Navratri 2012: A festival of backless cholis

In a few days' time the speed dating festival of Navratri will commence.  I say "speed dating" because that is, sadly, what it has been reduced to these days.  Scores of sports grounds in Mumbai and Gujarat are already being fitted out with government-funded equipment (including, condom vending machines - OMG: I can't believe I said the "c" word! Bad boy, Paras!) to accommodate and entertain the throngs of revellers expected to dance and partake in the adrenalin-fueled sweaty nights of garba.  On the other hand, in a classic representation of exclusivity and discrimination, hundreds of private clubs across Western and North India will have sold their exorbitantly priced tickets to India's growing "nouveau-riche" bourgeoisie (middle class) who wish to have their own form of justified speed dating with appropriately adjusted pecuniary filters so that the "riffraff" don't get in and ruin the fun! All this, my friends, in the name of religion. 

In England, scores of Church of England school and town halls have been booked up for a series of 9 to 10 nights. Ticketed events by several Gujarati organisations have been organised.  Some even have special season tickets on sale which, if you intend to attend on all the days, might just work out to be cheaper.  We Gujaratis love a bargain! 9 days of garba fun for the price of 8!!! Navratri here has been reduced to a spectacle that one might choose to buy entry for, much like buying your Arsenal season tickets! And if you think the speed dating doesn't happen here in England, I think you need to book an appointment at Boots opticians soon, my friends.  In London, the Navratri equivalent of Tiger Tiger is perhaps Northolt, while Mahiki probably equates to Chiswick (minus the booze, of course!).  

"Navratri today is an exhibition of vulgarity with young girls having barely entered puberty, scantily dressed, sweating and hot with belly buttons pierced in inappropriate backless cholis and tights.  I mean, shouldn't we be leaving that to the experts in Bollywood?"

You see, it's only natural that the most important aspect of Navratri is its most celebrated - music, dance and general merriment. And don't get me wrong - one of the biggest social drivers for this festival is precisely the social cohesion and sense of community that the festival is intended to help foster.  But what many forget is the real spiritual dimension of Navratri.  Far from the tentacles of Narendra Modi's "Vibrant Gujarat" propaganda, the festival does actually have a deep-seated purpose of cultivating inner spiritual awareness through rituals that encourage self-control and renunciation.  Many forget that during Navratri, several devotees fast for the festival's duration, renouncing all forms of meat and grain.  On a meager diet of fruit and milk, devotees are encouraged to engage in meditation and self-contemplation.  Many continue to get on with their daily lives notwithstanding the harsh pangs of growing hunger in their bellies and those irresistible cravings for carbs. Others decide to give to charity, either in cash or kind.  But all of this is shrouded by the Navratri night clubs that temples and sports halls are converted into to satisfy the carnal urges of raging teenagers.  And of course, it's all "legit", yaar - because it's all in the name of religion. It's the one time when if you're a girl and dare to wear something revealing (well really, downright vulgar, when put in context) without having to succumb to your mum's glaring looks, you're fine. Why? All in the name of religion, yaar! It's more pleasant to say to mum - "I'm going to the garba tonight and won't be back until the morning!".  Replace the word "garba" with the name of any alcohol-fueled nightclub and you'll get a deluge of questions to answer and probably a curfew.

My point is this - the whole purpose of Navratri has become distorted.  What, I think, was a festival conjured up in ancient India to drive social cohesion, inclusiveness, culture and spiritual awareness, is now actually quite the opposite. Sadly, Navratri today is characterised by youths lip syncing to vulgar Bollywood atrocities (Munni badnaam hui, anyone?), dancing in their own groups trying very hard to be as wayward as possible. Navratri today is an exhibition of vulgarity with young girls having barely entered puberty, scantily dressed, sweating and hot with belly buttons pierced in inappropriate backless cholis and tights.  And you thought guys went to the garba to dance? We really should be leaving the "choli ke peeche kya hai" attitude to the experts in Bollywood.

Allow me to make myself clear.  I am not saying that one shouldn't participate in this year's Navratri festivities simply because of all the vulgarities that exist! To the contrary, I'm going to have fun and make the most of it (to the extent, that I am able to get out of work on time!). All I am saying is that just by playing a few rounds of garba and dandia raas, don't fool yourself by thinking you've achieved any spiritual brownie points.  Durga is not dumb.

Has Mombasa lost its "raha"?

"Mombasa Raha" is a popular phrase at the Kenyan coast. "Raha", in Swahili, means joy or happiness, and the phrase is used to express the excitement and fun of the Mombasa lifestyle.  In the wake of the recent riots that have plagued this the most important Indian Ocean port on the east coast of Africa, one can't help but wonder whether peace has fled Mombasa's shores for an indefinite period of time.

The assassination of an influential and very radical Al-Shabaab-influenced cleric (I will not use the term "Muslim" to describe him because, frankly, he does not deserve it and I would be doing injustice to all my Muslim friends and acquaintances) prompted two days of vicious rioting in Mombasa.  Yesterday seemed to be quiet, but there have been pockets of turbulence reported in parts of central Mombasa today.  Surely, any spell of tranquility will not last, especially given the impending elections and Kenyan politicians' fondness for stirring up unrest.

