I read Arundhati Roy’s walk through the forests of Central India with great interest. The handful of regular readers of the blog would know my predilection with the leftist movement and more interestingly my not-so charitable view of Ms Roy’s brand nonfiction. But this is one woman with great felicity with words. One wishes one could write like that. The description of a long hard journey through the forests is dreamy eyed and romantic. What is however, not so romantic is the weapons, gory murders and the Maoist perspective on all events of near and distant past.
Faith begins where thinking ends, as they say. Maoism for the 21st century Indian intellectual is the new religion driven more by faith than by hardnosed reason and realism. Where the romance of the revolution begins, objectivity ends. A thousand years of inequity is sought to be washed away in blood and flesh. It is even more saddening to think that we have been this way before. The new Maoist has MP3 players, laptops and crude guns and bombs. The Naxalite of 60s was well read, sported a birds’ nest hairstyle and was driven more by grinding poverty and an alive and kicking Mao. Mao’s mortal remains have subsequently been suitably embalmed and preserved. China is growing at an amazing clip by burying his teachings along with him. The Maoists of Dandakaranya are still motivated by the long dead Chairman.
What never ceases to amaze me about Ms Roy’s nonfiction is that she has a conspiracy theory of the role of the state. Those of us who are privy to the inner workings of the State can’t help but have a nice long gut wrenching laugh. Accusing the state of being a super intelligent conspirator, almost redeems the State from its’ incompetence. As I silently suppress waves of laughter, I think: The Maoist insurgency would never have arisen if the state existed in the first place in many parts of Central India.
Years ago, a job in the Government was considered to be important. Today, I have friends mocking me and sending internet jokes on non-performing Babus. Would our cities become garbage dumps, will our education system be so rigid, would there be so many people unemployed outside the organized sector, if, and only if the Government were efficient? So, while reading the fetchingly attractive Roy, I couldn’t help but balk at the description of the Government and its security establishment as brutal co-conspirators with the corporate interests, who are out to bleed the tribals to death.
She has cited interesting parallels to the Malaysian strategy of fighting the communists with what is known as strategic hamleting, by General Sir Harold Briggs in the 1950s- a strategy of driving people into roadside camps to insulate them from the Communist influence in the hinterland. The good lady avows that the Indian State does it all in a day’s work in every part of the country; Nagaland, Mizoram, Telengana etc. Why pray are we unable to build expressways, SEZs, railway lines, dams, airports etc at the blisteringly fast pace at which Maobadi China is doing them? All it takes is to string together and “strategically hamlet” poor souls out of their existing homes, drive them into roadside camps and bingo we can get on with the business of building roads and airports to beat the Chinese. Many of her statements stretch credibility.
But she has a great audience outside India. Ms Roy is avidly read in Pakistan. The Dawn has published her tome almost simultaneously as Outlook in India. Faiz rings loud in Central India, claims Dawn. Our lady heard a downloaded version Iqbal Bano’s rendition of “Hum Dekhenge” from a Maoist comrade’s ipod and goes on to describe it. One couldn’t blame Pakistanis for believing that Faiz is sung in Central India and not Bollywood hits. Ms Roy has added to the romance of exterminating the class enemy (much like the term Maoist infested area- a term she finds reprehensible; akin to a reference to pests or insects. We must brace up for a repeat performance of the 1960s and 70s. If feudal landlords were the targets in the 60s, today it is the hapless traveler in Rajdhani Express or the underpaid police constable doing a tough job. I hope the end won’t be brutal or violent this time. I hope it wouldn’t shatter the dreams and lives of a whole generation as it did then. I hope we won’t have romantic revolutionaries trying to eke out a living long after that dream has died. Might be a good idea to see if Ms Roy sees how old revolutionaries are leading their lives. Kanu Sanyal has just committed suicide.
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I was one of the first to migrate to the iPod bandwagon. I still consider it a great product. The iPod Touch is even better. I can’t afford the iPhone and hence am eternally waiting for prices to crash.
