By Saswat Pattanayak

Women are the face of the business today. If that’s some claim the West is making to advance capitalism ethos, folks better watch out. The internal contradiction is here to stay: women stay as the face, whereas the men rule as the rest (muscle and the money).

One of the popular and reformatory feminist arguments made against the Third World nations and the former socialist block was that women are relegated to non-existence in matters of decision-making, unlike in the West where women have known to have posed for Playboy and have decided whom to go out with on an evening date.

The cultural contrasts have always been made whenever any other justification has failed. For example, if the religious fanaticism has matched (Islam Afghan, Christian Europe, Hindu India), then the proverbial burden on the white man has shifted towards cultural differences and the normative contrasts in terms of “women development”. Despite being religious, and at times because of the difference in their religions, the women have suffered so much (look at all stories on Iranian women suffering), the mainstream argument has run.

I though of looking at women in capitalism and the myth of women progress, just to see if the world at another hemisphere was indeed such fair to the fifty percent of population in terms of gender. Although there can be no comparison among the countries on basis of economic parity (remember the world is divided in two parts economically: self-proclaimed wealth accumulator group of 8 versus destined to doom group of rest 185), we need to see the attitudes of wealthy societies just to measure the yardstick. US as the citadel of capitalism tops the list, of course.

Only in August last year an assistant warehouse manager filed a class-action (yes classes do exist!!!) suit against Costco Wholesale Corp (that chain of warehouses from which Americans take pride in purchasing bulk after becoming elite members). Costco operates approximately 324 warehouses in the United States employing over less than 1 in 6 women as its senior store managers)! Yet all those faces at the counters in Costco who make us celebrate diversity at workplace are incidentally women, because the corporation employs more than 50% women! Women are 50% cheap labor and only 16% of them work at managerial positions!

Just for information, if that’s the case with United States, how does Costco employ women in the UK, Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Puerto Rico, where it has businesses?

The worse news is Costco claims proudly that it metes better treatment than its rivals Wal-mart (yes that company whose owners are four of the ten richest billionaires of the planet), Sam’s or BJ’s. So where does the largest retail store in the world, the Wal-Mart, stand? Wal-Mart representing 1.6 million women, is facing the largest class-action sexual discrimination suit in history. The faces of Wal-Mart, its beautiful women, some of whom were picked by Playboy to pose nude recently, comprise more than 70% of its total workforce! That’s the parameter of feminist success, some claim, because what is overlooked is that Wal-Mart hires them for hourly jobs, only less than a third of them being in any store management position! Wal-Mart has more than 3,500 stores in US alone, having sales of more than $250 billion dollars annually!

Sex discrimination cases are also filed against most other giant companies, including Merrill Lynch and Home Depot. Among few cases that have been settled yet, aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co. paid off $72.5 million to settle its case. Major investment bank Morgan Stanley paid off $54 million to settle claims that it underpaid and did not promote women.

Of course majority cases never get to see the trial and the systematic patterns of discriminations are never discussed in favor of individual cases.

The issue at hand is the problem. The continuing saga of discrimination that goes on even to the year 2005. If the cracks are evident with the biggest firms that hold the torch of capitalism, then one can only imagine the plights at the numerous sweatshops that have been opened at the behest of free market expansions. The myth has to be revisited, only if it will mean that we will eventually end up condemning the system that perpetuates the gaps and calls for class-actions. The least folks can do is not to get solely fascinated by the neon lights and pretend not to live the heat of oppression that the workers experience while building the lights and the buildings, the roads, the locomotives. It’s not enough to see the pretty women anchors on the television channels in order to assume advancements, its needed for us to see if they call the shots of their visual representations and decision making abilities as news editors.

Capitalism thrives on the show business. Massive consumptions, huge productions, giant media houses, lavish use of glamour, red carpets and the women, profit indexes and billionaires lists, the supermalls and blockbuster movies.

What it leaves out systematically is a narrative about the countless workers who make these take shape, and the systematic oppression they inflict on the working class in terms of wages, treatments and attitudes.

Tags: Saswat, Feminism, USA, Media, Capitalism

By Saswat Pattanayak

I don’t have any problem with Manmohan Singh per se. What hurts is the expectation of people to expect any better from him.

Apparently only after the Indian PM shamelessly praised the “good governance” model of the British colonial rule, both the rightist and leftist parties have vehemently stood up against him.

True, Singh insulted the sentiments of all patriotic Indians who still find a reason to live with dignity, only in name of sacrifices of the indomitable freedom fighters who laid down their lives to drive the British out. They find a reason to live with dignity in a country whose prospects are marred by widespread poverty, corruption and unemployment. For nearly six decades now, people have been celebrating their existence in the ravaged land because they could not simply afford to disrespect the lives lost in pursuit for self-governance. Hope prevailed high that Indians shall one day reap the benefits of the freedom struggle, redeem faith in the belief that autonomy from foreign rule held the key.

And this abstract panacea in the form of self-aware third world nationalism for concrete afflictions characterizing the “developing” countries has finally been challenged. The people have been woefully represented by leaderships that have sung the praises of exploiters, homegrown and foreign.

And this time, since he was “emotional”, a capitalist leader has been just accidentally become more direct in his praises.

The centrist or even left of the center party, Congress has nothing to complain. They knew it was coming. Manmohan Singh indeed earlier during his tenure as finance minister had submitted an economic modernization plan that was a joy to the right wing parties. Instead of being rejected wholeheartedly, it was accepted for its reform values. And those reforms as we know served the capitalistic interests of foreign concerns. India was soon converted into the largest sweatshop in the world market. Pretending to be complaining the domestic capitalists (who had earlier funded rightists to power in 1977) easily gained stronghold of economy to vote right wing nationalists to power. They knew for example, any business with McDonald’s was only going to help the franchisee owners in India! They thus furthered the plan of domestic privatizations and indeed sold off more than half of public properties to any business house that could afford, in lieu of kickbacks. They worsened it such that people exercising their Hobson’s choice had to throw them out of power (even if the only difference was their colors as religious fanatics). But the rightist soon made Sonia Gandhi an issue. No way they were to accept that lady or anyone else from Congress, save for one man. And that man was the architect of liberalization in India: Manmohan Singh. Only after Singh was installed the right wingers kept silence. And since then, much to their expectation and merry, the privatization policies continued.

Between the bad and worse, Indians went on paying heavy prices as privatization went murkier. As privatization went on appeasing the foreign concerns and their domestic partner capitalists, Singh appeared everywhere, from Charlie Rose Show to Time Magazine. At one of these points of mutual adulations, Singh thought of expressing his gratitude to the ideology that had raised him to this level of shrewdness. Oxford University.

Singh said,

As the painstaking statistical work of the Cambridge historian Angus Maddison has shown, India's share of world income collapsed from 22.6 per cent in 1700, almost equal to Europe's share of 23.3 per cent at that time, to as low as 3.8 per cent in 1952. ..Indeed, at the beginning of the 20th Century, "the brightest jewel in the British Crown" was the poorest country in the world in terms of per capita income.

And yet unashamedly unruffled and praising the British for this downfall of Indian economy that resulted in profiting the super-rich sycophants of the Raj, and torturing the mass population of downtrodden, Singh philosophized almost to justify everything that had gone wrong. Indians must have been hungry dogs, as Churchill had said. And hence we were never meant to know how to govern good, Singh confessed, as though to speak for himself and absolve himself of his incompetencies:

'Even at the height of our campaign for freedom from colonial rule, we did not entirely reject the British claim to good governance. We merely asserted our natural right to self-governance.'

Singh’s understanding that British had “good governance” and that people of Indian did not reject the British (a bunch of lunatics those freedom fighters at the gallows must have been, considering Singh’s beliefs) in India has to be sympathetically understood. Here is a man firmly committed to the idea of selling the hapless indigenous to the mighty foreign, in lieu of some recognitions (in this case a honorary degree or two). And his entire life has been dedicated to this cause. From Garibi Hatao (Eradicate poverty) to Garibko Hatao (Eradicate the poor), the motto of capitalism is well ingrained in this man. What else did the Center expect from the PM?

As for the Left, they should have nothing to complain either. They are out of wits. Why else would they have ever lent any support to a government led by an avowed pro-market economist? Why are they objecting to Singh as anti-nationalist, when they could not attack him ever for being a staunch capitalist? Moreover, should the Left pledge allegiance to the cause of narrow nationalistic politics or to the international mobilizations against capitalistic expansions?

Finally, amidst the mud, the pigs enjoy the most. The rightist parties are clear winner in this case. Just when Advani and Joshi and the team of vandals were about to face charges for inciting communal violence, nothing would have come as a better relief. Such a ruckus was after all created by their own man. Singh, if anything, is the dream of the right-wingers in India. They needed someone who would be smart enough to fool the masses by slogans of development, sabotage the communists by policies, promote the financiers of right-wing politics by disinvestments, represent the profit interests by privatization, sophisticatedly draft market economy mantras that won’t sound offensive, kill Sonia Gandhi as a leader, represent the rightist interests outside the country, and finally praise the British rule (considering the long standing support of the right wingers towards British rule for which they were infamous during the freedom struggle, and for which they were infamous after they killed Gandhi and were banned for anti-national activities in the newly independent India).

In ways as should not appear surprising at all, Manmohan Singh is the man from the extreme Right of the political spectrum. Under him the private business will flourish, private rules of law will dictate the land (the recent Gurgaon incident where hundreds of workers were brutalized by police force commissioned by Honda), private multinationals will spread their wings and benefit the commercial interests of domestic partners, disinvestments will continue at full pace and the British Raj will be praised.

Those of us who are surprised are fools. For us who are shocked, we must realize that the people deserve the kind of government they elect. Only in a so-called ballot-driven democracies, do politicians like Manmohan Singh stay in power even after all that has been said and done.

And the right-wingers want the system to flourish, so that they can rule the country without the participation of the people (how many consciously vote anyone?), so that they can manufacture consents with use of their media (Advani on Zee TV claiming that millions want Ram Mandir!), and finally can sing the praises of their colonial masters!


For a related article, click here!

Tags: Saswat, India, Capitalism, Colonialism

By Saswat Pattanayak

Often times we are led to believe that the extreme religious fanatics oppose the prevailing administrations. The ruling governments condemn the extreme rightists and call for restrain. And the population is led to believe that the fanatical barbaric causes are espoused by a small minority of believers who have nothing to do with the political parties they are in support of, however right-wing or conservative they may be.

