There is a certain family that I have known for years. They have been my friends and mentors for ever and have typically provided me some of the most practical advice at various stages of my life. Although they have lived away from their native land practically all their life, I still thought them as some what clannish – you know the sort of people who will be friendly to all and largely helpful but at the end of the day will herd together leaving others out in the cold ?

Then one day I got a mail telling me about the upcoming wedding of their daughter. The invitation was expected but the details of the wedding were not. The daughter, who I did not expect would marry any one from outside her caste, creed and language for there was little possibility of her parents arranging a match outside those boundaries had done just that. The groom was some one from another state , naturally spoke another language and if caste equations were to be looked at was from another caste. He was educated in the US , chose to come back to India and took up a relatively unglamorous job. For the career choices he had made and other related reasons, he wasn’t on the best of terms with his family. Not the likeliest of mates that you would choose for your only daughter but the parents and the daughter collectively felt that this was the right choice.

Every day we read stories of people who choose to stay in the confines of their comfort zones an it is therefore heartwarming to know that people exist , who quietly , without making a fuss or splash are breaking out of such shackles and setting worthy examples to follow. Choosing neither to be lured by the allure of money or comfort and ease, they are breaking unfamiliar ground and are willing to take the risks and the headaches that are involved in treading an area where social support is inadequate at best , non existent at worst.

So much of the status quo around us is warranted in the name of religion , culture, convention and tradition. So much of that keeps us divided as a nation is justified on the basis of convenience. You hang out with , form ghettos with and marry and set up families and eventually communities with your on kind because it is easy. It is convenient. It is simple. It is pragmatic. And so we have ethnic, linguistic, religious, and tribal and all manner of cliques and the cliques become more important than our foundational humanness.

There is innate nobility in all cultures and languages that can not be negated. We should not lose it , in fact we should make every effort to conserve it and preserve it. It is said that of the 6000 languages in existence in the world , one disappears every fortnight . That is a pity because every two weeks we are losing a bit of the beauty of language and literature of a culture that God created to be prosper and flourish.

We are established in families, societies and communities and the commonality that brings about certain stability and an amount of settled ness in our lives is certainly a great help. But if those identities become cages and shackles , if they prevent us from embracing, engaging and adopting another language, another culture, another way of life that is different from our own , then we has lost a pound to gain a penny. There is verse from the Bible that says “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things”. To me one of the noblest traits that one can possess is the ability to discern beauty in a culture that is different from one’s own and the courage to embrace it unmindful of the inconvenience and the discomfort.

Culture : A Bond or a Bondage

Then one day I got a mail telling me about the upcoming wedding of their daughter. The invitation was expected but the details of the wedding were not. The daughter, who I did not expect would marry any one from outside her caste, creed and language for there was little possibility of her parents arranging a match outside those boundaries had done just that. The groom was some one from another state , naturally spoke another language and if caste equations were to be looked at was from another caste. He was educated in the US , chose to come back to India and took up a relatively unglamorous job. For the career choices he had made and other related reasons, he wasn’t on the best of terms with his family. Not the likeliest of mates that you would choose for your only daughter but the parents and the daughter collectively felt that this was the right choice.

Every day we read stories of people who choose to stay in the confines of their comfort zones an it is therefore heartwarming to know that people exist , who quietly , without making a fuss or splash are breaking out of such shackles and setting worthy examples to follow. Choosing neither to be lured by the allure of money or comfort and ease, they are breaking unfamiliar ground and are willing to take the risks and the headaches that are involved in treading an area where social support is inadequate at best , non existent at worst.

So much of the status quo around us is warranted in the name of religion , culture, convention and tradition. So much of that keeps us divided as a nation is justified on the basis of convenience. You hang out with , form ghettos with and marry and set up families and eventually communities with your on kind because it is easy. It is convenient. It is simple. It is pragmatic. And so we have ethnic, linguistic, religious, and tribal and all manner of cliques and the cliques become more important than our foundational humanness.

There is innate nobility in all cultures and languages that can not be negated. We should not lose it , in fact we should make every effort to conserve it and preserve it. It is said that of the 6000 languages in existence in the world , one disappears every fortnight . That is a pity because every two weeks we are losing a bit of the beauty of language and literature of a culture that God created to be prosper and flourish.

