time an individual, that brought down another Gandhi. The unhealthy influence of Ottavio Quatrocchi was chiefly responsible for turning Rajiv Gandhi from an able Prime Minister into a commission agent, thereby destroying his credibility with the common man and bringing his government down from the heights of unprecedented majority to an ignominious minority, within the period of just one term. Quatrocchi was able to peddle his influence only because he was an Italian, the nationality of Rajiv Gandhi's wife.

The destructive Italian connection continues twenty-one years (and counting) after the downfall of Rajiv Gandhi and his untimely and tragic assassination by a Sri Lankan suicide-bomber. Sonia Gandhi, his widow, continues to control the Congress Party as its longest-serving President, and the country as an uncrowned Empress who commands almost Caesarian, unconstitutional authority. The constricting embrace in which she holds the Party has made it into a lifeless, spineless organism, almost a brain-dead creature. The government she heads (as the Chairperson of the UPA) is prostate at her feet and its Prime Minister, like the peasant boy of the novel, seems to have become the first castrato in the Opera Macabre that she is conducting in New Delhi, with the Indian media playing their diabolical orchestra from the wings. In his final statement, Nathuram Godse had this to say about the Indian press: "The Press had displayed such weakness and submission to the High Command of the Congress that it allowed the mistakes of leaders pass away freely and unnoticed and made vivisection easy by their policy." We can see that nothing has changed since then.

Will India survive its fatal Italian connection?

Lessons from US & India: How not to Win Friends and Alienate People?

Joshua Hersh’s “Afghanistan: The Long and Winding Roads” featured by Huffington Post on 9^th October, and updated on the 13^th, chronicles yet again the failure of the American administration to understand and answer the simple question that another celebrated American, Dale Carnegie, had asked a few decades ago: “How to win friends and influence people?” Sixty-six years have elapsed since the publication of Carnegie’s book, yet the world seems to have learnt nothing since then. Hersh’s column is one more eye-opener for the American administration to look afresh at Afghanistan and look for a sustainable solution to its myriad problems that appear to be intractable given the current mind-set in Washington DC and its European satellites. The experience in Korea and Vietnam in the last century, and Iraq in the current one, should have demonstrated, without any doubt, that hard, military solutions and the expenditure of astronomical sums of money can neither bring lasting peace, nor social and economic development in the areas of conflict.

Documenting an American Development worker, Andrew Wilder’s findings during his foray with a team of researchers in several provinces of Afghanistan in 2008-09; inspecting development projects; having one-on-one dialogues with tribal leaders; analyzing data from military and civilian officials on the ground; Hersh came to the conclusion that most of the work carried by USAID, involving billions of dollars, had yielded practically no visible advancement in the battle for the “minds and hearts” of ordinary Afghans. On the contrary, a massive infrastructure had been erected that would be impossible for the locals to fund and manage. Wilder wrote that “rather than generating good will and positive perceptions”, the development projects “were consistently described negatively by Afghans”. The problem with big development projects is that they attract mostly predatory elements that see them as an opportunity to make vast sums of money that the taxpayers usually have no control upon. Halliburton in Iraq is a case in point. Afghanistan has seen hundreds of billions of American taxpayer dollars going down the drain while making a few individuals abominably rich.

This “big-brother-knows-all” mentality seems to infect all global and regional hegemonic powers and aspirants. It is the same mentality that saw India land into a quagmire in Kashmir. First, you interfere in the election process, and then send in military boots to quell the insurrection there, knowing fully well that a hostile neighbour has been waiting for years for such an opportunity to lend armed support to an indigenous rebellion. The battle for the “minds and hearts” of ordinary Kashmiris was lost when the first innocent bystander got caught in the crossfire. The billions of rupees that India has spent in Kashmir has bought an uneasy peace at the most, but the young generation that is now in its twenties has seen nothing but armed conflict, cordon-search-seizure operations, and indefinite curfews. These young men have not seen the inside of a school and all the education they received was from frenzied clerics poisoning their minds with religious zeal and jihadi fanaticism. It, of course, suits the political classes in Kashmir and India to keep the fires burning as the conflict continues to generate huge amounts of money in the name of development that disappear in the mazes built by entrenched bureaucracies and end up in wholly undeserving pockets.

It is the same mentality that made India to agree to send a Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to Sri Lanka during 1987-89, ostensibly to end the civil war between the militant Lankan Tamil separatists and the Sri Lankan army. The morons who agreed to send this contingent did not even think once about the absurdity of juxtaposing Peace and Force in the same phrase while giving the contingent a name. The consequence of the misadventure was the brutal assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by the Tamils even after he had demitted office following the defeat of his Congress party in the general elections.

The response of the Indian government continues to follow the same pattern whenever conflict situations occur anywhere in the country. The presence of the armed forces in the North-East with special draconian powers has built a constituency of resentment over decades of neglect, while all development funds sent by the Central government are pocketed by local politicians (mostly from the Congress) who manage to win elections with the twin weapons of bribery and intimidation.