So the media often discuss in detail how former Indian PM Vajpayee used to be a right man in a wrong party, how the BJP (the right wing party) was in principle opposed to the extremist right wing bodies such as World Hindu Council, or RSS –even as the latter were bases which gave birth to the former! This brainwash goes to such an extent that people genuinely start believing that Advani (the alleged instigator of communal riots) now is being opposed by the extreme right-wingers for being soft on Pakistan.

Nearer home, the Bush administration is being criticized for being too liberal by the fellow right wingers. KKK is not yet dead, but we all were told that it was an organization of cowards who never got any administrative support. We were told that KKK were always critical of every government in power too, absolving them of any collaboration. Or that American Nazi Party has nothing to do with the moderate right wing politics at the Center. Or that McCarthy was an aberration, although communism was evil.

But all throughout these apparent oppositions of intra-right wing politics, what transpire are the victories of the right-wing agendas. Then what is portrayed is that with hesitations rife, things get acted out. Like India had a nuclear test done of the Hindu Bomb or America had an unfortunate war on Iraq. The reality is that, the fanatical aims are eventually fulfilled, albeit, amidst a more sophisticated public projection.

Why does it seem that complicated and not this simple? Are the religious fanatics really those wayward minorities that are disliked by the ruling elites? If that be the case, how is it that the administration finds no problem in endorsing much of the demands of the fanatics (on grounds of religious freedom, preaching, commandments at court, the war lobbies, propagating god’s words, incorporating religious practice within health sector, allowing religious parties to contest and lend supports, making issues out of abortion and gay marriage, etc &hellip?

If Martin Scorcese's “The Last Temptation of Christ” (1988) was so successfully picketed by the right wingers across the country, a story to tell of it was never devised. Only recently, Ken Tipton’ own story was directed for “The Heart of the Beholder” (2005), a movie that has been dubbed as “the movie Hollywood was afraid to make”.

In no uncertain terms the film captures what no previously made English language film had ever accomplished. The reality of how a sense of freedom is always granted with religious sanctions is well juxtaposed with hesitations of the ruling elites to take up responsibilities for the ruckus. Going beyond that, the true story of Tipton’s reveal how the same elites feigning ignorance and publicly maintaining distance from religious bigots are actually very much hand-in-gloves with the latter! Still going beyond that, Tipton shows how he and his family go ahead to take revenge on the believers than sit tight, shit scared.


If there has been a film that tells the story in Hollywood, this is the one to watch. Made independently, this may not hit your theatres. But if you get read this story, do spread the word! One way or the other, folks need to understand that the religious fanatics have always ruled the world, after devising a God as a justification of their rule and install few political groups who mock-fight with each other in a so-called democracy as their instrument of rule. And we, as believers in Jesus not as a tempted man or Buddha not as an avowed atheist, view the lens as prescribed, according to the terms of fanatics, to differ only in degree, not in types. And we assume that the fanatics cannot be among us, within us, even without questioning our own godly beliefs and levels of intolerances!

Tags: Saswat, Film, Christianity, Atheism

By Saswat Pattanayak

My New York tour this weekend was a well deserved one. The complexities and contradictions that map the country are so defined in this city of countercultures that it’s amazing to notice them visibly, despite the manufactured calmness.

The hungry and homeless in Manhattan scrounging for leftovers in trash, the piles of human defecation and unattended garbage in New York Central Park, and the street beggars singing different tunes have always characterized the city of the Trumps and Rockefellers.

Ground Zero, my cab driver laughed at us when we could not figure what to say about the venue my friend Biren Mohanty from Orissa wanted to check out. Obviously the driver was either a Muslim or a victim of post 9/11 racial outbursts. Or both. He did not even talk to us properly after we showed how much interested we were in visiting the site. “Do we have any other noteworthy place close by?” Silence.

The other cab driver, from Punjab, India, clearly took us to one Indian restaurant over another. “That’s great food, but too much money,” he pointed out to Jewel of India, “I will take you to Curry”. Off we went to the working class restaurant. The rich Indians and the Whites go to Jewel.

Apart from religion and class, the race equations were interesting as well. The cheapest bus tours are conducted by Chinese between DC and NY. And unfortunately this time, the bus had a mechanical problem for a couple of minutes. Three co-passengers who were African Americans burst out with all racial slurs they could in those 10 minutes of silent midnight to crack jokes. One passenger while excusing himself out was shouting “excuse me in English and every other language I don’t know so that you know.. hehe”. I was wondering if all of them were conscious of Ghettopoly vs Tsunami or it was just commonplace.

The crash moments of new york bare themselves everytime we have headed there. Yet that’s the best city of the country. The multiculturalism has not been normalized. The city sees the differences, understands the differences, even celebrates them, albeit some lacunae here and there. When in a Chinese restaurant I asked what curry was best for the dinner, the man answered, “Spicy Chicken Curry in Indian style”. That’s New York.

Two co-passengers were impressed by my invitation to them to share our cab in the wee hours of morning. I said if we all could share our stuffs, we would have a better community. Off the couple came up with a flyer to ask us to join them in protesting against Chinese govt for cracking down on individual liberties. Missing the whole point, that’s New York too.

The American political turmoils lend themselves to the awful representations that they manifest in. Amidst the billboards at Times square where companies smoke out billions of dollars every year just for exhibitions, do we need the poor trenchantly going hungry? With hundreds of skyscrapers inside the city, do the homeless need any place else to look for (incidentally they close down all the public toilets at 7pm)? Are these people who have tolerated the administrative indifferences thus far to let the world note NY as the biggest city ever devised, not the ones who have worked helluva lot to uphold the torch of human liberty for the humankind? In their silence lies the global presence of NY. The mute statue might just be symbolic!

Tags: Saswat, USA, Capitalism

By Saswat Pattanayak

It’s only fair that the ironies played out once again.

The Guantanamo Bay is just one of the contradictions. The “land of the free” after 200 years of systematic discriminations and unjust warfare that continues even to this day, has shined at the Bay.

Over 9,500 US troops are stationed in this sole U.S. base on a Communist soil. And the detainees are not told whether they are to be treated as prisoners of war, or common criminals.

Cuban President Castro has refused to view the American lease on Cuban land as legitimate. Yet, the prisoners (some of whom were handed over by Afghan tribesmen in exchange of cash) from Camp X-Ray, Camp Delta and Camp Echo are dumped on this land for confinement. The tortures of the prisoners would have never come to light unless some European detainees were to speak! Hence, when three British prisoners released in 2004 without charge deliberated on the atrocities committed by US troops in forms of torture, sexual acts, forced drugging and religious persecution it got some coverage, however scant. They also accused the British authorities of turning blind eye to the situation of which they were well aware. The 115 page dossier has been subsequently supported by French, Swedish and Australian prisoners too.

In this round of irony, although the sovereignty of Guantanamo Bay resides with Cuba eventually, the exclusive control over it rests with US. And naturally enough the prisoners who have no access to press conferences are forever struggling with their fates.

A 1903 declaration between The Republic of Cuba and US stated that the land, among others, was to be leased to US “for the time required for the purposes of coaling and naval stations, the areas of land and water situated in the Island of Cuba.” Many things have of course changed over the course of time, including the revolution led by Castro. But the terms still apply as it is and unilateral disagreement is not proving fruitful. And the area is being used for the purpose of detaining political prisoners.

In the meantime the tortures continue as though it were normal. In the most recent incident, the official report reads that 52 detainees are on hunger strike against the treatments they are being meted out with.

And the story could be framed by the media only after two weeks of their hunger strikes! The reality is that the strike started even before that. And the number was well over 100. One hundred people have been protesting non-violently with hunger strikes against the continued torture of an oppressive government, and its subjects who vote the leaders to power, do not even come to know of it until long after. Not mentioning the series of tortures over the years which have by far created protests of no significant nature.

What have the media roles been reduced to? Janet Jackson’s left breast, I am sure. In the era of the model human rights western democracy, the leaders cause illegal tortures not just inside but also outside their territories. Out of 562 prisoners, four have been charged of anything. Rest of them languish with web of tortures for no counts. This is called the Rule of Law!

Tags: Saswat, Cuba, USA, Terrorism

There is a novel way to travel the Earth. Download and install this free software here.

I was pretty amazed at the way the landscape of the earth changed when the mouse tilted the buttons. And of course secondly because I could also find out where my village Tigiria was situated on the world map!

Tags: Saswat

By Saswat Pattanayak

Robert A Dahl cites the table of Arend Lijphart’s “Pattern of Democracy” in his book “How democratic is the American Constitution” (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003).

Dahl says there are 22 countries in the world that have steadily remained political democracies since at least 1950: Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States.

Of course the glaring omission is India, whose political leaders proudly claim it to be the largest democracy (and hence they logically deduce it should be a natural ally to the US), as recent trip of PM Manmohan Singh would testify.

Dahl admits that too and he says it has been done for two reasons: one, India had its system disruptions for two years 1975-77, when Indira Gandhi had imposed emergency, and two, India is too poor.

I have a couple of observations here: One, that “at least 1950” was deliberately a yardstick so that countries like Germany and Italy could be included. After all what difference would it have made had the cut-off year been 1940? Quite a lot. Indian emergency would have then looked like a joke in face of 1940’s Europe. Clearly the elites needed to stick together even if they had to do so just in order to exclude other countries.

Two, clearly economy plays a part. Why else would Dahl infer that a poor country had no right to call itself a democracy? But then he is right on target. Democracy has been associated so far with all these 22 countries, and all of them have been economically advantaged.

Thirdly, what becomes clear to me is that politically democracy is not a popular choice in the world, after all. Out of 193 countries in the world, only 22 have embraced democracy. Not only is the idea such unpopular, but ironically the wealth of the world is being owned by only these unpopular elites.

Having said that, let’s look at the Lijphart’s table to see what can justify for the elitisms of the 22 countries. A model democracy case study would be the United States. In terms of performance, it ranks one of the lowest (18th) in terms of women’s parliamentary representation, 19th lowest in energy efficiency, 17th lowest in welfare state index, 17th lowest in social expenditure, 19th lowest in foreign aid, 21st lowest in voter turnout. Not only that, the US has the 4th greatest rich-poor divide ratio (the economic gaps between have and have-not classes) and the highest rank in terms of incarceration rate (the biggest prison-industrial complex in the world).

With all these “worst performances”, where all rest of the countries (100% of them) do better in foreign aid or in incarceration rate, in what respect does the US shine? Only in one field: Economic growth, where it is among the top three rank.