We are established in families, societies and communities and the commonality that brings about certain stability and an amount of settled ness in our lives is certainly a great help. But if those identities become cages and shackles , if they prevent us from embracing, engaging and adopting another language, another culture, another way of life that is different from our own , then we has lost a pound to gain a penny. There is verse from the Bible that says “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things”. To me one of the noblest traits that one can possess is the ability to discern beauty in a culture that is different from one’s own and the courage to embrace it unmindful of the inconvenience and the discomfort

How Many Roads to God ?

In a country where the talk of Christians attempting to proselyte and then convert never dies out and each day , it seems one more state enacts a Freedom of Religion Act(Uttarakhand is the latest!) Mark Tully arguably one of India’s most loved journalists and a confessed Indophile has spoken openly about his spiritual and inner journey. In the semi auto biographical book, India’s unending Journey, he talks of studying to be a priest in the Anglican Church where he was taught that the only way to understand God and know Him was through Jesus Christ and his position today as a pluralist. In fact at the book release , he mentions that the reason he wrote this book is that when he was young, he was taught that Christianity was the only way to God. But living in India has taught him that there are other ways to God as well and that it has changed him radically.

To me this piece of news says at least two things. Firstly Christianity is not all or only about conversion. Compare Mark Tully’s “luck as he calls it in his interview to Sekar Gupta and the “fate” of Salan Rushdie. Sir Mark walks out of the Anglican Church and in fact the Christian fold altogether and the Queen, the Head of the Church of England awards him a knighthood. The officially secular government of India(the UK is not officially secular) offers him a Padma Bhushan. Mark Tully’s luck is enviable , compared to the situation of Salman Rushdie loathed in several countries for writing a few stray verses in a book that few of the angry men in beards would have read. Imagine his fate if Rushdie had found and written about the virtues of pluralism as plainly as Mark Tully and remarked candidly in a chat that perhaps Islam was one of many faiths that had germinated in the other wise barren middle eastern soil.

The other thing this piece of news this tells me is that it is possible today for a Christian , and some one studying to be a priest no less, to declare that it is his conviction that there are other ways to God and walk out and still get accolades and honor. This is increasingly becoming difficult for say Hindus. With the Freedom of religion Acts in force, in an increasing number of states , it is no longer possible to write a book , announce a Press Conference and say that he or she is not a Hindu without going through a host of formalities and affidavits. But it would seem that for all its zeal and emphasis on conversion as bandied about in general , it would seem as if the church in general dos not care too much as to who comes and goes and who goes and why they have lost the beliefs they were born with. 4

So a question for the church. Does it really believe any more that Jesus and Christianity are the only way to God and Tully is mistaken that God can be found in many ways and places ….in the cathedrals and basilicas as well as the ghats of Benares ? if so, should not the church look around and field a person of the stature of Mark Tully, not to confront him, but to engage him in a dialogue and discourse to find out how Mark’s view evolved the way they did ? Or is as Hindutva votaries claim that is that the money and energy of the church is all directed to the vulnerable segments of our society as their souls are more easily harvested, their serene baptismal faces more photogenic than ever ? Is it as they say, the church has lost the intellectual moorings to talk to opinion makers and thinkers like Mark Tully? But some times, I fear the worst. That no one in the church is clear as such as to what they believe. If so, the Christian faith should just take a bold step and rid itself of the bogey of conversion by reinventing itself --- as an Art of Living Club. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar teaches Sudarshan Kriya. The church can teach cross Kriya. No more. No less.

Governance : The Drill of Delay

Girija Soni received a cheque of Rs.1, 40,000 from the Madhya Pradesh government for the treatment of heart disease. She should be considered lucky on many counts. She was a poor woman who had applied to the government for help and had been favored with can be considered a significant sum to help her out with her treatment. There was only thing that spoilt the day. By the time, she received her cheque, she was dead. This was not the case of the cheque reaching a little late because of some postal delay. By the time cheque reached, Girija Soni had been dead for over thirty three years. The same article cites the instance of one Rakesh, who had been admitted to Bhopal’s cancer hospital for treatment. Ramrati, his mother too had approached the authorities for financial help in her case, it took the government over six-months to provide the money. By that time Rakesh was dead.