Contained within the euphoric story of the recent economic growth of India is the narrative of acute deprivation and abject poverty that merits a few lines in some obscure pages of a newspaper when a farmer commits suicide, or when children are sold in slavery because the parents are unable to feed them. The marginalization of tribal populations across the length and breadth of India, whose ancestral lands and livelihoods are being ravaged for their mineral and other natural wealth, has led to the creation of a militant guerrilla movement that has spread to almost one-third of the country. But is there any attempt at winning the hearts and minds of these disenfranchised citizens? Instead, the mighty arm of the state is arming itself with attack helicopters to counter these poor and hapless countrymen.

While Afghanistan needs schools, hospitals and roads, and the freedom to pursue happiness in its own way, it also needs an understanding of what Plato called thymos, the human desire for “recognition” that is an important constituent of human psyche. What a war-ravaged country needs for its redevelopment cannot be decided and settled by a few bureaucrats and politicians in Washington or Whitehall. Development has to be a sustainable model that the local people can manage and continue to benefit from after the “stabilizing” forces have left. The schools and hospitals can function only if a large pool of trained teachers, doctors and health-care givers has been created over the years. Similarly, business enterprises for export-oriented products should have been set up, using local skills and materials. The Afghans are traditionally very good at weaving woollen carpets. This skill could have been channelized and co-operative centres could have been opened across Afghanistan providing training to young weavers and ensuring that their products received preferential treatment in markets in the West and elsewhere. The orchards of Chaman were once famous for their grapes, pomegranates, melons, pine nuts and other such delicate produce. Babur, the first Mogul Emperor, always pined for the melons of Kabul, and if he had a kingdom back in Fergana or Kabul, he would never have settled in India. Indian history would have had an entirely different trajectory if the Mogul had even a small city-state like Samarkand to rule. He hated the heat of Hindustan and found its fruit inferior to anything found in his beloved Kabul. Babur disliked India so much that he preferred to be buried in Kabul than anywhere else.

Development funds could be deployed more fruitfully (pun intended) in boosting investment in horticultural produce for which preferential tariffs could be introduced by the consumer nations. A large population of local Afghans could be rehabilitated on these farms that would provide them with a self-sustainable future. A community engaged in farming and working the land is less prone to become rebellious and take to the gun. Conversely, they will fight all those who will try to take them away from their lands. Jihad would find it difficult to get more recruits.

The traditional picture of the Afghan is so endearingly captured by Tagore in his short story ‘Kabuliwalla’. This is the picture of an itinerant Afghan immigrant travelling through India, charming one and all with his stories of home while selling the dry fruits of Kabul. His friendship with a little girl of Kolkatta makes the narrative part of the story, while establishing in the minds of the readers the image of an extremely compassionate human being totally untouched by any kind of religious fanaticism. The Kabuliwalla is a diametric opposite of today’s Taliban. The Great Game that began between Britain and Russia entered its final phase with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the arming of the Mujahideen by the Western powers. The denouement is now visible for all. A gentle, humane people have been reduced to stone-age conditions of survival; their lands carpet-bombed and littered with millions of mines, while the media continues to portray them as barbarians. No wonder the fundamentalist Salafis have found a treasure chest of converts to their form of faith! The Kalashnikov toting Afghan today bears no resemblance to the itinerant Kabuliwalla with his sling bag of goodies from the gardens of Chaman.

RETURN TO KASHMIR

Fifteen years ago I had left Srinagar with a little packet of dried green leaf, known to the Kashmiris as woppal haak, slightly bitter in taste, and believed to be a favourite dish of our family deity, Rupa Bhawani. (Read about that visit in my older post "The Lost Paradise"). Perhaps there was something symbolic in the fact that it was an Englishman who gave this leaf to me. Kashmir has continued to be a disturbed area, although there have been some periods of relative peace and calm in-between. The Pakistani misadventure in Kargil; the 9/11 attack on the US, followed by the American invasion of Iraq; the war against Al Qaeda in the ravaged lands of Afghanistan; the suicidal attack of 26^th November on Mumbai; and a general current of anti-Islamic feeling in  the West, further kept fanning the fires of insurgency in Kashmir. After Kargil, the presence of the Indian security forces in the valley had become more visible, adding further to the general discontent among the people. The army can never be a peace-keeping force. Armed soldiers are trained not to hesitate if a threat is perceived, but to eliminate the threat first and then to investigate. Under such tense situations it is very likely that some innocents got caught in the crossfire or were perceived as potential threats and eliminated by the security force personnel. The presence of a large anti-India establishment in the valley like the Hurriyat, led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who openly advocates the merger of Kashmir with Pakistan, supplied additional fuel to the separatist tendencies of the young, impressionable minds. The Hurriyat was quick to capitalize on some excesses of the armed forces, and ready to shut the valley down for long periods, depriving the people of their freedom of movement; closing down schools and colleges, business establishments, as also health centres. My longing to make another visit to Kashmir had only become intensified, but it was looking more and more unlikely that a   visit could be planned in these troubled times.