Law and order broke down earlier this week in Mombasa as rioters attacked churches (no one knows why these have been targeted!), burned tyres, looted shops and homes and threw grenades at vehicles and police. Some observers claimed to have witnessed rioters looting chicken! This all sounds rather familiar, given that London went through similar looting episodes last August, although, here, chicken was replaced by flat screen TVs.  So far four policemen have been killed in Mombasa, dying of their injuries after bearing the brunt of grenade explosions. Three civilians have died too, although by the time I publish this on line, more will have inevitably lost their lives. Some have been stoned, others have been hit with metal rods and some have simply been trapped in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This sudden and vicious orgy of  violence is itself sparked by another death.  It was broad daylight on Monday 27 August when Aboud Rogo was driving his minivan (matatu) along the Mombasa-Malindi route. Many of you will have been on that road when heading for Yul's Aquadrom at the Bamburi Beach. In the vehicle with him were his young daughter and wife. Apparently, his wife had miscarried two weeks earlier, and was feeling sick, so that family was on their way to the hospital. Reports claim that, suddenly, another vehicle overtook Rogo's minivan. From it, an unidentified gunman emptied half a clip of ammunition from his AK-47 in the direction of Rogo. Some of the bullets hit Rogo, enough to kill him and cause the vehicle to swerve off the road. A few rounds injured his wife in the leg, it has been reported.

If the reports are to be believed, Rogo died the way he lived: violently, and with little regard for the rule of law. Although nothing was ever proven in court, Rogo was linked with a number of terrorist attacks on Kenyan soil, most notably the US embassy bombings in Nairobi in 1998. He was high on the USA's terror watch list - so high that the US slapped travel sanctions on him and coaxed the United Nations to do likewise (the European Union was due to follow suit).

Rogo's notoriety was compounded by his alleged links to Al-Shabaab, the Somali fundamentalist militant group against which a substantial number (by now, in the thousands) of Kenyan troops are waging war in Somalia. Al-Shabaab repeatedly threatened to retaliate in Kenya, and has done so with a number of grenade attacks against civilian and police targets. Kenyan authorities suspected Rogo was helping to facilitate these attacks, and suspicions hardened when they raided his house and discovered a weapons cache with an AK-47, two hand grenades, pistols and plenty of ammunition. He was in the process of being tried for possession of illegal weapons, and reports claim that he was out on bail when he was killed.

Who killed him? Rogo's supporters and sympathisers in Mombasa claim it must have been a police hit - an explanation that probably accounted for much of the anger demonstrated by youths in the riots that followed. Tired of waiting for justice to take its course, and mindful of Rogo's Houdini-like ability to escape, the thinking goes that security officers arranged the killing. There has even been talk of US involvement in the killing.  Whatever it is, people are inclined to believe that security officers were involved. How else could they have done it in the middle of the day on a busy highway without anyone seeing a thing? No witnesses have come forward, it should be added. At the scene, Rogo's wife refused medical attention from police officers saying that it was the police who'd killed her husband and so she didn't want help from them.

Al-Shabaab is, of course, very clever. It quickly jumped on to this bandwagon, releasing a statement decrying the Kenyan "infidels" for their policy of extra-judicial killings against "Muslim" activists.

Police, naturally, denied this account. They claim that Rogo fell foul of political infighting in Al-Shabaab and that his murder was a deliberate ploy to incite tensions in Mombasa. If so, it worked.

Whoever killed Rogo - and let's face it, we won't know for quite some time, if ever - it's hard to ignore the central role played by Al-Shabaab and the feeling that the Kenyan government has brought this on itself. Kenyan officials knew what they were getting into when they invaded Somalia. If they didn't, it's because they hadn't read their history. Somalia has a way of hitting back at countries that get themselves too involved; just think of the Americans and the humiliation of Black Hawk Down (the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993 between US forces and Somali militia fighters), or the ridiculous Ethiopian invasion which unseated the relatively moderate Islamist Courts Union, only to pave the way for Al-Shabaab to take charge.

For Kenya, the grand Somali adventure has brought domestic unrest and a fraught relationship with the large minority of ethnic Somalis that consider themselves Kenyan. It threatens to boil over into something even more perilous if the militant talk being exchanged by Muslims and Christians in Mombasa doesn't dissipate quickly.

Foremost on Kenyan policitians' mind, however, will be the election scheduled for 2013, which is currently the driving force behind most government policy. If any of the main candidates can find a way to exploit these tensions to improve their chances at the polls, expect the violence and unrest to continue - just as tensions were encouraged and allowed to explode into brutal violence in the aftermath of the last elections in 2008. You see, Kenya's favourite politics is the politics of fear.

Of course, there's another way to win elections. Most Kenyans are peaceful souls that want calm and order. This is a golden opportunity for a Kenyan leader to forge a reputation as a peacemaker and unifier, an image that will play well with voters across the country, transcend the ethnic and tribal boundaries in Kenya, and do the country a world of good in the process. The optimist in me can only hope that one of the main candidates can see the sense of this through their own lust for power. The cynic in me thinks otherwise.  Please prove the cynic in me wrong.