The iPad is all the rage. It is touted as the next big reader to beat kindle, the next media player and the constant companion of the future. The one crucial flaw with kindle or ipad is that it hasn’t got some of the cool features of the good old fashioned papyrus stuff that occupies our lives and our bookshelves: Something that folds and can be held with one hand. It needs no power input or battery charging. You can snuggle into bed with a book and the bedside lamp on. Until solar powered ipads come on the scene, I think the ipad needs a stand which can prop it up in bed and can be read hands-free. Or it has to be made in the form of a book, foldable and holdable with fingers of one hand. Am I buying it? Well I am excited at the idea. But I remember that my first pure white ipod (presented by my sis) got two facelifts in 4 years. I shall bide my time. Let me see how it evolves…Meanwhile my gorodesk (a beautiful Japanese contraption which is very useful to prop up the laptop in bed) has broken. I got it imported from Japan through a friend who was posted there. Am looking for a replacement. I bought something from ebay. It just isn’t as sleek as the Gorodesk
Thursday 25 March 2010
Tuesday 9 March 2010
Indus vs India
Mani Shankar Aiyar’s definition of Pakistan was simple- He tries many alternatives and comes to the rather interesting definition that “what is not India is Pakistan”. It was their un- Indianness that gave Pakistan a definition of Nationhood. Years later, one sees the nation grappling with its’ multiple identities as an Islamic State, a modern Nuclear Power, a hotbed of fundamentalism, military rule interspersed with democracy, one can’t help being convinced by that definition.
The book “Indus Saga” written by prominent Pakistani Lawyer & Politician Aitzaz Ahsan is remarkable for many reasons. I have been trying to read it for the last few years and didn’t know that it has been published in India also (by Roli Books). Thanks to the simple wonders of internet shopping, I own a copy now and have been reading it with great interest these last few days. These are days when the stress at workplace doesn’t make it easy to do serious reading.
Ahsan, was a Minister in successive PPP (Pakistan People’s Party) ministries and more recently he came into limelight for leading the struggle to reinstate the Chief Justice of Pakistan. My Pakistani civil service class-mates from Australian National University say that Ahsan chose not to join the Civil Services of Pakistan, in spite of securing a high rank. He chose a life of politics and law. The movements for democracy and restoration of legal institutions that he spearheaded helped to retain Pakistan as a South Asian democracy and not another despotic theocracy or a military dictatorship. He is a politician who has even gone against his party leaders to stand up for the institutions he believed in.
The book gives an interesting perspective to the civilizational origins of Pakistan. Ahsan makes a distinction between India and Indus. The land west to the Indus river, he says, constitutes a civilization all by itself going back to the Harappan era. One that is different from mainstream Indian and West Asian cultures. He states that the Indus civilization is not entirely evolved from marauding armies from the West, or the cultural osmosis by predominantly Hindu India. From the Harappan days, Indus had its own culture and hence, the author argues, the idea of Pakistan existed prior to the artificial divide caused by partition. One may disagree with the author, but couldn’t but be impressed with his marshalling of facts to sustain his argument and develop it.
At another level, he argues that the martial/ feudal culture of the Indus as against the mercantile culture of India was what distinguishes the two nation-states. From the Harappan era through the colonial rule, the author plots the trajectory of the Indus culture. The absence of a maritime culture and the inability to assimilate the mercantile culture of the British are some of the features that distinguish the Indus culture. He tries to encapsulate the Indian culture as bourgeoisie as against the feudal culture of Indus- the accountant/ trader/ book-keeper of India as against the artisan/ peasant/ landlord of Indus. He argues that it was easier for Indians to assimilate the British mercantile system whereas the Indus couldn’t manage the transition as effortlessly.
The danger with Ahsan’s definition of India is that it doesn’t cross the Vindhyas or try to understand the many splendoured North Eastern States. Even the present state of Pakistan subsume several identities and cultures- Pathan, Sindhi, Baloch,Punjabi and many others within its’ fold. Ahsan defines the Indus culture competently. The colourful and pluralistic entity called India doesn’t render itself easy to simplistic characterizations. In the national consciousness of Pakistan, India is primarily the belt consisting Punjab, UP, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Bihar and J&K (which they believe ought to have been theirs). The period prior to National movement could be described as the one in which the distinctions, especially among the elite, between Indus and mainstream India came into sharp focus. I had always thought that a Punjabi from Pakistan can seamlessly integrate into Delhi culture today. A Malayali from the South or the Manipuri from North East is sure to feel alien. One couldn’t fault Ahsan for having swayed by a definition of India, which, I am sure many in India unwittingly hold. Even mainstream India couldn’t be easily characterized as bourgeoisie or mercantile. There are tribals, fuedals, artisans and several other strands that constitute the vast populace of India.