However, the war against terror gradually started coming closer to Pakistan, and when the Pakhtoon areas of the North West became the central theatre of this war, Pakistan found itself caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Its ISI and other military organizations got drawn into this home-grown war, leaving fewer resources to continue with the insurgency in Kashmir. The sheer fatigue of an agitation that has been carried on relentlessly for over two decades would also have had its own enervating effect, and that is why some semblance of normalcy appeared to be returning to the valley. In the year 2010, Kashmir again went up in flames following the death of a youth who was hit on the head by a tear gas shell. The Hurriyat saw its chance and called for a complete shut down of the valley. But the conflict had become localized and did not get the kind of manpower and material support from across the LOC. There were sporadic street fights between the Security forces and the mobs, and normal life did get disrupted, yet there were signs that the tide had turned. This was confirmed by the fact that a large number of tourists were willing to visit Kashmir during the holiday season. The annual Amarnath Yatra also saw a significantly large number of devotees (estimated at about five lakhs) visiting the remote cave to worship the sacred ice lingam. The absence of direct Pakistani control of the conflict from the separatists’ side is, to my mind, the major factor in the success of the yatra, and in the inflow of the tourist crowds.

Mohammed Amin is one of those Kashmiris who have remained steadfast in his belief that armed conflict was eventually futile and would only bring more and more misery to the people of Kashmir. Recognizing that he would not be able to give his family a safe and dignified life in the valley, he had shifted his business and base to the southern city of Chennai. Starting as an itinerant trader of Kashmiri carpets and shawls, he eventually bought himself a showroom and is one of the most successful Kashmiri merchants in that city. I met Mohd. Amin almost twenty years ago when I bought some carpets from him, and was impressed with his honesty and sincerity. After that first meeting we have remained in continuous touch and seem to have become parts of one another’s families.

Some years ago Mohammed Amin bought a plot of land near the famous Moghul garden, Shalimar, in Srinagar. It was a period when militancy had somewhat abated and people could look forward to the return of peace and normalcy in the valley. Amin decided to build a guest house on this land. With active inputs from one of his regular customers from Germany, he embarked upon this project and constructed a small guest house with 30 odd rooms. He named it Al Hamra, after the famous 14^th century Moorish palace in Andalusia, southern Spain. During his travels in Europe he had visited this monument, and had been captivated by its majestic grandeur. Amin had been inviting me to visit Srinagar once the guest house had been inaugurated, but the visit did not seem to be happening due to the conditions in the valley. Meanwhile, I had also shifted from Chennai to the Nilgiris and had settled down to a retired life in the beautiful tea town of Coonoor.

Last September, however, conditions had stabilised significantly, and we finally decided that the long-cherished visit could now be undertaken. After checking with Amin, I firmed up our plans to visit the valley from the 1^st of October for about two weeks. He was so pleased that he assured that he would be personally available in Kashmir during our sojourn. I couldn’t have asked for anything more. We flew to New Delhi and stayed the night there. Accompanying us from Bangalore would be our daughter Prerna, her husband Robert, and their two girls Maya and Riya, aged 9 and 6. Robert, though of Kashmiri origin, was born in Scotland, and had grown up in New England in the US. His parents had emigrated from India in the early 60’s and after a few years in the UK, had moved to the US. Robert had been to Kashmir as an infant and, predictably, he had no memory of that visit. For Maya and Riya this was going to be their first visit, and they were as eager as us to visit the land of our ancestors.

The Indigo flight from Delhi to Srinagar takes about one hour. As we approached the Pir Panjal range of mountains that separate Jammu from the valley, the heartbeat went up dramatically. The snow-white clouds high above the peaks sharply outlined their grace and beauty. There is no more breathtaking sight than this view of the Himalayan ring protecting the valley in its bosom. On a clear, sunny day it becomes obvious why this is the most prized piece of real estate on earth.

Emerging out of the aircraft we set foot on the tarmac. The Airport building is a new, modern steel and glass structure, having replaced the once quaint little brick and wood shed. The airport was teeming with tourists, largely from within the country, as also a few foreigners. A cacophony of languages made speech almost indistinguishable. Children of all ages were running here and there looking for their baggage on the carousels, while the elders were discussing their itineraries. Our baggage came soon and we found Amin waiting for us outside the Arrival Hall. Srinagar was hot and a trifle humid. The car air-conditioner had to be switched on to make the weather pleasant. Soon we were on our way to the Guest House at Shalimar.

Al Hamra is a pleasantly designed guest house, located a walking distance from the Shalimar Garden. Its rooms are well furnished, and bathrooms are clean. Electric geysers ensure that running hot water is available at all times. There is a nice little garden, the showpiece of which is a Chinar tree. Autumn had set in and the deciduous trees had already begun to shed their leaves. The Chinar leaves turn from green to yellow and then to a fiery crimson. The grounds below a Chinar tree can become a carpet of red before the onset of winter. These leaves are gathered and burnt to produce a kind of charcoal that the Kashmiris use in winter in their kangris to keep their persons warm.