As I view it, more imprisonments are then directly proportional to higher economic growth. And as corroborated by history, this has been the one of the ways (imprisoning, and mass murdering) using which the European expansions have continued to this date. Earlier it was just territory they were after. Now it includes the culture and economy.

The second repugnant truth is that economic growth of a country has nothing to do with socio-economic conditions in which its people live. In case of the US, it’s evident that with greater economic growth, there is greater rich-poor divide. Hence there is an economic growth, but one that helps the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

And is it not ironical that the same US economic model is now in place with more than 90% of the world since late 1980’s? Police states pretending to be democracies and abject poverty and homelessness owing to irresponsible capitalism. That’s the future of our planet earth?

Tags: Saswat, Economics, India, Academic

By Saswat Pattanayak

Raj Kumar Santoshi’s film on Bhagat Singh was powerful, to say the least. It most appropriately showcased the hero and his missions. Among five films on Bhagat Singh released that year (2002), Santoshi’s movie topped. It was the only worthwhile cinematic experience one can have about the freedom fighter. And so far, the only film ever made on him that’s notable, anyway.

Bhagat Singh, for the uninitiated, was one of the radical faces of Indian freedom struggle. In a country dominated by centrist politics since post-British times, the sacred texts of Indian history never duly acknowledged the peasants’ movements in India to oust the feudal and foreign rules. Hence any film on Bhagat Singh was to be a welcoming scenario.

Yet it was not meant to be. At least it did not turn out so for me. Even as the movie addressed Bhagat Singh’s legacy, it induced what my adjacent movie-goers felt. Amidst several scenes in the film, members of the audience were exclaiming “shut up, bastard” when it came to any scene showing Gandhi. People watching the movie were almost up in arms against Gandhi who, according to them, was the reason behind Bhagat Singh’s death!

Gandhi was being called names. Which is not unlikely in a society which has grown egalitarian over the time to understand several nuances of Gandhi so as to study him dispassionately than merely hero-worship. At the same time, this sentiment has been played up both by the opportunistic Dalit movement and the fanatic Hindu organizations which have disgraced Gandhi in deeds and words for political ends. Hence, it was definitely another matter altogether to call him the enemy of the people, the killer of Bhagat Singh.

In a review which resounds few of my sentiments too, the author opines that Santoshi lacks some fairness. “He should have known that if a film were to be made on Gandhi, Bhagat Singh would have been regarded as a villain, not as a national hero,” the reviewer comments.

There lies my precise objection. Why does this instinct of posing one against the other in a hero-villain paradigm take shape? Why should Bhagat Singh, and not the then British rulers, be considered villain in a film about Gandhi? Whose interests do such theories serve? Any freedom struggle is not an individual prerogative: it necessarily ingrains within many different voices, different ideologies and ideologues. Speaking of the unique situation as India’s freedom struggle, it was neither aimed at overthrowing the empire, nor at securing civil rights, but at ensuring that the rulers needed to leave the colony alone. In this manner, it was unlike the evolutions in America, nor the revolution in Russia, nor the shift of power at South Africa. India’s freedom struggle was the kind where people of all walks of life participated (if not before the time Gandhi arrived, when it was limited to the armed forces, native rulers and some elites). And they participated not to make a compromise of legal adjustments, or royal massacres, but to secure back their own lands and throw the perpetrators out of the country. And they succeeded (for all those theorists who point out the exhaustion of the British following second world war, one needs only to look at the colonialism in the 1950’s and onwards in whole of Africa and parts of Asia to rationalize that there was no such haste for the British to leave India unless under compulsion!)

It’s important to remember that Bhagat Singh was not a wayward violent activist as he is often portrayed. Certainly he began as one. But soon he organized himself in relation to the people, in much a Gandhian way of providing leadership, for which he has always credited Gandhi. Although starting off as an anarchist, he later on embraced broad people-based struggle. He recognized the source of aura that Gandhi had in India and he understood that without mass scale organized efforts at uniting people, no revolution was going to be a reality.

Gandhi, obviously aware of the genuine efforts of the radicals was opposed only in spirit, since his stance of non-violence was in direct conflict. But for someone famously in support of gun over cowardice, Gandhi never cut off his relationship with members of the nationalist party who publicly supported the extremists, namely Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Bose, Motilal Nehru (who used to finance revolutionary Chandra Sekhar Azad), Maulana Shaukat Ali and Krishna Kant Malviya etc. Gandhi, the relentless worker among the poorest of the poor, was only too aware of the class conflicts that existed. For his brand of movement though, he needed mass mobilization, even if it meant that he extracted money from the domestic capitalists whom he treated as friends.

Hence, whereas the end was the same, the means were vehemently different. But this difference was not one that was meant to disrupt each other’s paths, let alone posing as challenges. The current intelligentsia assuming that Gandhi and Bhagat Singh and ilk were contradictory is misplaced. Contrary, they might have been at the best. In fact Bhagat Singh categorically refuted the claims that he was a terrorist or preacher of violence. “I am not a terrorist and I never was, except perhaps in the beginning of my revolutionary career. And I am convinced that we cannot gain anything through these methods. One can easily judge it from the history of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. All our activities were directed towards an aim, i.e., identifying ourselves with the great movement as its military wing. If anybody has misunderstood me, let him amend his ideas. I do not mean that bombs and pistols are useless, rather the contrary. But I mean to say that mere bomb throwing is not only useless but sometimes harmful. The military department of the party should always keep ready all the war-material it can command for any emergency. It should back the political work of the party. It cannot and should not work independently.” (ed. Shiv Verma, Selected Writings of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, New Delhi, 1986)

Even when he threw the bomb in the Assembly, it was not kill anyone, but to emphatically make the British realize that there was a voice they could no longer ignore. Bhagat Singh cried freedom at the Lahore Conspiracy case –January 21, 1930—in front of the magistrate in the court (lines which never appeared in any of the films ever made): “Long Live Socialist Revolution', 'Long Live the Communist International', 'Long live the people', 'Lenin's name will never die', and 'Down with Imperialism.' He subsequently went on to read the text of the following telegram in the court and asked the Magistrate to transmit it to the Third International:

'On Lenin Day we send hearty greetings to all who are doing something for carrying forward the ideas of the great Lenin, we wish success to the great experiment Russia is carrying out. We join our voice to that of the International working class movement. The proletariat will win. Capitalism will be defeated. Death to Imperialism'.

This historic event is never mentioned in the popular media for obvious reasons. And 2002 was testament to that sentiment. In a ridiculous attempt to recreate a myth of Bhagat Singh as a nationalistic leader who would be best suited to the emotions of the detached youths of today, the right-wingers have declared Bhagat Singh as their hero!

One, because of their hand in assassination of Gandhi, they badly needed a hero who would have categorically challenged Gandhi. And two, as though to kill two birds with one stone, the hero would then be declared a domestic one who gave up life for India, and not for some leftist ideology. Of course his death would not have come had Gandhi intervened—hence Gandhi was decidedly the cause behind Bhagat Singh’s death, the arguments of the reactionaries go.

Bhagat Singh, hence stripped of his international commitment to wipe out imperialism, has over time been depicted as a sad hero who could not be saved, and the blame has always been put on Gandhi for his inaction. The truth, however is quite the contrary. In a letter that he wrote to his father (which I will later publish on the blog soon), Bhagat Singh was so defiant that one will find it incredible. In a world full of heroes who pleaded for their cases, Bhagat Singh called his own father a traitor and one who stabbed him on his back, for having considered a defense lawyer for him while he was on trial! He said it will be a tragedy if he defended himself, since the cause was not for him to survive, it was for the revolution to win the order of the day and it was required that he died for the cause!

For those who fantasized that Bhagat Singh would have been salvaged had Gandhi pleaded to the British, they only stand to insult the revolutionary’s ideals. For those who are bent upon making Bhagat a national hero instead of an international agitator of social justice, they are only murdering the values for which he gave up his life, with a smile and lots of hope.

Alas, it’s a different world now. And what a shame the world is.

Tags: Saswat, History, India, Colonialism, Bollywood, Film

By Saswat Pattanayak

Gandhi was never out of the limelight. But since a couple of years now, he has been in it for all the wrong reasons.

The pan-African movement recognizes him as a crude Indian nationalist by citing that he never stood up for the then South African Black people as much he did for the Indian population. The Indian rightists ruling class abhor Gandhi for his alleged anti-nationalist stance when it came to his professed compassion for the Muslims. The bourgeois intellectual film directors Raj Kumar Santoshi and Shyam Benegal have portrayed Gandhi in ways to suit their standpoints: movies have been made to celebrate Bhagat Singh and Subhas Bose only so that their characters can clash with Gandhi. The pacifists have used Gandhi to show that we don’t need any violence at all, as though that were the lessons Gandhi demonstrated. The conservatives have utilized Gandhi to prove that religious fundamentalism is the path to God and hence prayers should be made compulsory in schools. Dalits think Gandhi was their worst enemy. Brahmins think Gandhi was their worst enemy.


Gandhi is back in limelight. I shall allow myself to swim in the bundle of contradictions and take a retake on my own view of the first para: maybe he has been in it for all the right reasons.

So that we be forced to rethink. Not to rethink Gandhi per se, which is the act, several interest groups are hard-pressing for the people to do. For I don’t think Gandhi being right or wrong is all that important (since no person can logically be right all the time—where will that leave the relativity of judgments leading to the mindless wars we have witnessed—the need is not to be right all the time, but to be right for the just causes). To me, what’s crucial is our motives for evaluating him the way we have done...

Tags: Saswat, History, India, Colonialism, Bollywood, Film

By Saswat Pattanayak

Let’s revisit Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, the man who did the Capitalism proud. The only person whose accounts in form of two books, are the sacred texts so far to have been used by the West to attack the Soviet history.

He was a Cossack intellectual, meaning a Cossack elite.

Who is a Cossack? In the 15th century, the Cossack society was a loose federation of independent military units, entirely separate and sovereign.

The two states they represented, Cossacks of Zaporizhia and Don Cossack State had a unique warrior culture, whose main source of income was the pillaging their neighbors although they didn't shy from plundering other neighbors. They were famous also for their raids against the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman Empire, led by a Sultan was one of the mightiest empires in Europe, whose fight against the Russia in Crimean War was notable.

The Russians initially had used their advanced defense mechanisms and out-maneuvered the Ottomans using their Armenian allies within the empire. They of course subsequently persecuted the Armenians in a genocidal fashion. It was not until the Communist revolution in Russia that the Russian forces retreated, leading to Ottoman victory on this front.