Pakistan's fundamentalism and a Gujarati man's quashed dream

Many of my generation may not know that Pakistan's founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, was born of a Gujarati father and was fluent in his pitrubhasha ("father-tongue"), Gujarati. The page below from the iconic Gujarati monthly "Vismi Sadi" (meaning the "20th Century") in May 1916 depicts the answers given by Jinnah to some simple questions in his own handwriting.  How poignant that Jinnah signed off here as માહમદ અલી ઝીણા (Maahmad Ali Zina) in Gujarati.

The column is entitled "Dil No Ekraar" (Confessions of the Heart).  The page roughly translates as:

Admirable virtue of a man : Independence

Admirable virtue of a woman : Loyalty

Success in life, according to you : Securing love from people

Favourite recreation : Horse-riding

Favourite flower : Lily

Favourite writer: Shakespeare

Favourite book: The Count of Monte Cristo

Motto: Never get disappointed

At Jinnah's tomb in Karachi, every evening a crowd of a few hundred gather to witness the changing of the guard and pay their respects to the father of the nation.  The pristine green and white Pakistani flag, centred with a moon and star flies high above.  For a moment all those gathered must undoubtedly feel a sense of pride. 

When Pakistan's flag was first raised at the birth of the nation 65 years ago, the white stripe was meant to symbolise liberty for the nation's diverse religions, with the green segment (along with the moon) representing the Islamic section of society. But as Pakistanis prepare for their next election in the 21st century, Jinnah's white stripe on the flag is stained not only with the blood of religious minorities but also with the blood of politicians who dare to champion their cause - all contrary to Jinnah's vision of secular, democratic state.  Jinnah must be turning in his grave.

In January 2011 the treatment of religious minorities became the single most polarising issue in this already intensely divided nation.  The then Governor of the state of Punjab, Salman Taseer was shot at point-blank range 27 times by his own body guard, Mumtaz Qadri.  Why? Controversially, Taseer had taken up the case of Asia Bibi, a Christian mother, who had been convicted of blasphemy after being accused of abusing Islam's holy prophet, a charge that Bibi still denies. 

No one, but Taseer, was willing to listen to Bibi's defence in which she claimed she was marginalised by local villagers who prevented her from sharing communal water supplies simply because she was not a Muslim. Bibi's troubles began in June 2009 in her village, Ittan Wali, a patchwork of lush fields and dusty streets. Hers was the only Christian household. She was picking berries alongside local Muslim women, when the row developed over sharing water. Days later, the women claimed she had insulted Islam's holy prophet. Soon, Asia Bibi was being pursued by a mob. In reality, as is often the case in Pakistan, the blasphemy law was being used to settle an old score with Bibi.

Salman Taseer's daughter, Sanam, lives in Lahore and now faces a life full of insecurity and uncertainty. Sanam has spoken at great length of the superb work that her father did, particularly in relation to countering the oppression of women and religious minorities in Pakistan.  When Sanam's father chose to get involved in fighting for justice for these oppressed communities, the family, rather naively, thought that everyone in their elite circles of power would support him.  How wrong they were.  In fighting for Asia Bibi's cause, Salman Taseer inadvertently distanced himself from the general mood of the nation and rapidly became a subject of intense controversy and condemnation, simply for choosing to exercise his democratic right to fight for Bibi, who had been vilified by local Islamic clerics and the general Pakistani establishment for allegedly violating Pakistan's Islamophilic blasphemy laws. 

Salman Taseer's killer, Mumtaz Qadri, was not a rogue militant on the fringes of society.  He was a state employee entrusted with the role of protecting the State Governor.  After barbarically shooting Taseer, he calmly handed himself over to the police.  What was particularly horrifying in the events that ensued, was that Qadri, a murderer, was perceived to be a national hero.  

All hopes of repealing Pakistan's blasphemy laws receded in the weeks following Taseer's murder.  As expected, many Pakistanis condemned Qadri as a religious fundamentalist.  More surprisingly, though, is his status as a national hero.  His home in Rawalpindi has become a magnet for Qadri supporters. Awash with politically-sponsored slogans such as "Qadri, teri jurrat ko salaam" (We salute your bravery, Qadri).  The area has become a national site of pilgrimage for the majority, who believe that all "good Muslims" should support Qadri for his efforts in inhumanely killing someone who, according to them, was successful in protecting the religion's honour at any cost.  

Qadri has been found guilty of murder in the Pakistani courts, but an appeal is pending and his lawyer is confident that Qadri will soon be a free man on the back of growing pro-Qadri national sentiment in a country where the judicial system is plagued by deep-rooted corruption. The crux of the matter is that Salman Taseer became a "legitimate target" by "crossing his limits" in challenging the country's blasphemy laws that, on paper, purport to protect the "religious feelings of any class of the citizens of Pakistan" (Section 295A of the Pakistan Penal Code (Act XLV of 1860)), but in reality, are applied by national authorities exclusively in favour of Islam and therefore in direct contradiction with the concept of rule of law. The facts speak for themselves. The minority population of Pakistan has dwindled from constituting 57% of the country's population in the 1950s to now just 3%. Rather unsurprisingly, Pakistan's government refuses to look at the facts and continues to claim that the persecution of religious minorities in Pakistan is something that does not exist.