We checked into our rooms and after a short rest decided to visit the Shalimar Garden and Cheshma Shahi that evening. I also wanted to go to the little shrine near Cheshma Shahi and see if Michael was still there after a lapse of fifteen years. Both the Moghul gardens were full of tourists, both local and visiting. The flower beds were not at their pristine best due to the season. Chashma Shahi’s famous spring was gurgling as ever, discharging the finest drinking water on earth. We went to the little shrine at the back of the garden. It had been completely renovated. The path to the shrine was paved and the garden looked more organized.

                                   

                        

There were some men doing aarti. They looked like they were from the armed forces. The little cottage at the back was still there. It had a fresh coat of paint. But I was disappointed to see a padlock on the door. There was a Muslim worker collecting water in a bucket from the stream. I asked him if an Englishman was staying in the cottage. He told me that the cottage was occupied by a Pujari, who had come from either Jammu or somewhere in Himachal Pradesh and had been there for a couple of years. The Pujari was not to be seen anywhere and may have gone to town for supplies. The Muslim worker had no knowledge of any Englishman. Obviously, Michael had moved on, and nobody seemed to have his forwarding address. I hope he is well on the road to spiritual advancement and distributing happiness to others as he did to me that summer evening fifteen years ago.

During this visit we were able to visit the famous Khir Bhawani temple near Gandarbal. Although it was an auspicious day there were hardly any visitors to the shrine. The road to Khir Bhawani has undergone a drastic change. It used to be a walking path with a stream flowing alongside. Now it is a motorable road with houses and shops lining it all the way up to the entrance. The stream has disappeared. The parking area near the entrance is used by the local villagers to spread out and dry their paddy. The shrine inside is unchanged. But the surrounding areas have been walled in (for security reasons) and a block of rooms has been erected in the back to accommodate devotees who would like to have an extended stay there. The vendors of the famous halwa, lucchis, and pakoras have all gone. Instead there were two temporary stalls selling these items. They too were winding up and shutting shop the next day.

This time I was keen on visiting Vaskur, the shrine near Sumbal, where Rupa Bhawani had made a blind man dig a well with his elbows and restored his eyesight. Fifteen years ago this was a highly insecure area and I had not been permitted to venture there. But now, it was safe to go and after seeking directions from local villagers we were able to find the place.

           

The shrine is kept locked and the keys are with a local peasant who was very happy to open the lock and let us say our prayers inside. He told us that he looks after the place and keeps it clean. He also lights a lamp every day. The place looked reasonably clean and well kept. The miraculous well is permanently locked and we could not draw any water from that. A small marble image of Rupa Bhawani and her father has been installed by an unknown devotee within the shrine. A similar image was also installed in the shrine at Chashma Shahi. There used to be a primary school here that was run by the shrine administration. The building was still there but obviously had not been in use for a very long time. Another house that was the abode of the descendants of the Mattu family that looked after Rupa Bhawani when she lived there was in ruins and I wondered about the fate of the family that lived there. Most probably they would have run away with the exodus to escape from the hostile militants.

We also went to Manasbal Lake. There, on the banks, an ancient Siva Temple had been recently excavated. I had seen it in a documentary on TV, and now had the opportunity to visit. It is quite easily accessed and only a short distance from the main entrance to the garden at the Lake.

                    

The authorities have excavated only the top of the stone temple, as most of it is still under water. The temple is believed to have been built in the 8^th century AD, and was constructed during the reign of Avantivarman or Sankaravarman. The temple, constructed with local grey stone, has a unique pyramid-shaped shikhar that has been carved with floral motifs. An exquisite example of temple architecture of the Indian classical age!

Kashmir has changed. Gone are the paddy fields that lined the roads in and out of Srinagar. They have been reclaimed for construction of residential and commercial development. There has been a continuous flow of people from the villages into the city, and new colonies have sprung up to accommodate this migration. Militancy has destroyed the rural economy of the valley, and land alone is unable to support peasant families. The benefits of land reform that Sheikh Abdullah had introduced in the early fifties have been lost due to this state of siege that has lasted over twenty years. The results are unpleasant to the senses. Most of these colonies are unplanned and without proper civic amenities. The roads are just as narrow as they were in the old city and it is impossible for two cars to pass through these lanes. The bureaucrats and the politicians have carved out prime real estate around the Dal Lake for their residences, which resemble entrenched fortresses. They are so distant from the people that it is no wonder that Kashmir is so poorly governed. Traffic is a complete nightmare, and there are hardly any constables visible to check and direct the flow of automobiles. There has been an explosion in the number of cars and I noticed that there were practically no bicycles on the roads. When I used to live in the valley, a bicycle was the most common mode of transport, apart from the horse-drawn tonga. Kashmir’s climate and terrain are ideally suited for cycling during summer and autumn.