Not only was he a Cossack intellectual who supported the interests of the elite section of the ruling regimes in the pre-revolution period, but his prerogative was in highlighting the glories of Tsarist period! In presenting alternatives to the Soviet regime, Solzhenitsyn tended to reject Western emphases on democracy and individual freedom and instead favored the formation of a benevolent authoritarian regime that would draw upon the resources of Russia's traditional Christian values.

Authoritarian traditional Christian rule!

In other words he represented the counter-revolutionary ethos that wanted Tsar regime back. For whom the communists were infidels. The primary resistance to the Holocaust is well known silence of the Vatican since Hitler was fighting Stalin and the Church wanted the ouster of Communism at any cost, even if it would mean the Jewish extermination. Solzhenitsyn of course was not in any way opposition to the Vatican’s silence. Far from it, at first notice, America’s silence over Jewish question was welcomed by him, a country he would make home for 20 years.

On the contrary, what had been provided in the USSR then? Lenin (and please…not Stalin) had while categorically espousing the interests of the revolutionary class of peasants and workers, had clearly stated, “confiscation of all properties”. Majority of people who were in spirits with the movement of course did allow for the confiscation to take place. Several countries in the world indeed went ahead for wealth distribution. Mythically Robin Hood still continues to do so.

But what was happening was contrary to everything Solzhenitsyn believed in. A purged Christianity was unacceptable to the largest groups of believers in the world. Solzhenitsyn became their voice. He helped them compare the Gulags with the Nazi Holocaust. Of course the plights of the Armenians, Africans-Americans, Japanese-Americans of those days also were excused. For the plights of the Jews in Germany, a supremacist country whom Soviet Union contributed the most in defeating, there were none among the Allies who would stand up. Solzhenitsyn remained blind to the reality out of his desire to overthrow the Communism and replace it with traditional Christian values. Apparently after he wrote a letter to Stalin, he was sent to the camp, which formed the base for two of his books: Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. These books apparently rocked the world!

It led the media to focus on the new victims: the Gulago. Nazis were called even subtler than the Soviets! Of course contextualizing it, it will seem natural that they felt it the same way all along. One side Hitler supported by the Christians (yes the Catholics), whose common enemy of course was Communism. And on the other Stalin and the non-believers. And of course the Red Army famously defeating the White Army of the imperial Russia and nullifying every White Order.

Solzhenitsyn, unfazed by the divided ideologies, and possibly because of it, authored a fiction “One Day in the Life…”which was widely targeted for the American audience. Naturally! And the other book “Gulag ..” whose most compelling chapter was claimed to have been a recollection of incidents by fellow prisoner Georgi Tenno, who was invited by Solzhenitsyn to be the co-author. Tenno refused the offer.

And what happened to Solzhenitsyn at the labor camp which has been used by the western critics of communism to be of even more gruesome than the Nazi camps?

He was political prisoner after war years for 8 years, for his criticism of Soviet policies, and holding talks with religious forces. 8 years? Yes.

After that, the same draconic system produced a fine mathematics teacher of him and he began to write. Leading Soviet literary periodical Novy Mir ("New World") also published his short novel “One Day in the Life..” Soon after he could publish his works abroad thanks to the interests generated by this novel. In 1960’s he had several foreign publications of ambitious works including V kruge pervom (The First Circle). Rakovy korpus (1968; Cancer Ward) talked about his hospitalization and successful treatment for terminally diagnosed cancer during his forced exile in Kazakstan during the mid-1950s.

Something interesting happened in 1970. He was awarded Nobel Prize, but he did not go to receive it claiming that he shall not be allowed to re-enter the country. But at the same time, he was quite conveniently publishing his works abroad. He went on to publish a celebration of German military in Avgust 1914 (1971; August 1914), a historical novel treating Germany's crushing victory over Russia during World War I, the Battle of Tannenburg!

In December 1973 he published first part of Arkhipelag Gulag (The Gulag Archipelago) in Paris! The news circulated that he was arrested and was being tried for treason. According to his logic, the punishment should have been death! Like previously under Stalin, people believed millions were killed in the camps he was at. Only he was saved to tell the story?...like previously it was believed that he would be killed in exile in hospital. Cancer and he was cured? So that he will tell the story? And now what happens? On Feb. 12, 1974, he is charged. And the next day, on Feb 13, 1974, he is exiled? Where to and how long? Still unharmed by the most evil empire?

Sounds incredible? Well, in December he goes and gleefully received his Nobel Prize! In 1975, he produces another novel Lenin v Tsyurikhe: glavy (Lenin in Zurich: Chapters). He settles in the Unites States, especially aware that he was, of America’s role in the Holocaust. Of course he mentions nothing about America and Holocaust.

Then on, he surges forward. Two more series of Gulag comes up. He refuses to call it his landmark book. Instead says history of Russia as he was working on was. And safely returns to his country of dreams, the Christian Russia in 1994.

So much ado about Gulag!

Two things emerge in this discourse. History as we all have studied thus far, can be a very twisted text, and sometimes sacred at that. Leading us not to question the upfront issues. First, comparing Gulag with Nazi camps is horrendous. That’s missing the whole point, actually. The people who kept silent during Nazi extermination were among the people who were sent to the camp in Soviet Union. No logic of passivity can work if one advocates pacifism by claiming that we could allow the Hitler to go on mass murdering people on gas chambers by calling Jews, Negroes and Communists did not deserve to live. To such claims many world leaders did not openly oppose and the Vatican too remained stoic. All aided this process only because they were scared of the spectre of Communism.

We live today to reflect much of bogus that have been taught to us as sacred. We were told Columbus discovered America! That Native Americans were Christians. And that the religious leaders all pray for peace. That the greatest democracy was greatest democracy even when its presidents owned slaves. That color of the skin could determine the intelligence of human beings. That intelligence was to be measured by a Binet Scale. That Communists were out to destroy the world. And what if the Russians Came?

Secondly, what was Gulag? And why were people so shocked by it? And who were the people at the Gulag? Do people even talk if there are 100,000 people at the Gulags now, in 2005? What were they traditionally doing? What do they continue to do? Is the Church against the Gulags now? Or as they as stoic as they were in case of Jews? Are these people in Gulags not Jews now? Or are they the converts? One can read about them now and imagine, what a fateful twist in history is this.

Tags: Saswat, History, USSR, Cold War, Communism, Capitalism

By Saswat Pattanayak

There is no news in the items being circulated by the media about Bollywood actor Salman Khan’s connection with the Underworld. Instead the news that should be worth a credential follow-up now is: Why is Salman in the news now?

First, the conversations that are making news now were published by Hindustan Times way back in August 2001. Salman has since denied that the alleged voice was his. And there were absolute silence over the issue since then. Obviously because first, it violates the right to privacy that two consenting adults have in talking to each other on any topic and hence making it legally inadmissible in court of law, and two because since four years the police has failed to establish if it was genuinely Salman's voice.

Secondly, to contextualize the times, let’s look at what’s new happening in India leading the news media to suddenly revisit Salman (his acting career has not ceased and in fact his latest film was released only last week. Even his last film Lucky made good earnings.)

On the downside, the powerful Aishwarya Rai very famously and bitterly has decided to break off. Incidentally her arch-rival Sushmita Sen not only co-stars with Salman, but is pleading for the new movie not to be banned. The people keen on banning the film are the right wing brigade which have gone on rampage to ransack cinema halls across the country. Their leader, the Hindu leader Advani has been recently charged for his anti-national activities at Ayodhya. Hence, the focus of the media has successfully shifted from Advani to Salman now.

Amidst all these, the media houses are very hard pressed to “break” this news of underworld connection with cinema stars. Almost none of the journalists point out the obvious (bound as they are not to kill the suspense), that even the most patriotic of Indian movies are made by underworld money. World’s largest film industry has historically been financed by the underworld money and in this sense, Dubai’s contribution to promoting Indian cultural integrity (Hindi films and the Indian religion of Cricket) need not be dismissed as abrasively.

Without the involvement of the underworld, India-Pakistan series would never have been a success, making Cricket a South Asian extravaganza than a colonial classicism played by Aussies and Brits. Likewise most of the superstars, producers, actors and film fraternity today would never have risen as high without active financing of the laundered money. To get surprised at an Indian actor talking to the underworld is childish. The public memory may be proverbially short, but we all know the extent to which the filmdom celebrates its existence at the parties hosted by Dubai financiers. Money rules and indeed without a governmental support to filmdom as an “industry” there have been ways to legitimize allegiances.

Of course the domestic patriots could not allow such allegiances and they suddenly turned their ire. Resultingly for many years now filmdom has turned homeward to the other underworld (the Hindu Sainiks in Bombay after driving the Muslim gangsters down to Dubai), only this one rules upfront. Not only does this domestic mafia dictate whether it will allow certain entertainers (Pakistani artistes have been banned from coming to India, although Indian audience are known to be big fans of the artistes), and allow certain games (Pakistani cricket is widely watched in India), it also has enforced its dictates in such crude way that many film posters say on their cover “With blessings of the Balasaheb”. Now we all know that Balasaheb, the Hindu supremacist, used to be a good cartoonist, but we hardly knew him as a champion of films. Now imagine if some posters would come up with a slogan like “With blessings of the D-company”.

Looking back to Mumbai riots and Ayodhya clashes and the prevailing environment of suspicion among religious communities in India, one fails to find any difference among the preachers who want to ban the new Salman movie and the dead horses of Dubai who have nurtured the Bollywood so far.

Money (and what else does one expect in a commercial cinema industry? Aesthetics?) is obviously the guiding principle behind allegiance. Why do the media not get it and get over with it. And if the judiciary thinks a drunk actor’s bragging four years ago about his connections with underworld to a girlfriend he fought with is a matter of big concern, then it also must address the issues of cultural policing being done by a bunch of hoodlums on the street wearing saffron and threatening to censor a fun comedy people want to watch. For all the direct vandalisms inside the land, these right wing fanatics first must be booked before we witness another riot. Unless of course they consider Salman’s film as significant as Lord Ram’s birthplace to be made an issue of. In either case it would be a tragedy.

Tags: Saswat, Bollywood, India, Film, Hinduism

By Saswat Pattanayak

In 1992-1993, more than 2000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed following the demolition of the Ayodhya mosque in India. Not only was destruction of this monument illegally conducted by Hindu fanatics, but they also went ahead to cause communal violence all over India. Not only the Hindu fanatics were the factors behind the violence, but the majority loss of human lives and properties were experienced by the Muslim community.