Then there is the story of Kawalzia came to the small town of Bispohar Bazar in the eastern district of Siddharthnagar, some 250 km from Lucknow, with her mother last month on a visitor's visa but decided to get married to her cousin Shamshad Ahmad. However, with lethargic bureaucratic ways coming in the way of a visa extension, Kawalzia has been told by the Indian authorities to leave Bispohar Bazar latest by Monday, failing which she would be deported. The Times of India reports blithely that Siddharthnagar police chief P K Srivastava said the proper procedures would have to be followed. "We cannot help it. We must follow the entire drill and carefully verify the marriage before submitting a report. All that is bound to take time," Srivastava said.

These are the stories that we can identify with which is why every encounter with the government is a moment of dread because delays – of smaller or bigger magnitudes are almost inevitable. But what of the other delays that we read of and which affect not one or two families (though in a welfare state set up, even that is unforgivable)? Reflecting rules of business inherited from colonial times that are wrapped up in opacity, the government trusts no one and suspects every one. The government like Caesar’s wife is meant to be above suspicion but is not as skeleton after Skelton keeps tumbling from the cupboard.

But since Caesar’s wife cant be probed Caesar taking shelter under systems and rules of procedure rather than the public good. The efficacy of a government – the measure of its governance ought to be measured (and usually is) by its impact on the public welfare. But in India, governance is not about welfare of the people – it is all about the (“i) being dotted the right way and the “(t) being crossed the right way and by the right people in he right sequence. And as indefatigable keeper of the Law, the bureaucracy tells us in the words of P.K.Srivastava, the Police Superintendent of Siddharthnagar “All these things take time”. Srivstava may be heading a district named after Gautama Buddha but compassion apparently hasn’t yet penetrated the police dictionary.

The Bible teaches about the necessity of law in a society to regulate society and to device norms that are beneficial to all and the common good can be pursued. But while describing God, he is described as the God of all grace whose mercy and compassion if need be overrides every law that might have been made. Law in our society we see plenty of. But in a society where the government rules as the mai baap, democracy not withstanding, people like Kawalzia and Shamshad Ahmed and every common man and woman would yearn to taste a bit of grace.

Gandhi: An icon in History's dustbin

Every time a famous person passes away, I hear the familiar phrase “An era has come to an end”. May be yes, when such things happen, an era does come to an end. Celebrities who live long and illustrious lives often represent the aspirations and ideals of a generation and when they die, some thing of that time does pass into oblivion. Still the phrase has become a bit of a cliché, one has to admit. But I did feel that an era had indeed passed when I read in CNN-IBN that the British government doesn't think that Gandhiji is historically not relevant any more. A new national curriculum prepared for British secondary schools has recommended dropping of Mahatma Gandhi, among others, from a list of key historical figures recommended for teaching.

Albert Einstein paying tribute to Mahatma Gandhi had said” Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this walked the earth in flesh and blood. Years later Gandhi was the person deemed as the Person of the 20th Century by Time Magazine. Einstein was right. A generation has come today in India and else where which scarcely believes that he existed or if he did exist that he has any thing to say to us today. And so slowly, the recollection of him is being rubbed out so that an age arises which will know nothing of his heroic contribution to the practice of ethical resistance and non violence through Satyagraha. And this truly is the end of an era for certain.

The Bible recounts the story of Joseph, who was kidnapped into Egypt, served as a slave and then eventually rose to be the Prime Minister of Egypt. At a time when the nation was under threat of seven consecutive years of famine, using God given wisdom and superb organizational skills, he was able to store and distribute food through out Egypt and its neighbors. Yet when the famine days were over and the victory was won and a new generation and a new king arose, they knew nothing of their history. For a while, it looked all was fine and all that history was irrelevant but in reality, without knowledge of the past and ignorant of its value in the present, their future was that of doom and destruction.

Questions have been raised in the past that Gandhi’s ideals were going to work only in the context of relatively genteel governments like the one the British provided or in the US civil rights movement where there was some desire to maintain a rule of law and basic fairness. Would it have worked against the Stalinist regime of the Soviet Union or the Nazi regime of Hitler? We don’t know for certain of course. There is always room for speculation that they might not have. Leaders like Netaji were possibly of the same or similar opinion – that they would either not work or take a very long time. How the Taliban might would have reacted to his non violence or may be the Naxalites? The fascist ideology fellow travelers that finally plotted and killed Gandhi provide us some clues of course of course about the kind of reaction that he aroused.