Apart from the Kashmiri Pandits, the group that has suffered the most because of militancy is the young Muslim male of the valley. Boys born in the middle nineteen-eighties have seen nothing but militancy and are now grown into young men in the age group of 25-30. Their parents were afraid to let them go out of their homes as they feared that they would be picked up either by the security forces or misguided by the militants to join their cause. Those who were lucky to escape both still missed out on education. The girls were a little better off than the boys. They were relatively safer from the two predators on the streets and thereby managed to attend schools and colleges and some of them even qualified as professional doctors and engineers. The inequity in the educational status of the boys and the girls of the valley has thrown up another problem. The girls are unwilling to be married to these boys and their parents are now forced to look for suitable matches outside the Kashmiri community, in other parts of the subcontinent. The boys are condemned to remain single and will eventually have to settle for girls from a lower stratum in their society. The young man who ferried us everywhere within the valley in his Toyota Qualis is an example of this tragedy. His older brother is a doctor and so is his sister-in-law. But he, being born in 1986, missed out on schooling, and consequently, suffers by comparison. His one regret in life was that he could not attend school as a normal child of his age should have. But not every one has been as lucky as him. At least he has a taxi that he drives quite competently, and can earn a decent amount to look after his mother and himself. The young man who was looking after the houseboat where we spent one night had a similar tale to tell. He too had lost out on the educational front and felt condemned to a life of mediocrity. Most of the young men we saw on the streets were looking like zombies, their eyes without expression, a look of sheer hopelessness on their faces.

In the mass emigration of the Pandits, Kashmir has lost much more than a mere five percent of its population. It has lost a whole civilization that had withstood countless earlier attempts at conversion, and had evolved a very distinct culture, language, literature, and customs. The Pandits had learnt to live as a minority, and were quite content to let the majority community have the benefits of development as befitted them. They were like that spoonful of salt that adds flavour to a dish. To a large extent it worked admirably. The state remained free of any communal tension and the conflagration that engulfed the Punjab and Bengal at the time of Partition did not reach the valley. Pakistan’s misadventure in 1947 also did not succeed in destabilising the harmony among the Pandits and the Muslims. Successive attempts by Pakistan, in 1965 and 1971 met with the same fate. It was Zia, using religious zeal to promote his political fortunes, who initiated the transformation of the valley’s ethos by injecting indoctrinated Wahabi elements into the mosques and madrasas of Kashmir. The Government of India, from Indira Gandhi onwards, also contributed to this alienation through short-sighted and politically-motivated policies. The leadership of the Congress had been completely emasculated by an insecure Indira Gandhi, for whom winning elections and staying in power was the only dharma. She used every dirty trick in the book and did not hesitate to use divisive tactics in pursuit of her ambitions. She was ready to fragment the country if it could ensure her stay in power. Punjab burnt first, and then Assam. Her son and successor was too inexperienced and fell easy prey to the wily power-brokers within the party. Kashmir, that had stayed conflict-free for so long, finally began to smoulder when the state elections were blatantly rigged. Pakistan took advantage of the simmering discontent, and in 1989 the fabric of communal harmony finally tore apart.

The heavy hand with which the Indian state responded to the insurgency has been adequately documented by various observers and commentators. If Kashmir today is limping towards a semblance of normalcy, it is not because of the overwhelming presence of the Indian security forces, but mainly due to the fact that Pakistan has its hands full with domestic strife and cannot afford to concentrate on Kashmir as it once had. The other reason is that the people of the valley are now fed up with the state of siege and are desperately yearning for a normal way of life. The common Kashmiri has no faith in his leaders and sees them as tools of one agency or another. The politicians, without exception, have no constituency within the valley and are nothing but parasites feeding on the body of the people. It may be that some day normalcy will return. But I fear that day will not be soon. There is a lot of money flowing into the valley from the Indian state and a lot of it is getting into the pockets of the politicians and the administrators. Even the security forces have an interest in keeping the pot boiling as there are immense opportunities for corruption. The Islamic (Wahabi) world also continues to pour in vast sums of money (some of it counterfeit) in the misplaced hope that Kashmir would one day become a part of Pakistan.

The feeling that one gets today is that Kashmir will never return to its pristine era that existed before 1989. The Pandits who fled twenty-two years ago have moved on and the young generation has no affinity with the valley. They have educated themselves in various parts of the country and have dispersed all over the globe like the Jews of the Exodus. The Pandits living in camps in Jammu are too few to be taken seriously by anyone; they do not represent a vote bank. And very soon they will also disperse and meld with the rest of the country. The valley is almost one hundred percent Islamic and this Islamization is very visible. Mosques have sprouted everywhere and one can hear competing azans from Shia and Sunni mosques almost throughout the day and night. All women, even small girls, are wearing a head-scarf, if not hijab, and men have taken to sporting traditional Islamic symbols. When people allow religion to become the focus of their lives, they lose the ability to assimilate and absorb. Intolerance lurks just below the skin and the slightest provocation can enflame and destroy centuries of trust and fellow-feeling. That is the greatest tragedy of Kashmir.