Deed of a devotee or Face of a fanatic!

After 10 years, the drama was reenacted. A train attack/accident left 58 dead. Hindu fanatics went on a rampage claiming that it was targeted at Hindus in the train. And in a state ruled by the rightists, around 2000, mostly Muslims, were murdered in broad daylight and robbed off their businesses.

Of course the perpetrators were never brought to book. Some of them very prominently became the rulers of India. One of them became deputy prime minister and evaded all charges. No arrests were made worthy of note.

Today, we hear two people, sorry militants, have been arrested. No, not for causing systematic communal violence. But for allegedly having helped attack the disputed mosque area earlier this month which caused no deaths except those of five other 'militants'. The case was solved with arrests done within two weeks! The fastest ever delivery of justice!

“It appears that the conspiracy to attack the temple was hatched by militants in Indian administered Kashmir”, police official SP Vaid said BBC.

The arrests basing on mere suspicion of an attack that led to no loss of lives, were done in record time. Within a month!

And its 13 years since justice is awaited in the case of Babri Masjid demolition. Who will be held responsible for death of thousands of people on baseless grounds. Baseless because if Rama was indeed born in Ayodhya, then he was not a Lord. If he is a Lord, he could never have been born.

Tags: Saswat, Islam, Hinduism, India

By Saswat Pattanayak

Part of fighting terrorism, the British realize, is refusing to change a way of life, writes Andrew Sullivan, and he calls it the “Quiet Power of the Stoic” in the Time Magazine this week.

Well, one will wonder why I stoop to quote Sullivan on the same page where I quote Neruda. Not quite unreasonable considering that today’s media provide the sort of inspirations like Sullivan’s pieces, for a scribe like me to think as deep as Neruda to ruminate over problems which have only proliferated since. Hence instead of the painstaking love ballads, I have to create the apt rebuttal for the reactionary stoicisms.

How do I react to the reactionaries? To the politically correct? To the timely interventionists? To the anti-terrorism conscience keepers? To the crusaders against illegal aliens? To the wise interpreters of Islam?

To begin with, one of the most popular bloggers of all time, Sullivan sure knows the vulnerabilities of the print media like Time. First, in times of crises like the London Blasts, its easier to express popular sentiments, and two, in places like Time, he cannot expect immediate responses. Its another matter that with all the trumpets being blown by bloggers about the grassroots media being one where there is a scope for the readers to correct the blogger via comments, Sullivan is out of comments on his site!

In any case who expects contrary comments when the bomb blasts in London is the only political incident today in the world and standing by the aggrieved is the only politically correct thing to do. So Sullivan writes:

The English, as Orwell once observed, celebrate their freedom in small ways: gardening, sports, pets, pubs, stamps, crossword puzzles. Part of this is now patriotic mythology. But part is also the enculturated national DNA to see these things not as trivial but as integral to the life of a free people. These things didn't stop, even during the Blitz, when thousands lived through night after night with the prospect of being incinerated by bombs from the sky. Part of fighting the war, the Brits realized, was military. But part was also a refusal to change a way of life, however small its detail, however petty its peeves.

---

As long as some maniac wants to kill himself and others in a subway or supermarket, we will not be able to stop him. And so stoicism matters. Getting on with our lives matters. Spelling bees, college football, celebrity gossip, high school proms: the simple continuance of these things is integral to the meaning of freedom.

Or so the British have long proved. Their small-c conservatism can lead to errors of complacency--like appeasing Hitler in the 1930s. But it is also a deep strength, as self-effacing as it is unmovable.

I am rendered speechless and I do not know where to post comments. But here is what I thought Sullivan said and half meant.

Basically, do anything. Support Hitler. Gossip celebrity. Prom high schools. Invade Iraq. Stay conservatives. Let Tony Blair comment on how some Muslims got Islam wrong. Allow him to pass a stricter law now so that illegals can be filtered out. Call people maniacs, systems perfect and the celebrate indifference. Don’t reflect on actions, don’t contextualize. Just get going with life, as usual. Stay stoic. Don’t change yourself.

What Orwell forgot to mention was that the English celebrated their freedom in other small ways too: invaded the natives, raped their women, killed their ables, subjugated their economies, dried their resources, came back home peacefully without any damage, when they needed cheap workforce they got the natives to work as cobblers and slaves, treated them as dogs disallowing them to enter into restaurants, promoted racism, and when the natives forgot their language and became Englicised, refused them equal pay. After keeping them illiterate in their own cultures, got the natives to pay tuitions to study in English traditions, and when the students applied for jobs, asked them to go back home with a debt, and when few natives played by their rules and ran their industries and wrote their stories, they got them knighted so that they became to be known as English, not natives anymore.

If these are not exercise of unbridled freedom on part of the English, then I do not know what these are. And now what again so conveniently was forgotten by Sullivan was that alongwith the college football, the Brit ruling class has been perfectly innocently content about their sense of superior freedom when it comes to the debt trap they lead Africa into (some countries there have paid thrice the original debt only to suffer for the rest of the civilization trying to pay the guilt-ridden interests), about their realization of peace at inflicting deaths by the hundreds to the civilians in the middle east, over the Palestine crisis and the Iraq fiasco. When British personnel were exposed for prison torture, the English were at peace with themselves over such “small issues” too.

Who can afford to stay stoic? I cannot. I am enraged at the bombings. I am enraged at the bombings, yes prime minister, over the same bombings which killed Muslims too. I am enraged at the stoic take on the heinous bombings that killed ordinary lives, the British working class lives which never agreed with the Queen’s stance on Diana and Blair’s stance on Iraq. I am enraged at this whole thing about “Pakistani descent”, when all of the alleged bombers were British citizens. I am enraged at the whole lectures of the PM about Islamic extremism when it is partly a case of British security failure. I am enraged about the way its being dismissed as individual acts of terrorism, whereas the main bomb makers are largely amiss, their motives overtly unknown. Instead of looking at it as a social byproduct of modern capitalism, I am enraged at the way the narrative speaks only of the religious bigotry (itself a product of modern capitalism). I am enraged about the way distinction is being done among people of faiths basing on this incident which has to do more than religious sentiment.
Clearly no religion preaches violence. Why should the Muslims be singled out? When a Christian lobbyist cheats the Congress, does one blame Christianity and tries to dig its textual interpretations? Or when Mandela suffered for 27 years in the islands, was Christianity revisited?

Stoicism, my dear Andrew, is the opium of the British. And the ruling class of Britain wants it to stay. So that they can now tighten the immigrations a little more and claim to have solved the case with four dead men as providing evidence. And in the process the bigger questions will be purged: Who harbored the criminal intents? Who encouraged the situation? Whose education called for social distrust among promising youths? Who were they born and brought up amidst the British neighborhoods?

From nationalists in the 1850s, to being called patriots in the 1920s, to announced radicals in the 1960s, to call terrorists in the Bush era, individuals have been branded. Sullivan dismisses them as maniac individuals this time. The issues have changed, the enemies have changed, the causes have been reversed. Yet the violence persists. When the state machineries have gone violent, we have called them war, when individuals have chosen violence they are now suicide bombers. We do not know why these people have behaved this cowardly as they did now. One thing for sure, we know that many people all over the world have been converted into suicide bombers since at least three decades now. To dismiss their acts as manic acts of random nature would be to stay stoic and fail to bridge the gaps that exist between us humans. For one, going by the massive protests at all the meetings of world leaders (and we do not see many Muslims at all, remember!), we know that the rulers are not very much welcome by the ruled and their principles or lack of them are being vehemently opposed. What we need is a deep appreciation of contrary interests and constructive dialogues to understand the oppositional chords rather than being violent (which is easy for a police state anywhere to cause and generate), being stoic (which is easy for the i-pod generations and Disney theme park visitors in the developed world to enjoy and mock with), being dismissive and accusatory (which is easy considering the might and the wealth of the developed economies which never hears of the bombs in the quarrelling poor nations but goes deafeningly reactionary when any singular incident takes place and attributes religious and international tones to it to vitiate the atmosphere further).

With time, we shall know what circumstances we have created in a world we no more love, which have led many youths astray—from being socially productive, and individually progressive, to emerge as self-obsessed reflections of a warring imperialistic individualistic world divided by flags, religions and countries.

Between the mad people and the scared people (and scared people don’t remain stoic, remember), the situation may not be managed well. But by taking pride in a stoic citizenry instead of encouraging them to become alert international human beings, we are taking steps backwards.

Tags: Saswat, Media, Terrorism, War, Christianity, Philosophy

What were Left at the G8?

These pictures telling the sentiments of the majority of the world. (Taken from various Indymedia sites):

Tags: Saswat, Activism, Capitalism, G-8

By Saswat Pattanayak



“He is a Communist since he is loved by women”, says the postman Mario Ruoppolo (late Massimo Troisi). “No, no, he is loved by the people,” corrects the telegrapher friend (Renato Scarpa).

Loved, he was throughout, as the movie “Postino Il” so flawlessly depicted. It just could not have been otherwise, when it came to the peoples’ poet Pablo Neruda. Not just the greatest living poet of the 20th century in any language, as the great novelist Gabriel García Márquez called him, but also one of the most outspoken Communists of the age, Neruda represented the unsung, unheard and unwept. Leftwing activism to free love, surreal philosophy to existential angst of the atheist, Neruda symbolized the brilliance as far as brilliance could be.

Today he would have turned 101. And perhaps a bit sadder at the way world events have changed. After succeeding in actively supporting the first democratically elected Socialist government of the world in Chile, Neruda denounced in no uncertain terms the US-supported military coup to destabilize the region (as vocal as he was during Cuban missile crisis and Vietnam War). When his house was ransacked, he remarked “Look around — there's only one thing of danger for you here — poetry”.

Salutes, Comrade Neruda.

And here are four of my picks from the legendary words. When Mario used Neruda’s poems to impress upon his love, Neruda said he could not help the rebuff since they were his words, not Mario’s anyway. Mario quipped: “Poetry doesn't belong to those who write it; it belongs to those who need it.” Neruda fully agreed with his new friend.

When the postman asked of the metaphors, Neruda could not explain well, “when you explain poetry, it becomes banal. Better than any explanation is the experience of feelings that poetry can reveal to a nature open enough to understand it.” And our postman finally got the most beautiful woman in the town, by singing to her that her smile spread like a butterfly and her laugh was a sudden silvery spoon. His inspiration: Pablo Neruda. Read More...

Tags: Saswat, Literature, Communism, Film

By Saswat Pattanayak

Air Supply performed in Cuba for two days!