Sanam Taseer is not optimistic about her future in Pakistan.  She fears for her family and the safety of her children in a country where the dark force of Islamic fundamentalism grows increasingly dominant.  This threatens to shadow Jinnah's vision of a secular society founded on the principles of democracy, much in line with the values of Islam's holy prophet, who, in his time, was a beacon of democracy and justice.  The problem is that today's Pakistan is seized by a wave of religious fundamentalism and dogmatism which creates an environment in which the true spirit of the ways of Islam's holy prophet have been much distorted to suit the political and economic greed for power.  Many in the pro-Qadri camp, rather conveniently, forget that the Prophet stood for democracy and the rule of law, and that their own support for Qadri's despicable actions are, as a matter of fact, a direct contravention of Islamic traditions of the Prophet (hadiths) upholding democracy and freedom of choice. 


Take, for example, the first thing that the Prophet did when his army of Muslims conquered the city of Mecca in January A.D. 630 - he declared a general amnesty. The people of Mecca were free to choose or reject Islam. Among the pardoned were the powerful leaders of the Quraysh tribe who were guilty of unspeakable atrocities against Muslims. For years they had harassed and hounded the Prophet and organised more than one attempt on his life. This first act as ruler attests to the spirit of the man entitled the Messenger of Compassion and Emancipation. The life of the Prophet of Islam glows with examples of forgiveness and mercy and with a love for the lofty ideals of the human race.

There were instances, even during the Prophet's lifetime, when some of his followers - and occasionally even his close companions - were at a loss to understand the noble spirit of his actions and decisions, and protested to him. Such encounters have been recorded, for example, when the Prophet signed the Al-Hudaybiyah peace pact with the Meccan leaders one year before the conquest of Mecca, and when he pardoned a Muslim who had fled Medina to join the Prophet's enemies, but was captured en route to Mecca. That some early Muslims argued against such decisions by the Prophet emanated from their inability to grasp the profoundly humanitarian essence of the message of Islam and its rejection of the notion that human character is immutable.



But trying to educate the pro-Qadri fanatics about such Islamic spirit of democracy, rule of law and humanitarianism is akin to casting pearls before swines.  What is required is a radical change in Pakistan's leadership so that religious freedom and the status of religious minorities are upheld in accordance with the rule of law.  What is required is, quite simply, another Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

"Learn from thy neighbour"

But perhaps short of finding Pakistan's next Jinnah, the country might do well to look to present day Bangladesh, another Muslim majority country in the South Asian region.

The country was born from the ruins of East Pakistan in 1971 after a war of independence in which India-backed nationalists - unhappy at being ruled from what was then West Pakistan - fought Islamists loyal to Islamabad. Three million people were slaughtered in eight months before the Pakistanis conceded. Those were the days before international criminal tribunals, and the world left Bangladesh largely alone to heal and rebuild.

It is now undergoing a kind of post-independence therapy, as Sheikh Hasina Wajed, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister (and daughter of the country’s first PM, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman - a secularist himself), launches the first set of war crimes trials in the Muslim world, to address the atrocities committed by Islamists during Bangladesh's struggle for independence. The decision has been hailed by international jurists, for good reason.

Unlike Pakistan, language and not religion is the organising principle of Bangladesh, but Islamists have, sadly, hijacked much of its history. Led by Ziaur Rahman, in 1979, the same year as the Iranian revolution, they took control of the state, amended the constitution, and created an Islamic republic.

Now, Hasina's government (rooted in the centre-left Awami League Party) has spared almost no expense to wipe out the traces of hard line Islam since its election in 2008. It has spent millions to rename public buildings that once honoured hard line Islamists, and rewritten laws to protect women from any form of compulsion to wear Islamic head coverings. The government has granted itself the means to dismantle Islamist militant networks. Through the Supreme Court, Hasina nullified Ziaur Rahman's 1979 amendment to Bangladesh's constitution, thereby restoring the concept of dhormo niropekhota (secularism, in Bangla) in the world's third-largest Muslim nation.

Unlike Pakistan's flag,  the green in Bangladesh's Bānlādēśēra jātīẏa patākā (national flag) represents the country's landscape and not the traditional colour of Islam.

I contend that a more secular, humanist Bangladesh emboldened by its culture has potential to empower the Pakistani intelligentsia against religious fundamentalists as well as being an inspiration for other countries with Muslim majorities around the world.  Of course, it will be interesting to see how India flexes its muscles in respect of all of this.....watch this space!

Why the Gujarati diaspora cannot let Modi get to Delhi

Panchavati, situated at 7, Race Course Road in New Delhi, is the official residence of the Prime Minister of India. It is nowhere near as well-known as London's 10 Downing Street, but is nevertheless apt for India's head of government. Set amidst a beautiful 12 acre site, Panchavati offers a tranquil setting in a plush area of New Delhi for the PM to contemplate and repose.  And it is here where Gujarat's Chief Minister, Narendra Modi's focus now appears to lie.