"The Lotus & the Robot"

The just announced results of the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, and four other states of the Indian union immediately brought to my mind the title of a book of essays written by Arthur Koestler, the Hungarian-British author and journalist, after his travels to India and Japan in 1959. The book titled “The Lotus and the Robot” primarily explored Eastern mysticism, through the practices of yoga and Zen. The book was promptly banned in India by the authorities then in power.

Koestler was a political activist, having lived through perhaps the most turbulent period of European history. He was thirteen years old when the First World War ended in 1918 that saw the end of the Austro-Hungarian, the Ottoman, and the Tsarist Russian empires. As a German-speaking Jew in Europe, the period between the First and the Second World Wars was perhaps the most stifling time for a writer of his talents. Educated in Austria, he joined the German Communist Party, but was soon disillusioned by the state of terror unleashed by Stalin. He resigned from the Party in 1938, having closely witnessed another facet of totalitarianism in Franco’s Spain, and immigrated to England. In 1940, he published “Darkness at Noon”, a novel that is as strong an indictment of totalitarianism as George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty Four”.

Koestler’s terrific sense of phraseology has resulted in some very catchy titles that adorn his writings. Apart from the two titles mentioned above, he also wrote: “The Yogi and the Commissar”, “The Ghost in the Machine”, “Thieves in the Night”, “Arrival and Departure”, and “The Age of Longing”, besides several other works of fiction and non-fiction.

The end of the Janata Party experiment in 1979 that brought back the Congress party to power under the total control and command of Indira Gandhi also saw the morphing of the old Jana Sangha into the BJP, replacing its symbol of a lighted lamp with a lotus flower in bloom.

Indira Gandhi systematically dismantled the structure of the old party by concentrating absolute power in her hands, and forcing the state legislatures to (s)elect her nominees as their leaders. Each Chief Minister was nominated by her, and the party had no say in the matter. Inner-party democracy disappeared and the space vacated by dedicated Congressmen was quickly filled by sycophants and flatterers. Dissent was promptly suppressed and chosen commissars were unleashed upon those who dared to differ. They were heckled and hounded out of the party by being dubbed as “CIA agents” or as anti-nationals. The “court jester” of a Congress President, Deb Kant Borooah completed the transformation of the once grand old party to a fascist dispensation when he said that “Indira is India, and India is Indira”. With Indira Gandhi at the top of the pyramid, the rest of the structure consisted of automatons that were programmed to utter only such sentiments.

The crumbling of the Janata Party that was brought about by the socialists within it who took objection to the Jana Sangha members retaining their membership of the RSS, resulted in the formation of small, left-leaning, regional, parties, while the Jana Sangha rechristened itself as the BJP. The blooming lotus, so sacred to its Hindu followers, replaced the lighted lamp as its symbol. Other sectarian parties soon appeared on the scene. The political landscape of the country had completely changed from the days of Nehru in the first flush of Independence, when people voted without such considerations as caste or creed. Vote-bank politics, that was largely absent till 1979, raised its head, as political parties vied for power on narrow regional, sectarian, class and caste calculations. Punjab was the first state to burn in this conflagration.

The actions of the two Sikh bodyguards of Indira Gandhi, in 1984, would have very far reaching ramifications. Coincidentally, it was the year that George Orwell had chosen for his ‘futuristic’ depiction of a dystopic state at its peak of power and repression. The resultant retribution that the automatons and their mindless legions visited upon the hapless Sikh community has been recorded in great detail, and it is not my purpose to revisit those terrible times. Within less than a generation after the dismemberment of the Indian subcontinent, India was once again descending into religious fratricide, dividing the nation into smaller constituents like Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs etc., and into even smaller fragments along sect, caste, and class; each constituent ready to spring at the throat of the other at the slightest provocation.

This is the state of affairs that has continued from that fateful year in 1979 when the Lotus and the Robot have been contending for political control of the centre. The automatons of the Congress have systematically hounded out all potential threats to the First Family, and have brought the party down to such farcical levels that the best it could field in the recent UP elections was a robot from Star Wars, known to the people who saw that film, as R2D2. This is nothing but a code name given to the Rahul-Digvijay combination that was fielded by Sonia Gandhi to decimate the vote bank of Mayawati, the elephant queen. That a plebeian medium of transport, represented by a bicycle, would be the runaway winner had not even entered the calculations of the ruling party at the centre. Mulayam was not in good health, and his son Akhilesh did not have the good fortune of being born in the Nehru-Gandhi family. The D part of R2D2 felt bold enough to declare that his party would win at least 100 seats, and was ready to wager a crate of imported Scorch whisky to back his claim. (Of course these Rajas are not expected to know that an Indian Single Malt Whisky, known as Amrut, is considered by some experts as one of the three top single malts in the world),

Indira Gandhi started the emasculation of the Congress party and gradually replaced the human elements with mechanical robots, trained only to genuflect to the ruling Deity, and to open their mouths only to stifle dissent and to sing paeans in praise of the First family. The same policy was followed by her son, and perfected by her daughter-in-law. The selection of Manmohan Singh, as the Chief Robot, in 2004, displays a remarkable understanding of character by the puppet-mistress. Singh has been unique in letting opprobrium upon opprobrium to wash off his duck back, day in and day out, for eight years, and still continues to crawl when asked only to bend. He is the closest to Orwell’s Winston Smith after having been “treated” by O’Brien and his colleagues, and brought round to see the “light”.