Nothing surprising to Havana. Cubans were enthralled, floored and they very warmly welcomed Russell Hitchcock and Graham Russell.

It was yet another surprising event for the Western mainstream media to digest. Of course, no one covered it live or even secondarily. Mostly, they got the news off the Associated Press brief. And even at that, they said they were astonished. (Remember, the narrative of how some sort of freedom is limited to the proverbial land of the free!)

The media were also astonished when Audioslave performed in Cuba in May. The astonishments appear to be not so original discoveries after all. On a closer glance, both the Canadian Press and the Associated Press said the same thing! And now we are astonished! Yes, the western media propaganda machine runs overnight so well that they even copy the exact languages! Check out the following two stories:

This one is from the Canadian Press

And this one is from Associated Press

Also check this one from the Washington Post. Story bylined. From AP.

Using precisely the SAME words to express surprise over how much the Western press were shocked at Air Supply being invited, one wonders if the ghost writers are the one and the same? And does it not violate copyright or whatever they call it. Who cheats from whom? Or are they the same!

What more does it tell? Well, the same mill produces stories of how perverse Cuba has become, it’s investing on tourism, it’s a place where women are publicly dancing and wearing jeans and smoking pot. So the theory which is almost written on stone of the mainstream press is that, with the rock groups and the lowly women, its goodbye communism!

To such frivolous arguments, I have no rejoinders. But its so hilariously degrading bunch of logic that I need to react. To begin with, rocksters, starting from the Beatles to the Dylans, have always been progressive in their orientation. In fact the underground punk have been one of the most vocal political outbursts of our times. On the contrary, the censorships issued to artists like The Roots and Arrested Development are incidents not taking place in very farther lands. And with the Clash and Rage Against the Machine, do we need to say the words?

As for the women, Janet Jackson is not an issue abroad. Plus free love was never born out of capitalistic endeavors. And Ayn Rand or Ann Coulter never developed the Smoke Pot movement. And we know who has the biggest cigars.

Hypocrisy sees the light of the day amidst capitalistic contradictions. Air Supply while performing in the Karl Marx theatre must have sensed it.

More power to the ones who made “love out of nothing at all……”

Tags: Saswat, Music, Cuba, Communism

By Saswat Pattanayak

Sunil Gavaskar turns 56 today. Happy Birthday, Sunny!

For the uninitiated and the ungrateful, Gavaskar brought Cricket alive.

The game of Cricket was not always a gentleman’s game. Nor it was always the greatest team game ever devised. It certainly was not such a delightfully artful game either.

Not very long ago, even at the turn of the 20th century, Cricket used to be utterly racist (now relatively racist), colonialist game played by the elites of two countries: England and Australia. These two countries not only did dominate it till well into the 1960’s, but also ensured by means of a series they called Ashes (the ashes of stumps in a cup as a running trophy), that Cricket remain their sole prerogative.

Not to say that they didn’t allow the Indian royal members to have a bite at the game. In fact, some of the better players in the 1930s and the yore included the Maharajahs: Duleepsinh, Ranjitsin, Fatehsinghrao Pratapsinghrao of Baroda, Krishnakumarsinh Gohil of Bhavnagar, Jitendra Narayan aka Maharaj Kumar Victor of Cooch Behar, Bhupendrasingh Rajindersingh of Patiala, Natwarsinh Bhavsinh of Porbandar, and Maharaja Kishan Razdan of Razdan.

By the time the game was generally played by the commoners in the post-British era in India, Cricket emerged as part of the colonial legacy, with Indians trying to play (not outdo) the British game. Of course the Lords at the Lord’s gave no two hoots. No one had predicted nor visualized that the mighty Blighty or the awesome Aussies would fall apart watching some brown skinners play their game. Until 1971.

It was then that a 5ft 5in opener without a helmet, Gavaskar got 774 off the very first series he played in. And it inspired a Calypso number “They could not out Sunny at all”. Stunning the world Cricket and announcing that India had arrived, he created almost a situation in India which went on to create millions of amateur cricketers over the next few years and making the underdogs the world champions.

Just after his retirement, and after being hailed as the cricketer with most runs, most tests, most innings, most centuries, most catches (some records are now broken), Gavaskar was inducted into the hall of fame by being conferred a membership by the Melbourne Cricket Club. Sunny refused it, much to the ire of world cricketers and many conservative Indians notably Bishen Singh Bedi and his ilk. His refusal ground clearly exposed the racism that existed in Cricket even after the game had earned decisively the largest fan following in the world, with help of teams like Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Today Sunny is known not just as a legendary cricketer, but also a highly controversial one at that. But any undermining of his personality at the alter of controversy will wipe out the history chapter that need to be incorporated to feature the Indian captain who led the ship to major Indian post-British insurgence.

Tags: Saswat, Sports, India

By Saswat Pattanayak

Amitabh Bachchan is the most popular star on the planet today. BBC Poll did not need to have confirmed it. If it took passion towards art, commitment towards people and talent for performance to be an admired star, AB has demonstrated them in plenty on the screen.

Two recent movies he has starred in, Khakhee and Sarkar are exemplary in theme and outstanding in performances. And both the movies deal with subjects considered to be holy cows in India. One dealing with defense establishment, and the other deals with the God.

They are rare films. Rajkumar Santoshi’s Khakhee clearly has AB in a lead role which reminds Hindu majority Indians of their prejudices against Muslims in India who could be as patriotic and more. Khakhee exposed the entire police administration, special forces, defense establishment opinions and mainstream political themes which play people against people on religious grounds. And it did more. It depicted a minority Muslim member in proper light as a working class hero who was deliberately framed by the power brokers, while complicating the issue further to expose how all the people blowing trumpets of patriotism were actually anti-people. All those who speak against terrorism in order to victimize the minorities are the ones against whom the war needs to be waged (haven’t we thought so before?). For whom the patriotic bells toll?

That was an astoundingly different movie. It spoke the bitter truths about hypocrisy of the self-proclaimed patriots. And naturally enough, the movie despite Santoshi’s (Lajja, Damini, Ghayal, The Legend of Bhagat Singh) immaculate direction and compelling star-cast, was not awarded even by a lousy award committee as Filmfare. And on box office too, it received hardly any accolades.

Sarkar released few weeks ago, sprung another surprise. Reviewers equated the character with Bal Thackrey, that communal religious Hindu fundamentalist. Now that was the same man who once threatened that his Shiv Sena will wipe Pakistan out of the world map (such a statement was sure to scare even the Godfather!).



I wondered to myself if AB had made a turnaround at the last part of his life. After successfully defending the poor and the homeless in dozens of his movies, after battling the management injustices in factories as a class conscious worker, after even playing a role where he slaps his father for having been a ruthless capitalist, after enacting a role of a coolie wedging hammer and sickle to form trade union, after being a majdoor fighting for equal shares in company he worked for, and after playing the role of a police officer who betrays his national government only to protect the nation from the government, how can this man play Sarkar to glorify someone like Thackrey.

Well, calling to notice his disastrous political career which led him to public service disillusionments, and his financial managements of his business which eventually led him to host television shows, any amount of despair could also not be ruled out. So when I started reading the online reviews talking about Thackrey, I was not absolutely surprised.

And then I watched Sarkar.

Far from enacting Thackrey, he actually denounces the religious in the movie! His son played by his own son, also declares he does not believe in God. And the duo not only do not need a God to help them in their mission to help the poor and deprived, they also track down the Godman in the movie as one of the characters they set out to eliminate. In a classic scene, when the God believer quotes Bhagvad Geeta, Sarkar’s son asks of him “Do you want to see your God now or you want to join my hand (to reveal the people involved)? The preacher of God obviously enough deserts God. Even speaking from AB standpoint, it was a welcome change from the role he played in Naastik or Laawaris, where he needed a God eventually.

Sarkar is opposed to a system based on religion, democratic farce, or systematic exploitation. This is clearly inspired by Godfather and Ram Gopal Verma never forgets to mention that if there would have been no Godfather, there would have been no Sarkar.

That said, for the benefits of those friends who have decided not to watch Sarkar owing to the misinformation carried out by people who wanted to equate the role to emulate Thackrey, here is a quote straight from the horse’s mouth:

AB speaks : I have never interacted with him (Thackrey) on a political front. ….We haven't tried to use facets of his character, no. Because this character isn't him. This is just someone Ramu and his screenwriters and dialogue writers have created. I've tried to just portray that to the best of my abilities. We haven't tried to imitate anyone with this film.

Tags: Saswat, Film, Bollywood, India

By Saswat Pattanayak

So who is a journalist? One who is ideal or who is pragmatic?

I guess there is the dilemma which has caused the storm in the teacup. At least that’s what has distinguished the actions of NYT and Time.

Two major mainstream media publishing houses acted contradictorily when it came to their reporters. And brought up the core structures and functions of journalism to question.

What Judith Miller did was what the profession is founded on. Journalists, unlike lawyers and doctors, have never been subjected to a state administered admission test or course or affiliation or accreditation, at least in the United States. One of the principles this country has prided on is its First Amendment which allows for the freedom of the press to be exercised, to such an extent that journalists themselves decide the rules regarding who should be awarded credentials. In other words, the sovereignty and autonomy inherent by the media in the US is unparalleled. So the foundation of the profession, as understood by Miller was based on certain principles—independence of choice, freedom from interference. Hence the sources may not be disclosed. For two reasons: because journalists need to have independence from any pressure to disclose any sources they might think improper to reveal, and secondly, because practically it will become impossible for potential sources to confide in journalists if they are to be named later on by the scribe breaking the basic minimum human trust.

Hence, Miller must have these ideals in mind when she pleaded:

"Your Honor, in this case I cannot break my word just to stay out of jail. The right of civil disobedience based on personal conscience is fundamental to our system and honored throughout our history…. The freest and fairest societies are not only those with independent judiciaries, but those with an independent press that works every day to keep government accountable by publishing what the government might not want the public to know."

Now lets move on to the pragmatics. I have three contentions. One, where do these “freest and fairest societies” exist? It’s a dark humor if we consider the current situations working against the majority people everywhere without daily access to their share of freedom they are supposed to be born with. Two, as some journalists have chosen not to support Miller , we need to understand their final verdict: reporters are not above law. Three, as we move from public sphere to being a profit sphere, any illusions regarding the notion that journalists by their independence make for a better world need to be done away with. Media, far from being a social service sector, today are at the mercy of few profit-hungry (redundant expression) capitalists. Any anticipation that they will stand by their reporter as a social activist, is a wishful thinking. Far from it, in fact in journalism schools, detachment to events is one of the prime lessons being taught so that the future media professionals behave no differently than the marketing executives—selling news, at any cost.