Where Narendra Modi wants to be: Panchavati, 7 Race Course Road, New Delhi



Yes, recent chat in the international media seems to suggest, rather alarmingly, that Modi has his eyes firmly set on New Delhi in respect of the 2014 Indian elections. Put simply, this cannot happen.

I should state at the outset that I am not entitled to vote in Indian politics, do not live in India, have no vested interests (economic or social) in India and do not advocate any of the multiple organised religious groups that seem to dominate modern day India's political stage.  However, I belong to the wider Gujarati diaspora, and am a descendant of immigrants that left Gujarat over a century ago to find greener pastures abroad.  It is under that capacity that I write here to urge fellow diaspora members to start thinking carefully of what they are endorsing.

Not long before he died in 1964, Jawaharlal Nehru said:

"The danger to India, mark you, is not communism. It is Hindu right-wing communalism".

He was terribly prescient. If Modi makes it to New Delhi, then it is certain that the current right-wing Hindutva hegemony that has so far enjoyed unmitigated success in Gujarat will spread across India.  That is deeply disturbing.  A religiously communalised Gujarat represents, as Radhika Desai, professor at the Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba in Canada and author of "Slouching Towards Ayodhya: From Congress to Hindutva in Indian Politics", puts it, "the deeply problematic face of India's future".

Modi's political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (the "BJP"), has held Gujarat for over a decade. He is the longest serving Chief Minister of Gujarat and has undoubtedly brought about immense economic and industrial progress to transform this once destitute region of India into a regional hub for trade and commerce.  In 2011, the Economist noted that Gujarat's infrastructure was capable of competing with Guangdong, China's  economic engine. Gujarat enjoys one of India's highest levels of private sector and foreign direct investment, largely originating from the diaspora and thanks to Modi's pro-liberalisation economic policies.

But amidst all the celebratory discourses surrounding  the economy of "Vibrant Gujarat", the diaspora has inadvertently let Gujarat, under Modi's watch, turn into what can simply be called a laboratory of hate. With the BJP's strong ties with its umbrella organisation, Sangh Parivar, which itself is inspired by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (the "RSS"), a "social and cultural organisation"  which, according to the independent Human Rights Watch (HRW), is a known fascist pedigree with a Hindu majoritarian political agenda, it is unsurprising that the majority Hindu state of Gujarat is a gold mine for the increasingly dominant political party.

The point here is that Modi's affiliations with the RSS and the rest of the Sangh Parivar make him a dangerous candidate for the premiership of what  has always been, was conceived to be, and is, a secular nation. The re-election of Modi will place under direct threat Nehru's and Gandhi's generous vision of India as a nation embracing all layers of religious and racial groupings, and their notion of a non-sectarian, secular, democratic India.

We cannot simply overlook all the evidence from the international community and the NGOs which conclusively points to the participation of the Modi-administered state and police in the 2002 Gujarat violence. HRW's April 2002 report, "WE HAVE NO ORDERS TO SAVE YOU - State Participation and Complicity in Communal Violence in Gujarat" is an eye-opener for the diaspora.  The report is available to read here.  

That HRW report accepts that the 2002 Gujarat violence was fuelled, ostensibly, by revenge. The carnage was triggered after a Muslim mob’s torching of two train coaches on the Sabarmati Express at the Ghodra train station in February 2002. Fifty-eight passengers, including Sangh Parivar activists returning from Ayodhya, were killed in the horrific attack. The immediate and impulsive reaction of Narendra Modi was to claim that the massacre had been engineered by Pakistan's ISI (Inter Services Intelligence). No evidence has been given for this highly inflammatory revelation. The situation was further provoked by his decision to publicly parade the charred bodies in an emotive and provocative public procession from Godhra to Ahmedabad.  According to the HRW report, many victims testified that the police led the violent mobs directly to their homes and places of business. Emergency calls to the police went unheeded or were met with responses such as: “We don’t have any orders to save you”; “We cannot help you, we have orders from above”. The HRW report concludes that the attacks were clearly part of a “meticulously planned pogrom”against the Muslim community. Witnesses testify that the mob specifically targeted Muslims and their businesses. Computer printouts of Muslim voter lists and business addresses, reportedly obtained by Sangh Parivar "volunteers" from the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, were, as the HRW report found, an integral part of the carnage.

The Tehelka sting operation, revealed just prior to the Gujarat state elections of December 2007, compounded the allegations of NGOs after the Gujarat riots of 2002. This time, however, the testimony came from the perpetrators themselves. Several members of the Sangh Parivar were caught on tape admitting their role and that of Modi's state government in the Gujarat genocide. Based on the evidence obtained from covert spycam footage, the case alleging Sangh Parivar collusion with the government of Gujarat in the riots of 2002 is overwhelming.  This link provides a chilling reminder of the ground-breaking Tehelka sting operation and of what was said about Modi at the time, most of which, as is evident from Modi's re-election, we all seem to have forgotten now!