Meanwhile, the lotus, after the departure of Vajpayee from the scene, has been unable to raise its head above the mud. L. K. Advani, with his penchant to go on rath yatras on makeshift automobiles, in search of an utopian Ram Rajya, looks more and more like Cervantes’ Knight of the Sour Countenance, while his corpulent sidekick would make for an admirable Sancho Panza. Tilting at imaginary windmills, this Don has made his party a laughing stock, thereby destroying any chances of it becoming a serious contender for power in any state, let alone the centre.

“The people who must never have power are the humourless”. This is what Christopher Hitchens wrote in June 2011, shortly before his untimely death. Can you imagine a more humourless bunch than Sonia Gandhi, her son R2, and the Chief Robot, Manmohan Singh? Add the visages of Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Pranab Mukherji, A. K. Antony, D2, and the entire cabinet, and you will be seeing perhaps the most humourless faces in one group in history. To quote Hitchens once more: these are the kind of people who are “secretly hoping to prove that it is they themselves who are the pet of the universe…those who overcompensate for inferiority are possessed of titanic egos and regard other people as necessary but incidental.”

We must be grateful that the general public is no longer swayed by these interlopers and has learnt to use its vote with deliberate discretion and careful consideration.

INDIA AND PAKISTAN ON A PRECIPICE

Karamat Ghori, the ex-Diplomat from Pakistan has been writing some really explosive columns that have been carried in India by The New Indian Express. His views are very refreshing when compared with the other columnists from both sides of the great Indian divide. I admire him for the courage of his convictions, and the forthright manner in which he sets out his opinions without bothering about the egos that he would be hurting. His writing makes it obvious that the opinions expressed by him are his own and that he is not representing an individual or group that have another kind of a hidden agenda. Unfortunately, most of our columnists have a personal agenda which they are unable to hide, however hard they may try, and however impartial they may wish to be seen as. The powerful political-industrial bloc has infiltrated the media completely and, in most cases, seems to have acquired ownership of media houses, though not overtly. The havoc this influence has wreaked on governance is now becoming all too apparent to the educated middle class, and that is one reason why a simple villager like Anna Hazare could launch a mass movement with such great success.

The fact that this movement has hardly made any difference to the ground reality, and will eventually fizzle out and die, has a lot to do with the kind of Constitution we were given by our leaders after independence. Under the magnetic spell of the larger-than-life, and undoubtedly patriotic leadership of the Indian National Congress and the leaders of the other political parties, we adopted a Constitution that did not provide for any safeguards against the kind of fractured mandates we have been having, that has perpetrated the tyranny of political parties getting less than half the votes and yet controlling the Parliament and the assemblies, through convenient, opportunistic alliances with splinter groups who have won elections through fraud, intimidation, bribery, and through appeals to base sentiments aroused by caste, creed, and language. Our Constitution did not foresee that within less than a quarter-century, political leadership would pass into the hands of corrupt and criminal elements that would use the same Constitution to subvert each and every institution, including the Parliament and the state assemblies, as also the Armed Forces, the judiciary, the educational infrastructure, and the fifth estate. Anna Hazare's call for satyagraha against corruption was called unconstitutional by these same elements that sat pompously in television studios and poured invective on the poor man and his movement. All manner of dirt was tried to be unearthed, and when that failed, half-truths were dressed up as Holy Scripture and a complicit media was ever-willing to give them the maximum space. By the time the poor man came to Mumbai for his fast in December, the movement had been dissipated by sheer inertia and doubt that anything worthwhile would actually be achieved by these means. One by one the culprits who had been jailed under the first flush of Anna's movement were coming out on bail; and to top them all, Suresh Kalmadi, the chief CWG conspirator and his close associates also managed to get bail this week. The CBI, which is handling the prosecution in all these cases, will ensure that they become as protracted as possible, maybe for decades, and the courts will keep on granting adjournments after adjournments on the flimsiest of grounds. Public memory, being proverbially short, will do the rest. These men will never see the inside of a jail again, and will continue to enjoy their ill-gotten wealth. Our Constitution even allows them to fight elections since they have not been sentenced, and as long as they remain under trial, they are to be treated as equal citizens.