When the profession itself has been sold out, journalists abide by contract laws than organizing themselves to draft their own future, stand by their profiteer managements than their sources and interests; to expect anything from judiciary or executive or legislature or the general public is expecting in vain.

Judith Miller joins Jim Taricani, Vanessa Leggett, Timothy Crews, David Kidwell, Bruce Anderson, Lisa Abraham, Tim Roche, Brian Karem, Myron Farber etc as one of the many journalists who have served prison in the United States while on duty, for refusing to disclose sources. Yet to what extent people are willing to fight for their conscience-keepers is one to watch out for. And which people are we talking about here to stand for causes? The same people who have been subjugated to a corporate individualist culture by the media professional themselves!

Tags: Saswat, Media, Capitalism, Philosophy

By Saswat Pattanayak

First they killed the African peoples. Injected hunger and deprivation. Malnutrited them. Abject poverty led to baseless violence. They provided the poor with the rich man’s guns. So that the poor stay as domesticated security guards of the conquerors and merciless killers of their own peoples.

Then they killed the Asian peoples. Colonized them and plundered away to merry. Took everything they could find. From the women to the wealth. For hundreds of years kept the people subjugated under terror.

Then they attacked the Australians peoples. The indigenous remained no more so. The Myall Creek massacre became their party as they went on subsequently to own the continent they had no right over to begin with.

Now they have targeted European peoples.

The attack in London was not an attack on Londoners. It was a dastardly attack orchestrated in order to get the necessary media coverage so that some new draconic bills can be passed without the slightest protest. And the attacks on Europeans can be validated.

As the world watches with awe, one question arises. Bombing is taking place and taking tolls of hundreds on everyday basis in many parts of the world. Worse they are not even called scarce bombing. They are organized war efforts. Why is it that, people (by which we mean the world leaders at the G8) are so normalized about what’s going on to hundreds of dying civilians in the middle-east daily on military warfare and why is it that they are so indifferent to hundreds of people dying in Africa daily on hunger warfare and people elsewhere on psychological warfare.

Why sudden fascination towards the London Calling?

Of course none of us want another bombing to take place in London tomorrow. But it might take place a year from now, two years from now. Are we prepared to face the grim reality and actually mend our own ways to reflect if we as a collective whole in the world have gone wrong somewhere, to deserve this?

Nay, we cannot escape it by saying we never deserve to be bombed! Those of us who silently support their respective governmental draconisms are answerable. Those of us who actively support the racists are answerable. Those of us who do not voice resentments in face of injustice are answerable.

Who says we never deserve to be bombed? The question is what do we need to do so that we shall not deserve to be bombed. The bombmakers will make bombs. They will never stop at that until we organize. They shall strike the biggest business deals with prospective bomb owners. The show will go on with our implicit permissions. What do we ensure?

One, who buys bombs and why? Some fundamentalists for attack, some cowards for defense. Both patronage the bombmakers and spread the web of terror. The fundamentalists indulge in organized bombings like the Wars against developing nations. The cowards indulge in retaliation of minor attacks that so far have killed very few civilians in comparison. But the fundamentalists who own the media propaganda machines make sure to have their “patriotic” efforts be appreciated as a normal peacekeeping measure, at the same time branding the cowards as the evil terrorists who need to be wiped out using taxpayers’ money.

The bombings need to be understood in context, if and only if, we want to prevent recurrence. And that is, that the bombings are taking place as a two-way process. Both the war-mongers and cowards are engaged in constant battle, leaving out the majority of people in the conversation, and instead they profit the arms manufacturers’ business which thrives in all times of crisis (which is why we are made to live under constant crisis of security, believing that sex is bad and war is good).

Once this context is understood, we need to sympathize with neither. Instead, we, the majority people, who are as silent as Audre Lorde had predicated her theory about (“Silence will not Protect you&rdquo, need to do something about this damn affair which is taking away all the future securities.

War will only breed war. Of smaller type. Or of different variety. International despotism run by G8 has to be ended. The NATO forces have so far caused the biggest catastrophes on the civilization. Instead of preaching against the reactions, the G8 leaders should do better to practice and reflect on their own original actions that have ripple effects among the cowards lots.

Any terrorism efforts need to be condemned. G8 leaders are right in their verbal responses. And now its time to start the charity from their homes.

Tags: Saswat, Philosophy, UK, History, Colonialism

By Saswat Pattanayak

The questions on war need to be repositioned. I do not think the ethics of peace can ever invalidate the reasons for war.

The conflictual and often contradictory separatism existing between the war mongers and the peaceniks is one of no useful consequence. Extremisms that characterize both the cases make them ineffective. “War at any cost” or “Peace at any cost” lend themselves to the fallacy of self-contradiction, because “any cost”, when attached to the “events” such as war or peace is militarist in nature. Instead, “any cost” can be suitably applied to the “process”. By this it is implied that “progress” can be made at any cost—a progress that does not smack of opportune rise of one interest group to the exclusion of the most others, rather just the other way around.

Often the arguments of the day have sided with Peace and War as binaries and there where lies the inherent source of flaws. Peace may just be the time to prepare for war and war may just be teaching the lessons of history. In both the ways of extreme sense, they are dangerous. Because what we often forget to ask are, “Peace for whom” and “Whose war”.

Contextualizing the situations of peace and war can help shape the way we can lead better lives. The war mongers always serve the interest of a business group which intends to sell its goods. That’s just about it. There is no other rationale for the war mongers to be existent. The sole cause is money making for a few. To validate it, they go any extent and as histories are witnesses, nationalism, internal security, anti-communism, religious intolerance are among the few excuses that the military-industrial complex have always utilized to thrive.

As for peaceniks, it has been a utopian journey all throughout. When Lennon proclaimed the End of the War, all he asked was of people was to imagine. “The War is Over – If you want it”, ran the billboards across Canada during John and Yoko’s bed-in peace demonstrations. What they and the peace marchers forgot to mention was that the War was actually not over and it had nothing to do with people wanting it. In a subtle unintentional way they were implying that people did not want the war to end. This was far from the truth. It was a certain section of capitalists who wanted the war business to go on in the name of protecting Vietnam from the “monstrous Communism”. The catchline should have been “The War must begin—Against the war mongers”.

This was the feeling which so classically embedded in case of the Soviet defense against the Nazis. It was very important to defeat Hitler in a bloody war, for the entire earth to survive. Almost exhausting majority of its able men force of the country (more than 6 million deaths and millions of families affected), the Soviets contributed their biggest lot to the rest of the world, by relentlessly fighting the gory battle to stop the expansion of the radical right wingers. Today no one even among the most politically correct would denounce the defeat of Hitler. The war was not such bad after all.

In the post-cold war phases, the danger subsequently was in a school of propaganda which equated freedom with anything that ran a so-called democratic form of government and called everything else authoritarian dictatorships. In other words, a false claim was made to justify the subsequent phase of the cold war period, which took millions of lives all over the world in the name of defeating the spread of communism. And what we had was a prevailing situation of intolerance with anyone who differed from the mainstream model of electoral governance (howsoever fraud it might be owing to the various vote scams). All socialist governments fell pray. Almost all Islamic regimes over the world were attacked. The ones who agreed to do business at the terms of the democratic warriors were of course spared.

As the wars escalated, the peaceniks among us cried out against all forms of attacks. The paradigm shifted to discuss the dangers of wars. Nobel laureates attributed lack of democracy as a necessary cause for breeding grounds of war. To spread democracy, wars were validated. And civilians who had no need and idea of ballot boxes were forced to see their houses bombed if they were lucky to survive. All in the name of democracy.

The question of “who caused the war” shifted to “why we must stop the war”. In the process of course that big joke, the United Nations called every step by sovereign countries to protect themselves as “aggression” and every step by the militarist nations to attack foreign lands as “peacekeeping”.

With such peacekeepings, of course who needed wars?

The burden of the peace man goes on today without questioning if these are the ones who need to be fought against? Are not the arms dealers and racketeers the worthy causes for active resistance? It’s not the war which is at fault. It’s our inability to distinguish the elements who should be targeted at. The question needs to be turned on its head: for once we need a war—against the original perpetrators who had no business to start it.

Tags: Saswat, Philosophy, Peace, War, Cold War, History

By Saswat Pattanayak

It takes 13 years to imagine justice!

The most tragically inhuman day crafted in the post-British India was felt on the December 6th 1992. The most dastardly acts of religious dogmatism felt victorious on this day. Babri Masjid was demolished officially, with the help of the rightist Hindu fanatics at the State and the Center.

Far from being ashamed, the involved politicians rejoiced. They even mocked. One of them, MM Joshi resigned from his post after a court verdict, since he had earlier made a plumb remark that all those who the court will name must relinquish from post. But another of them, AB Vajpayee after returning from a foreign tour, rejected the resignation! No problem, the politicians must have thought: after all, we rule, and so we throw rocks.

I do not know how many more years will it take to get justice.

But it began today with a Allahabad High Court order clearly charging LK Advani along with five criminal revision petitioners Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti, Vinay Katiyar, Ashok Singhal, Acharya Giriraj Kishore, Vishnu Hari Dalmiya and Sadhvi Ritambhara. They will be charged and tried for the offences under Section 149 and sub-section (1) of 505 of IPC ready with Section 149. Well, the section 149 of the Indian Penal Code deals with intention to provoke people for rioting, arson and indulging in rioting with intention to create disorder, while sub-section (1) of 505 deals with delivering fiery speeches which will hurt religious feelings and create discord among different communities.

One wonders why does it take so long a time to persecute people charged with serious crimes such as inciting religious passions to disrupt and destroy lives. At least why 13 years?

Religious sentiments are passion plays which are manipulated to result in violence instantaneously and after the steam is off, the public does not indulge in discourses any longer. The issue becomes of a national shame, racial crime, communal violence. The individuals become blurred. While discharging Advani the Court had earlier commented that “Only suspicion has been raised to implicate Advani." And with time, suspicions too pass.

Just hoping this time instead of passing out, they get validated.

Tags: Saswat, India, Hinduism

By Saswat Pattanayak

In March 2000, US President Bill Clinton made a noteworthy visit to India (that loathed nuclear power..), the first by a sitting U.S. president in 22 years! It was followed up by Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee who visited the US in September that year, addressed a joint session of Congress, and became the chief guest at the largest-ever state dinner hosted by the America. So much ado about nuclear non-proliferation!