But then was Gandhi only a votary of non violence, a quaint but out dated idea whose time has come and gone? He was far more; at the least, he was a great mobilize of people, of a caliber that perhaps we may never see in a long while. A mediocre lawyer at best, he was able to get giants, aristocrats and commoners alike to take a relook at their lives and get them to undertake a costly and life long paradigm shift the likes of which are rarely seen. Besides he was an institution builder, a quasi spiritual leader an ethical conscience keeper and many other things beside. His Dandi march is considered one of the epic movements in civilization which connected with millions across of all of society.

It is possible to disagree with every thing that Gandhi thought and taught and still probably have to accept that Gandhi was an iconic figure. Such people will need to be understood and reevaluated in the context of the times they lived in and the times we live in , the audience they addressed and the audience before us today, the social realities and complexities today and then. All that is true. In 2007, we are evaluating the uprising of 1857 and so why not also apprise afresh Gandhi, who was born not too long after in 1869. Reassessing some one’s work, contribution and teaching from time to time is not only desirable but probably necessary. Declaring suo moto that some one is historically irrelevant is probably not

Tax for the Idiot Channel

It looks like that the UPA government is developing dementia. It can’t remember any more if it supports a free market economy or a socialist one. The so called mixed economy on which many of us grew up was some thing we all thought was well and truly over but it looks as if it is not so. Whey else otherwise, the government have the sudden brain wave of imposing an annual recurring fee from the owner of every television set – Rs. 500 for each color set and Rs.200 for each black and white set.

And this is only one of the many measures being contemplated by the UPA government to pump money into the supposedly autonomous Prasar Bharati so that they can perform their public service broadcasting role better. Interestingly enough, the money thus collected is not going to increase radio and Doordarshan coverage in the villages or increase the quality of programming. Rather, it is going to help the government pay Part of the money raised will go into providing government pay scales and other benefits for the 38,000-odd Prasar Bharati employees. Sources said the license fee plan alone could raise an estimated Rs 23,871 crore.

The average middle class person and above typically does not watch Doordarsahan or listen to All India Radio. For the others who do, may be in the rural areas where cable television has not penetrated and where terrestrial television is still the norm, the bets are that the typical viewer and radio listener has a life style far lower down the ladder compared to the Prasar Bahrain bureaucrat. How ethical is it then that he or she should subsidize the life of government bureaucrats and program staff which even today have a large dollop of programs that could have come out of the stables of the Soviet era propaganda department.

It is probably time to question several things. One is that in a socialist style Robin Hood style economy, which is obsolete any way, the poor are subsidized by the rich. Here we have a situation where the poor and that is typically the profile of the person who watches Prasar Bharati programs who will be paying for the upkeep of government TV and programming staff. It has been reported in the context of these proposed taxes that the revenue of Prasar Bharati is about Rs.1, 500 crores per year and the operating costs are about Rs3,000 crores. It has also 38,000 employees.

Another good question to ask is to why the government funded broadcaster should be running so many channels if no body watches them ? If at all, in a large and complex country like India , a need is felt to have a platform from where the government feels the need to reach out to the entire population at times of National crisis or emergencies , it could at the most manage one news channel to communicate with the nation. The rest of the entertainment channels, sports channels , and regional language channels which don’t attract any advertising could just be shut down. Even in the private sector, even among those channels which are not free to Air, no channel is surviving on subscriber fees alone. Why should things be any different here ?

Witness the recent incident involving Dayanidhi Maran where Sun TV published a poll that angered the Tamil Nadu chief minister and that subsequently led to the exit of Maran in the cabinet. In all this battle for viewer ship , there were three players – Sun TV , Raj TV, and the about to be formed Kalaignar TV. DD Tamil was not a player of any magnitude in the game for whose viewer ship , any body was keen to fight any wars and battles. In the private sector, if a particular industry bleeds for long , it either shuts down or if it has assets of its own, it gets acquired or merged with some other. The old style nationalization wherein sick companies are acquired by the government and run with the tax payer’s money does not happen even in states like West Bengal any more. May be that the government should tax the high end television purchaser, the kind of television which gets reflected in the Annual Information Return- the folks who buy high end plasma televisions or the LCD sets. Those purchasers too may complain but at least such a policy is at least consistent with the Robin Hood government’s Aam Aami policy. Making a dhaba owner with a banged up black and white TV or a cheap Chinese set pay a recurring tax is not good welfare. Or may be even good politics.