According to Karamat Ghori, Pakistan too finds itself in a similar precarious position, (see “Pakistan at a Precipice” TNIE of January 20th). He finds similar subversive forces are active and in power within that country. Unfortunately, the partition of 1947 did much more damage to the subcontinent than what would have been had it been only a political partition. The two-nation theory, based solely on religion, let loose a Pandora's Box of other divisive theories, and we may not yet have seen the final denouement of that ill-conceived decision. Pakistan, ostensibly was thought to be a home for the Muslims of the subcontinent, but look where it has landed? It is fractured into myriad fragments based on sect, language, culture, wealth or the absence of it. Economic power has been arrogated by the landed robber-barons of the Punjab or Sind, while political power has largely remained with the armed forces who continue to dominate the country whether in their barracks or outside. The common man has remained outside this charmed circle of English-speaking, power-broking elite, largely uneducated and illiterate. He has become easy prey to the ranting of the fundamentalists who have exploited his fear of a retributive Allah and made him a willing tool in their hands. The originally conceived secular state of Pakistan has ended up as the epicentre of global jihadi terrorism that threatens to make this land into another stone-age civilization, much like what the Taliban regime did to Afghanistan. The final paragraph of his column that says that the country remains "perilously poised on a knife's edge, and its people bemused, perplexed and harassed out of their wits" is too simplistic an analysis of the situation obtaining now in Pakistan. The only people who are in this frame of mind are a minuscule minority consisting of a few intellectuals like him; unfortunately too small in number to make any difference. They vent their frustrations through their writings, just like people like me do here.

The problem with Pakistan is that it allowed a religion to dominate its very existence. Its visceral hatred for India, a whole from which it had been wrenched apart, dictated its response to economic and political challenges, and never allowed the state to grow and develop into a healthy nation. Today the same religion has become a hydra-headed monster ready to devour the very entity that it had created. Its obsession with India drove it to spend enormous sums of scarce money on military hardware, nuclear technology, and on other totally wasteful adventures. It sought to make friends with China, who have their eyes on Pakistan like they had on Tibet. The Karakoram Highway is a case in point. Whom does this road benefit? Pakistan must ask itself this question. What kind of tourist and goods traffic does it carry from Pakistan to China? On the other hand, does it not present an all-weather, highly secure road for the Chinese to move men and troops into Pakistan at any time? The perplexed, bemused and harassed people are not making any difference to the way the country is being governed. The large, illiterate mass has no feeling that they are sitting on a precipice. They have been too deeply inoculated by the hate-India virus, and are easily deflected into religious frenzy by their mullahs and madrasas.

The other problem with Pakistan is that it identifies itself not as a part of a geographical entity that the Indian subcontinent is, but as a part of an ummah that is light years away from it in its history, culture, language and ethos. There is, therefore, a deliberate attempt at the obliteration of the historical and cultural heritage of Pakistan, while substituting it with a false, imported culture of the Arab lands. The conflict between these two histories and cultures is tearing the society apart at its seams, leaving behind a totally confused, amorphous mass unable to comprehend its future in the light of an imposed history and culture. The brilliant Japanese writer Murakami, in his magnum opus "IQ84" observes that "our memory is made up of our individual memories and our collective memories. The two are intimately linked. And history is our collective memory. If our collective memory is taken from us - is rewritten - we lose the ability to sustain our true selves". This is exactly what has been happening to the people of Pakistan.

India, on the other hand, in the single-minded pursuit of the American dream of wealth and material possessions, too has forgotten its great cultural and spiritual history. The middle classes have become armchair critics, discussing the rot that has set into our systems over a glass of imported Scotch whiskey, while even unwilling to make the effort of casting their votes. Their apathy has allowed the political parties to get criminal and unsocial elements elected to the legislatures, with the consequences that we are seeing now. We know how much damage the Congress party has done to the country, and we also know that enormous sums of looted wealth are lying in banks abroad, yet we are unable to maintain collective pressure on the politicians and put them where they truly belong. That Rajiv Gandhi's widow continues to hold a nation of over one billion people to ransom, and continues to influence every arm of Indian governance, is perhaps the most frightening aspect of this apathy. She is not even of Indian origin, yet by using the Gandhi surname, she is able to fool the gullible masses. It is a matter of the deepest shame that India's malnutrition figures are perhaps the worst in the world, far higher than sub-Saharan Africa. Daily revelations of one scam after another have become routine. The administration is only engaged in fire-fighting and has no time for governance.

India and Pakistan today are at a crossroads. The Bhutto legacy carried through Benazir and now through her widower is carrying Pakistan to the brink of the precipice. Indira Gandhi's legacy, carried through her son, and now by his widow, continues to erode whatever values that might have survived after the first twenty-five years of independence. The view from the brink is most disheartening. Pakistan and India both have no credible leadership alternatives in sight. Imran Khan lately has been drawing large crowds. But I think he will be like another Benazir, completely disconnected from the common people of the land. He cannot even speak proper Urdu or Punjabi, and is more comfortable speaking in English. The main opposition party in India, the BJP also has no leader who can move the apathetic middle classes. The personal ambitions of people like Advani are not allowing younger and more capable individuals to rise and take up the challenge. The Left has become completely irrelevant and its current leadership can only be described as 'pathetic'. The other political parties are nothing but private militias and gangs with dynastic leadership patterns, and behave more like the dacoits of an earlier era.

The future, I am afraid, does not augur well for both our countries. It is therefore important that voices of people like Karamat Ghori continue to be articulated, and the message disseminated far and wide. In the darkness that will come, these voices will be the only beacons that may show the light to the bewildered masses.