A campaign of hate against the Gujarat state’s minority communities began years before the 2002 attacks. A 1999 Human Rights Watch report documented the August 1998 distribution of fliers by RSS and Hindu Jagran Manch (HJM), an offshoot of the Sangh Parivar, in Dangs district in southeastern Gujarat, site of a ten-day spate of violent and premeditated attacks on Christian communities and institutions during the 1998 Christmas holidays. 

The fact about Modi, whether we choose to accept it or not, is that his campaign is and will forever be haunted by the ghosts of the 2002 violence. One cannot forget that his ideologies come from the pre-independence fascist views of the Sangh Parivar organisations.  It is well known that for Modi, the first and most important of these organisations - the one that did the most to shape him and his worldview, and to advance his political ambitions - was the RSS.  To determine the RSS's founding principles, you need not look beyond the published 1938 writings of Madhav Golwalkar, the force behind today's Sangh Parivar.  It is clear from Golwalkar's writings that he was vehemently opposed to the concept of a secular Indian state which would not discriminate against its non-Hindu citizens. In "We, or Our Nation defined" (1938), he stated:

"The non-Hindu people of Hindustan must either adopt Hindu culture and language, must learn and respect and hold in reverence the Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but of those of glorification of the Hindu race and culture ... in a word they must cease to be foreigners, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment—not even citizens' rights."

If this abhorrent Hindutva ideology was to be propagated by Modi to the federal level, it would mean that India's Shah Rukh Khans, Sania Mirzas and Shabana Azmis and the millions of less-known others with “foreign” names would belong to another culture, even another race. They would never be “assimilated” by “Hindustan” although they know no world but India as it is today! In other words, these “foreigners” would be enemies until proven innocent by a jury made up of Golwalkar’s descendants i.e. Modi and his government minions.

We, the educated members of the Gujarati diaspora, need to think very carefully of how we invest in Gujarat and what affiliations we might, directly or indirectly, have with the Sangh Parivar.  Clearly, one would not want to be implicated in the generation of India's Frankenstein's monster. 

Why the Queen's Diamond Jubilee matters - even if you're not British

This weekend, Britain has basked in an unprecedented spirit of patriotism and allegiance. And it has been all for one 86 year old lady, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, or to you and me, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Yet, her appeal extends beyond the shores of the British isles and the Commonwealth - and that is because she personifies the possibility of stability in our rapidly changing world. As the Diamond Jubilee celebrations draw to a poignant close, we should all take a leaf out of the Queen's book, for her life has been a "don't panic" message, one which we all need in our daily battles that we choose to fight.

The Queen, having survived her family's multiple failures, a nation transformed by secularism and scepticism and the brutal, populist manipulations of the late Princess Diana, finds herself at the peak of her powers, unchallenged and unchallengeable.  On her 12th prime minister, 12th American president and 6th pope, the Queen represents endurance, not quite like a rock - something softer, but firmly impervious. Through her subtle mix of stubborn conservatism, meticulously calibrated remoteness and remarkably pragmatic adaptability, she has forced her critics to admit that the monarchy need not be abolished - not until at least Elizabeth II is succeeded.

Many might not have believed her when she declared her devotion to her public role in a way that is unimaginable to our minds today cultivated to pursue self-fulfilment.  In 1947, on her 21st birthday and five years before she ascended to the throne (in 1952), the then Princess Elizabeth gave this radio broadcast from Cape Town in South Africa:

Many of our leaders today often make similar declarations and promise to devote their lives to public service. But few have been able to honour their words with such fervour and dedication as the Queen. At a very young age, the Queen became aware that to succeed in one's struggles, one must change - but only just enough - so as not to compromise one's status quo. And she has managed to achieve that in a flawless manner. How else has the monarchy under her watch managed to survive the 20th century crushings beneath the rubble of modernity during which the Russian, German, Chinese and Ottoman monarchies vanished. 

What Queen Elizabeth II's 60 year reign teaches us is that while we all must keep calm and carry on, we should be vigilant of the need to unstiffen that upper lip at times and embrace change. For the true test of victory in any battle, big or small, is whether one stays the same in the aftermath; and the Queen teaches us that to stay the same you must change.

Uganda - a lesson for the East Africans and the Asians?

The British brought families of Indians, many Gujaratis, to Uganda in the 1870s. Under the Empire, they were British subjects and the first generation would build the railway. Further generations would go on to become the backbone of East Africa's trade and industry. In the early 1970s, forming just 1% of the total population of Uganda, the British Asians were responsible for 66% of the country's economy.

But, the events of January 1972 would go on to change their lives. On one morning during the 1972 coup overthrowing Milton Obote's government, a then unidentified voice purporting to be the leader of the Ugandan army announced on the national radio that the country was now under military control. At first, General Idi Amin and his troops were welcomed. But soon the new leader made his intentions clear. He announced his decision to expel all Asians of British nationality living in Uganda, who, according to him, were "sabotaging the economy of Uganda". He required all Asians to leave the country within 90 days, leaving all their possessions and wealth in Uganda. General Amin's intention was to prove to the indigenous people that he could balance the country's books, leading to the nationalisation of huge local industries. By ordering the expulsion of the economically dominant Asians, this became easy for him. A century of wealth and establishment was eradicated in a few months. Generations of an intelligent and industrious community became refugees in those 90 days.