The book traces the development of the artificial divide of Hindu India vs Muslim Pakistan that continued for two centuries up to the end of colonial rule. Jinnah’s vision was not of an Islamic State but a state for Muslims. A vision, which was probably driven by a sense of alienation by sub-continental Muslims -or caused by the patronizing approach towards them by Nationalist leaders. A vision, which in hindsight, has gone horribly wrong. Without going into the sub text underlying the Indus-based definition, I can say that this book, written from jail during one of the author’s many detentions, is an un-prejudiced and candid analysis of Pakistan’s rich civilizational origins. This book would help us understand our neighbour better- and not let our impressions be shaped by the religious fervor of their bearded Mullahs or their violent loonies with suicide jackets and dreams of sex starved virgins in paradise or their Generals bandying about conspiracy theories.
The book “Indus Saga” written by prominent Pakistani Lawyer & Politician Aitzaz Ahsan is remarkable for many reasons. I have been trying to read it for the last few years and didn’t know that it has been published in India also (by Roli Books). Thanks to the simple wonders of internet shopping, I own a copy now and have been reading it with great interest these last few days. These are days when the stress at workplace doesn’t make it easy to do serious reading.
Ahsan, was a Minister in successive PPP (Pakistan People’s Party) ministries and more recently he came into limelight for leading the struggle to reinstate the Chief Justice of Pakistan. My Pakistani civil service class-mates from Australian National University say that Ahsan chose not to join the Civil Services of Pakistan, in spite of securing a high rank. He chose a life of politics and law. The movements for democracy and restoration of legal institutions that he spearheaded helped to retain Pakistan as a South Asian democracy and not another despotic theocracy or a military dictatorship. He is a politician who has even gone against his party leaders to stand up for the institutions he believed in.
The book gives an interesting perspective to the civilizational origins of Pakistan. Ahsan makes a distinction between India and Indus. The land west to the Indus river, he says, constitutes a civilization all by itself going back to the Harappan era. One that is different from mainstream Indian and West Asian cultures. He states that the Indus civilization is not entirely evolved from marauding armies from the West, or the cultural osmosis by predominantly Hindu India. From the Harappan days, Indus had its own culture and hence, the author argues, the idea of Pakistan existed prior to the artificial divide caused by partition. One may disagree with the author, but couldn’t but be impressed with his marshalling of facts to sustain his argument and develop it.
At another level, he argues that the martial/ feudal culture of the Indus as against the mercantile culture of India was what distinguishes the two nation-states. From the Harappan era through the colonial rule, the author plots the trajectory of the Indus culture. The absence of a maritime culture and the inability to assimilate the mercantile culture of the British are some of the features that distinguish the Indus culture. He tries to encapsulate the Indian culture as bourgeoisie as against the feudal culture of Indus- the accountant/ trader/ book-keeper of India as against the artisan/ peasant/ landlord of Indus. He argues that it was easier for Indians to assimilate the British mercantile system whereas the Indus couldn’t manage the transition as effortlessly.
The danger with Ahsan’s definition of India is that it doesn’t cross the Vindhyas or try to understand the many splendoured North Eastern States. Even the present state of Pakistan subsume several identities and cultures- Pathan, Sindhi, Baloch,Punjabi and many others within its’ fold. Ahsan defines the Indus culture competently. The colourful and pluralistic entity called India doesn’t render itself easy to simplistic characterizations. In the national consciousness of Pakistan, India is primarily the belt consisting Punjab, UP, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Bihar and J&K (which they believe ought to have been theirs). The period prior to National movement could be described as the one in which the distinctions, especially among the elite, between Indus and mainstream India came into sharp focus. I had always thought that a Punjabi from Pakistan can seamlessly integrate into Delhi culture today. A Malayali from the South or the Manipuri from North East is sure to feel alien. One couldn’t fault Ahsan for having swayed by a definition of India, which, I am sure many in India unwittingly hold. Even mainstream India couldn’t be easily characterized as bourgeoisie or mercantile. There are tribals, fuedals, artisans and several other strands that constitute the vast populace of India.
The book traces the development of the artificial divide of Hindu India vs Muslim Pakistan that continued for two centuries up to the end of colonial rule. Jinnah’s vision was not of an Islamic State but a state for Muslims. A vision, which was probably driven by a sense of alienation by sub-continental Muslims -or caused by the patronizing approach towards them by Nationalist leaders. A vision, which in hindsight, has gone horribly wrong. Without going into the sub text underlying the Indus-based definition, I can say that this book, written from jail during one of the author’s many detentions, is an un-prejudiced and candid analysis of Pakistan’s rich civilizational origins. This book would help us understand our neighbour better- and not let our impressions be shaped by the religious fervor of their bearded Mullahs or their violent loonies with suicide jackets and dreams of sex starved virgins in paradise or their Generals bandying about conspiracy theories.
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