The tragedy about America and India are not their peoples (who by the way have from time to time shown promises of peace efforts, only to be truncated by five-year democratic rules changing norms). Its their self-proclaimed leaderships. Misleading people into believing in anti-Arab or anti-Pakistan rhetoric, the leaders, irrespective of whether they are from Republican/Democrat or BJP/Congress, have been willing pawns in the hands of the defense lobbies.

The popular narrative has always focused on how the innocent India is always bullied by the US in matters of its defense priorities. Vajpayee even had famously spoken at the UN (yes that Hindi speech for which Indians were told to feel proud about) to stress on “India’s commitment” to nuclear non-proliferation and how countries were making it difficult for India. It was the same Vajpayee who sadistically was laughing his guts out after secretly declaring India a nuclear power. Many Indian politicians over the time have thrived only by denouncing the double speak of the American treadmill (like the famous anti-cola Goerge Fernandes who became defense minister and lured to American defense principles had to resign in shame following Tehelka). This was very noble, except that all throughout, the Indian secret defense establishment (the holy cow which was exposed by Tehelka for its willingness to sellout for sleaze, sex, money and a hoax American company’s letterhead) has only served the American military-industrial interests.

So when in November 2001 in Washington D.C., PM Vajpayee and President Bush reiterated their “commitment to transform India-U. S. relations”, they were basically bullshitting. Their excuse: “The common democratic traditions of our countries remain the bedrock of their relationship and the foundation for long-term strategic cooperation.” Neither of them of course would talk about all those “non-democratic” countries they are oh-so-friendly with (we know who they are of course). And this bedrock of relationship between democracies anyway just emerged recently. India did not talk of Kashmir and Pakistan, because that’s such an old story. The new one was Bin Laden in Afghanistan (yeah those days when Saddam was still not the public enemy number 1) and I remember how I was forced to stop my car on the road because we were required to condemn 9/11 terrorism. It seemed to us on the road that day that terrorism was some alien thing our leaders never approved of!!!! Of course to prove that, leaders came up with Patriot Acts and what not. The patriots!

By the way before I forget, the meetings between US and India are of “Defense co-operation”, not “Peaceful existence co-operation”. There is a crucial difference here too. So the fruitful meet between Vajpayee and Bush concluded that the Joint Technical Group under the US-India Defense Policy Group (DPG) were to meet in February-March 2002 to discuss the promotion of bilateral ties in the field of defense production and research. The U.S. Joint Staff and the Indian Chief of Integrated Defense Staff were to meet in spring of 2002, before the next DPG, and regularly thereafter to discuss tri-service institutions, military planning, and tri- service doctrine. And a new structured dialogue between the U.S. Defense Department’s Office of Net Assessment and its Indian counterpart were to develop exchanges between the defense research and analyses communities in both countries.

The Indian player: Vajpayee. That ironic symbol of nuclear disarmament whom Nehru trusted to be a world leader of peace, and who of course subsequently betrayed an entire country by hiding from its billion population that he was secretly testing nuclear bombs with another secretive scientist who he plans to catapult to the post of an accomplice President.

So logically, quite contrary to that popular narrative of how much US despised the third world nuclear countries, what followed was another meeting of India-U.S. Defense Policy Group during May 2002 in Washington, DC. Broadly they discusses issues for which both the parties involved should have been tried in International Court of Justice (but of course they don’t give two hoots). These “broad” areas included how to improve the security environment in Afghanistan, including reconstruction efforts and building of the Afghan National Army. Not only were these disgusting talks about other sovereign nations not brought into media headlines, even the specificities which should have been enough to cause a riot were played in an ah-so-noble manner that the democracies celebrated their democracies without taking their people’s opinions (What’s new?).

They discussed the combined naval patrols in the Strait of Malacca. For the uninitiated, the 621 mile long Strait of Malacca links the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and thereby becomes the shortest sea route between three most populous countries of the world-- India, China, and Indonesia. Another attack on sovereignty? Come on, these are so hot romantic hunks of Baywatch. How can they go wrong?

The other aspects dealt with the resumption of defense trade, beginning with the "Firefinder" radar sale (why else the talks, if no billion dollars commitments are involved). Firefinder by the way literally means something which tracks down the “Agni”, India’s defense experiment icon. Of course the sale would not find any opposition anywhere. In American history, no foreign military sale formally presented by the Defense Department has ever been rejected by lawmakers!

Not just some forlorn oceanic area, combined special forces (read American interventionism) airborne exercises in Agra were planned. There was to be a U.S.-India Ballistic Missile Defense workshop in Colorado Springs (of course!), and the signing of a General Security of Military Information Agreement to facilitate cooperation in defense technology (so that we know, so that people won’t know).

It was also planned that specialized training programs and joint exercises were to be carried out by the armed services of the two countries during the next year. This was to be carried out with a resumption of technical cooperation in defense research, development and production, following the meeting of the Joint Technical Group in New Delhi in early March.

And finally, they decided to develop a defense supply relationship, including through the Government-to-Government Foreign Military Sales program. The two delegations agreed on the need to work closely for speedier approvals of export licenses in the United States. (we know what it means: it’s a vertical agreement where US is the seller. Of course India does not sell its junks to America unless the US generous capitalists put up few sweatshops across where they can exploit the poor workers who have by now learnt how to change their pronunciations anyway. Earlier, they were British apes. Now they are American copycats. After they produce junks, US can then sell them to Turkey).

Come 2003, the group reviewed what they had “accomplished”. Of course they don’t do these regular reviews about hunger and homelessness. Awww….that so boring. Lets review interesting things. Bombs, missiles, the television crew. Well here we come, the patriots, the worthy sons!

Among the things they had already achieved were formation of combined special forces for counterinsurgency exercise in Northeast India (yeah those seven unfortunate children of lesser Indian God). There were complex naval exercises on the East Coast of India and Alaska, the "Firefinder" radars had been delivered already, senior-level missile defense talks and master information exchange agreement to facilitate cooperation in research and development of defense technologies had been concluded.

They hoped further to conduct specialized training programs and joint exercises to be carried out by the armed services of the two countries, including an air combat training exercise. The suitable development of a defense supply relationship was to be continued, through the Government-to-Government Foreign Military Sales program. A U.S. team was to travel India in September to discuss the details of a possible sales of P-3 maritime patrol aircraft. (wow!) Now that sale was legal and welcome, the U.S. was also to sale to India the training materials and specialized equipment to support India’s peacekeeping training capabilities (peacekeeping is the name of the game).

This ongoing process of love and cooperation between one military giant and another ardent supporter continued to January 2004 even with a new government in India. How do the parties matter when they are all part of the same free market democracy? Clinton or Bush, Manmohan or Atal Behari, they are made of the same stuffs—same military-industrial mentality. Suddenly the sophisticated Congress Party which replaced the rightist party BJP, acted out that it was clueless about how to response radically different to the DPG which was formed under the BJP. And it said it to itself: oh come on, we don’t care about principles. We are the principles. Look at how we buried Gandhi and Nehru. What’s the deal?

The deal came in June 2005, when we had the continuation of the Indian rightist program when India and the United States signed a 10-year defense pact agreement that takes the relationship to “unprecedented levels of cooperation”. Unprecedented, in terms of television ratings. Here today, gone tomorrow. But mind you, tomorrow there will be even more vulgar shows. More ratings. More wars.

Tags: Saswat, Pakistan, India, USA, War, Cold War, History

By Saswat Pattanayak

The recent India-US defense pact was not as “unprecedented” as being hyped. Indeed the collaboration (read US surveillance) has been going around for quite some time now.

With the fallout of a state stable economy and emergence of irresponsible globalization, defense deals became one of the fallouts. It was only natural that India’s declaration of itself as a Nuclear State in 1998 was less to affirm some nationalistic pride, more to buy into a defense market of the future. The step only benefited the Western defense contractors since India was going to show the roadmap to Pakistan (which was equally equipped to flaunt its consumerist power at the war mall) eventually and the third world was going to be vulnerable to the war mongering bazaar.

Little wonder then that following the nuclear states status of India and Pakistan, their relationship with the US only has “improved” substantially. Never in the history of these countries was US at the forefront of decision making as it is the case today. Indeed in the past, Indo-Soviet relations, India's espousal of nonalignment and refusal to join U.S. alliance during the Cold War had only earned ire. Even though Pakistan was supported by the US, the aim was only to get India to submit under pressure.

Post-1998, with the right wing Indian government in power, India played its game to satisfy the US defense lobbies. For all the anti-nuclear hypocritical talks that the leaders of the West engaged in (and they excel with it anyway, considering the NATO history), India far from being penalized started being celebrated as a “global major power”.

India is indeed a major power of widespread unemployment and poverty. But to the defense lobbies, like the media industry they partner with, a free market democracy like US or India only need to be glamorized into being touted as potentially viable markets, more than anything else.

So after India disgustingly went nuclear, few events too place. Five months after the test (November 1999), the first round of consultations took place between India and US regarding weapons of mass destruction (that tragically funny phrase as we know it today) export controls. Of course we were told that America was bossing around, interfering etc. What eventually took place was of course further strengthening of their relationships. The “fabled enemies” as I see them, India and Pakistan two months after that (Feburary 2000), had a friendship dialogue called “Lahore Summit” to express to each other about how much they were common, now that they had the same boss!

In March, US again talked about the export controls issue with India (basically implying that kill yourselves in Asia, just don’t experiment in Pearl Harbor. Clinton actually went on to say, "Only India can determine its own interests.” With such moral supporter of India in regards to bombs, who can oppose US, except some creepy leftist peacenik propagandists). Result of all these friendly talks between India-US-Pakistan: The “undeclared Kargil aggression” which took place just after two months (May 1999). It was as undeclared as was the N-Test at Pokhran! The world was led to believe that US did not know if such a war was coming.

When India and Pakistan went nuclear, US could not guess! When they went on war, US could not guess! So much for American defense intelligence. Is a link missing in the chain? You bet. Who wins when wars take place? Who profits? We know the answer. How many politician’s children fight at the borders? We know the answer to it too. So who wants the war to take place? Of course we know it. We know it. We know it. The point is how much do we want to stop it.

But of course the assumption is that we don’t stop wars. It’s the visionary leaders like Powell and Bush who stop war, terrorism, violence!

So what happened after 2000? Did the wars stop?

Tags: Saswat, Pakistan, India, USA, Cold War, War, History