Many British Asians remember those harrowing days of 1972. They were the most frightening days of many Asians' lives. Everybody had guns, anyone could turn up at your step to demand jewellery, money and other assets. Army soldiers threatened to rape Asian girls and shoot on sight Asian boys. There was no question of getting a good night's sleep. Army trucks would relentlessly patrol the streets enforcing curfews against the Asians. In fact, there are some families that have literally vanished, no one having heard anything of them since those days. To the locals, fuelled by Amin's propaganda at the time that the Asians had an agenda to convert Kampala and Entebbe into the "Bombays" of East Africa, the Asian exodus could only benefit land which had always been their's. The Imperialists and their agents (the Asians) were finally being kicked out.

But against the odds, almost 40 years later, British Asians seem to be re-asserting themselves in Uganda. Case in point - the Madhvani family. Back in the 1970s, the Madhvanis employed over 10,000 locals in their industries ranging from sugar to steel. Within 7 years of their expulsion, the Madhvanis began returning from Britain to rebuild their businesses, and today, are stronger than ever. Today the Madhvani empire is vast, including tourism, construction, hospitality and sugar. Even in 1972, the Madhvanis were formidable industrialists. At the time, they contributed about 15% of Uganda's GDP.

Kakira Sugar, part of the Madhvani's immense business interests, is a popular brand in Uganda. In a recent interview with BBC reporter Vishwa Samani, Ronnie Madhvani, one of the family's younger generation, explains his belief that the benefits of the Madhvani's business model are far reaching, as they give back to local farmers and producers. He claims that they (the Madhvanis) play major roles in sustaining local communities where they run their sugar plantations. Ronnie's attitude to Uganda is complicated - on the one hand it seems to be the country where he can have the quality of life he wants, with a stunning mansion on a scenic Kampalan hill top, removed from the reality of life in Kampala's slums; and on the other, the opportunities for integrating with local Ugandans appear rare.

Many local Ugandans are, nowadays, candid about the re-emerging Asian community. Have you heard about the running joke amongst locals - the one where the reason why Indians cannot play soccer is because if they are about to score a goal, they look at the goal post and decide to set up shop there! So, is there a growing sense of resentment amongst today's generation of local indigenous Ugandans against the Asians?

Vishwa Samani's interview is illuminating. In her report, she describes how some Ugandans are actually respectful of the Asians' drive but sometimes frustrated with the lack of ambition in their fellow people. But, as part of her report, Samani also speaks to Mayur Madhvani, one of the older members of the industrial family, about his thoughts on the role of Asians in Uganda's economy today. When Samani visits the Kakira Sugar factory in Jinja to meet Mayur, she lands upon a factory worker's strike, policed by heavily armed officers, and driven by demands for higher pay. The anger from the workers and the forecful response by Kakira's management (police officers, tear gas etc.), explains Samani, seems very much at odds with Ronnie Madhvani's description of the collaborative working relationship between British Asians and Ugandans.

Leaving the strike aside, when asked of his connection with Uganda, Mayur Madhvani articulates what, I think, many East Africans feel. Mayur is very open about his identity - Uganda is his home, he was born in Kakira. For him, he is a foreigner in India, and even though he studied in Britain, it was just that for him - the country where he studied. Like many young members of large, successful East African Asian families, Mayur returned to Uganda to join the thriving business. But what is really key is Mayur's thoughts on the prospect of another expulsion. His thoughts on this, as described to Samani, are that the world has matured, and that nationalisation, certainly in East Africa will probably not happen to the scale seen in the Amin days. He claims that the East Africans have learnt their lessons from the aftermath that followed Amin's brash decisions; after all - it was they who suffered even more under the hands of tyrants such as Amin. Mayur's responses are indicative of how many East African Asians feel connected to the region. Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania are "home" for these families - India is just as foreign as Timbuktu!

But is there a case for arguing that the presence and dominance of the East African Asians benefits the locals? Most indigenous East Africans have realised that their problems (rising fuel prices, crippling infrastructure and underlying poverty) cannot be attributed to the Asians. The problem, in reality, lies with the administration of the region, namely widespread and deep-rooted graft and apathy.

As with all things, it depends on who you speak to. In Samani's report, she speaks to Andrew Rugasira, the founder of Good African Coffee, a company that takes fair trade coffee from the Western Ugandan town of Kasese to Ugandan, British and American retailers. Rugasira is clearly one of the foremost indigenous Ugandan businessmen operating in the country today. His take on Amin's expulsion of the Asians is somewhat different and measured. His analysis of the situation is deeper. Yes, at the time, there was a direct loss of commercial networks and trade, but the Amin regime negatively impacted any opportunities for the indigenous classes. The fact that the commercial space was cleared as a result of the expulsion meant that there was then room for a small group of indigenous businessmen to take over. Asked whether he thinks that Asian businessmen in Uganda hold back indigenous Ugandans from making some headway in commerce, his thoughts are qualified. Whereas Rugasira does not believe that the Asians hold back the Ugandans in a conscious way, he does note that their sheer size and dominance in business can indeed hold back local people from growing. He explains that Asians are able to share experiences, technology and suppliers through their community, thereby giving them a competitive edge. This means that an indigenous aspirant might not have that capacity and therefore finds himself in difficulty. Rugasira does not feel that there is resentment from the locals but that there is perhaps some concern in respect of the unfair advantage.