The New Blue Star

Lal Masjid has become Pakistan’s Akal Takht of the 80s, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the Bhindaranwale and the Musharraf campaign to cleanse the mosque, today’s Operation Blue Star. The question is that Operation Blue Star was a well documented event that has many lessons that could be learnt from it. One wonders though, if any one is. It is eminently macho that arm generals should holler out blood curdling howls. So Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf told Islamists besieged at an Islamabad mosque to surrender or face being killed.’ They should not prolong. They should surrender and hand over their weapons, otherwise they risk being killed,' Musharraf told reporters in his first public comment on the confrontation.

India ’s leader at the time of the Operation Blue Star, Mrs. Indira Gandhi was often described as the only man in the cabinet. Bu she was a woman after all and so she was perhaps more discreet in her challenge to Sant Bhindaranwale and his cohorts holed up inside the Golden Temple but her generals went n and did pretty much what Musharraf’s generals were doing, using copy book military textbook strategies to take on fanatics driven more by passion and vision than by tactics or territory. A few months after the siege, Mrs. Gandhi was dead shot by her body guards who cared more about heir faith than her person. Pakistan’s President Musharraf has already escaped one rocket attack hours after the Lal Masjid siege. Is any one in Pakistan listening at all or is that it has been a long time since a head of state died in office there?

India has its share of hawks who would say that the jackboot is the solution to every problem that the country has be it floods in Rajasthan, or communal riots in Aligarh, insurgency in Manipur or the Naxalites in Chattisgarh. There is little attempt to understand, why these movements arose, why they continue to thrive and prosper, what ideological props they possess and why they hold appeal here. Instead, the thinking of the establishment is that the army can go any where, do any thing, kill and suppress any one--- veni, vidi, vici in the true style of Julius Caesar. Well the truth is that it is an incomplete truth. Army boots and flag marches can bully people into submission for a time, for a season but not for ever. Popular movements and beliefs can not be subdued easily… or else there would be no shriveled up monarch in Nepal, no moth eaten Pakistan and no hemorrhaging democracy in Sri Lanka, no to mention India’s own numerous bleeding spots.

There is a lot of talk in India about winning over the hearts and minds of discontented people but no attempt is made to listen to the beating of the heart. Army doctors going and tending to wounds that other soldiers have inflicted or repairing huts and mosques and temples can feel the throbbing pulse but not the bleeding heart. When that effort is made and attempts made to listen, one can have some very pleasantly unexpected results. In a recent development, The Asom Sahitya Sabha, the apex literary body of Assam, has urged the ULFA and other insurgent groups to give up their demand for secession and sit for unconditional talks with the government. President of the literary body Kanak Sen Deka told reporters that the Asam Sahitya Sabha did not support any secessionist activities and was of the firm opinion that Assam was an integral part of India. The Sabha said the allegation made by secessionist organizations that colonial rule was imposed on Assam through the Constitution was only a conspiracy detrimental to Assam's interest. Moderate voices like this which speak with authority and credibility and challenge the voices of violence, no matter where it comes from are to be welcomed. Amongst Muslims, among Hindus, among Christians, among every one. For instance , many of us would find the policies , programs and ideologies of the leftists in India archaic. But given the fact that there is a leftist space in the political sphere and that space has to be occupied by some one, who you would rather prefer – Sitaram Yechury and the sedate Prakash Karat or some masked underground comrade screaming lal salaam as he kidnaps you for ransom or hold you on trial in a Peoples’ Court. It is time that we encourage the State to think in terms of policies ands initiatives that are not derived form the Mosaic eye for eye policy but encourage moderate and peace loving voices to rise, speak up and isolate violence as is beginning to happen in Assam. Or else a long and silent night will soon descend accompanying an unending winter.