At the end of the day, if anything, both the East Africans and the Asians will have learnt (one hopes!) from the harrowing days of the Amin regime, and will develop a socio-economic consciousness that will genuinely include the interests of each other. Time only can tell whether lessons have indeed been learnt...or not.

The etiquette of email

In these days of email, texts and instant messaging, I am not alone, I feel sure, in mourning the demise of the old fashioned hand written letter. Exchanges of letters capture nuances of shared thoughts and feelings to which their electronic replacements simply cannot do justice.  Here is an example I recently came across in recently discovered old school notes from back when I was a boarder at Sevenoaks School in Kent:

In July 1940, with Britain at war, the English writer Virginia Woolf published a biography of the artist Roger Fry, champion of post-impressionism and a leading member of the Bloomsbury Group (a group of writers, intellectuals and philosophers who held informal discussions in Bloomsbury in the 20th century). The timing could hardly have been any worse. Fry's reputation was that of an ivory tower liberal, who believed that art inhabited a self contained, formal space, remote from the hostile world.  As France fell to Hitler's troops, and German planes pounded the south coast of England with increasingly powerful air raids, such artistic idealism seemed at best out of touch, and at worst, completely irrelevant. 

Most of Woolf's friends were politely positive about the book.  But in early August 1940 she received a letter from Ben Nicholson, the 26 year old art critic son of her close friend, Vita Sackville-West.  Nicholson was, at the time, serving in the British army in Kent, defending the country in the World War II from the German bombers. Nicholson attacked the adulatory tone of Woolf's biography and accused Fry of failing to engage with the realities of the war time years:

I am so struck by the fool's paradise in which he (Fry) and his friends lived. He shut himself out from all disagreeable actualities and allowed the spirit of Nazism to grow without taking any steps to check it.

Woolf's answering letter did not mince words:

Lord! Roger? Shut himself out from disagreeable activities, did he? What can you mean? Didn't he spend half his life travelling around England with masses of people who'd never looked at a picture and making them see what he saw, and wasn't that the best of way of checking Nazism?!

Stunned by Woolf's condescending tone, and unpersuaded by her argument, Nicholson wrote again, criticising Fry and the Bloomsbury Group in yet stronger terms.  This time, Woolf took his comments personally and drafted a lengthy reply in which she turned Nicholson's attack on Fry and herself back on him - Nicholson's own chosen career of art critic was hardly more engaged:

I suppose I'm being obtuse, but I cannot find your answer in your letter - how it is that you are going to change the attitudes of the masses by remaining an art critic!

Reading over her letter, Woolf thought better of her stern tone, and did not send the letter. Instead she re-wrote it in more measured terms, moderating her sharp remarks with an opening apology:

I think it's extraordinarily nice of you to write to me. I hope I didn't annoy you by what I said. It's very difficult when one writes letters in a hurry (as I always do) not to make them sound abrupt.

It is this second version of the letter that Woolf despatched, and which evidently satisfied its recipient, who called a truce on their differing views of Fry's influence and reputation.

Two things strike me from this exchange. The first is the simple good manners that both correspondents exercise in the way they address one another, in spite of the real, keenly felt differences of opinion. The second is the strikingly different outcome arrived at because Virginia Woolf restrained herself from despatching her first draft reply and carefully modified it so as not to hurt the feelings of the young man, a family friend, very much younger and less experienced than herself.

I have presented this exchange for a purpose.  In it, Woolf, using established letter writing conventions, takes advantage of the time lapses between exchanges, to recuperate, clarify and recast the argument. In doing so, she manages to take control of the argument. 

How unlike the rapid firing off and counter-fire of email messages today, in which many of us find ourselves engaged nowadays! In my profession (the law), the written word is paramount.  I have not had a client who writes to me with "Dear Paras" or "Yours sincerely".  In fact, there is just one client (who himself is old enough to remember the Second World War) who sticks to traditional letter writing conventions in his emails to me.  

Yet, if I try to answer a brashly written email from my client, the reply that follows will be couched in very different terms. It will be prefixed by the kind of placatory remark Woolf used in responding to Nicholson: "I did not mean to imply criticism" or "I hope you did not think me rude".  It is as if between the first and second response, I have become a person, a natural recipient of the communication, rather than an impersonal postbox - so, the courtesy and simple good manners of more old-fashioned letter form are restored to our correspondence.

The most dramatic feature of electronic communication is surely its propensity to tempt us into dashing off a response in haste, that we repent later at leisure.  As the emails ping in to our inbox, we answer them helter-skelter and breathlessly, without understanding the nuances in our tone.  As a consequence, misunderstandings often arise.

Today's electronic forms of communication may lack emotional depth, but they do allow us to connect more speedily and efficiently than "snail mail".  Still when we take advantage of them, we ought to always heed Woolf's warning - never to write carelessly, and if we can at least count to 10 and read over what we have written before we press "Send".