Pride in Kashmir

32

If we can have Bihari pride and Marathi pride, why not Kashmiri pride? Beyond the stone pelters, a new voice is trying to make itself heard in Kashmir. A new century has brought a new generation, a generation marked not by ideology but, like young people all over India, marked by ambition and self assertion. Unless Indian policymakers junk their Islamophobic security centred attitude to Kashmir, we will fail to hear this new voice. The Kashmiri 'intifadah' this time seems not to be totally centred on azaadi. While azaadi may be voiced as a generalised sentiment or as a political lever by the usual political players in the Hurriyat, much of the impetus behind the current youthful rage seems to be not to break away from India, but paradoxically, the urge to belong to India. The urge to be accepted as children of India's economic success not as orphans....

Dot-headed and elephant-nosed

53

Indians are either imitations of white Americans or overly assertive about culture Indian 'dotheads' with their multiple armed, elephant nosed gods have taken over the once pure white American town of Edison, New Jersey and destroyed forever the memories of innocent white boyhood. That's the burden of Joel Stein's controversial article in Time magazine that led to so much uproar among the Indian American community in the US, that Time and Stein were forced to apologise. But while Indian Americans have expressed their outrage at Stein's "humour" and asked why a mainstream publication like Time should publish such an article, there is also an argument that Indians should learn to take themselves less seriously. Our gods after all are multiple armed and elephant nosed, our food is often spicy to the exclusion of taste, and the dots and dashes on our foreheads can look hilarious to those....

The crumpled sari

39

Mamata triumphs at a time when mass leaders are becoming extinct. The crumpled sari is decidedly unaesthetic. So is the untidy hair and rough speech. But then if you are a lone woman without patronage or godfathers or family lineage, fighting a brutal Left Front machine for twenty years, perhaps you can't afford the luxury of being a bhadramahila(genteel woman). Mamata Banerjee may be the object of elite derision for her wild ways, but the fact is that she is a remarkable politician, one who gives hope that the dream of Indian democracy is still alive. The Trinamool triumph in West Bengal's municipal elections has created worry that West Bengal is going from the frying pan of the Left to the fire of the Trinamool. But there are many reasons to celebrate the victory. The old man in a loin cloth, who knew that the biggest curse of....

Caste off those blinkers

55

India's elite needs to come to terms with caste The headlines scream almost every day: 'Girl allegedly murdered because of inter-caste romance', 'Couple killed by relatives because of caste honour'. The matrimonials are unabashed: 'Match sought for fair khatri girl," or 'Brahmin boy seeks Brahmin partner.' A Delhi mother whispers that her daughter's choice of husband is not "our kind of person" , but stops short of admitting that the prospective groom is basically not from the same caste. Characters in Bollywood films bear surnames that are drawn from the very narrow social pool of Sharma Mehta and Roy. Indians may be holidaying in Phuket, shopping at Mango and devouring Sex and the City, but one social reality just refuses to go away. And that reality is caste. Should caste matter to a modern Indian? Of course it shouldn't. Yet whether we like it or not, caste is....

You, me and Dantewada

59

The Maoist attack in Dantewada has brought out two opposing arguments. One argument focuses on a savagely unequal socio-economic reality where state neglect and exploitation have spawned a fearsome response. The other view argues that unless the state forcefully stamps out the lethal Maoist army, all attempts at addressing development are futile. Yet there is a third view, a view distinct from the noblesse oblige of a welfarist argument that places charity at its centre and the Bismarckian blood and iron argument of those who believe in matching militancy with militancy. And that is the argument of reform. The revolution of the poor is calling for reform from the rich. The Naxal challenge, however criminalized and politically motivated it may be, is calling to us to create a new social contract based on partnership of rich and poor. The word `reform' so far is sadly identified with finance markets....

Ladies compartment

59

High gender justice rhetoric followed by anti-climactic bathos. That seems to be the story of the Women's Reservation Bill that was passed in the Rajya Sabha yesterday. It's the longest running saas-bahu soap opera in Indian politics. Thrice introduced, thrice aborted for the last 14 years, governments have tried to move the Bill. Every time the Bill has been moved, it has been vociferously opposed by the 'social justice' lobby of Lalu Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav and, with monotonous regularity sent back to cold storage. The Bill, reserving one-third seats in Lok Sabha and assemblies, strikes at the heart of gender relations in India. Patriarchal societies cosset and oppress their women in equal measure. In the violent high stakes game of Indian politics, women are tolerable as supportive wives and daughters who step out shyly to become a substitute for dead husbands or brothers, but intolerable when....

The Dhritarashtra syndrome

49

Even clever political heavyweights are blind about their sons. There is a well-known syndrome in Indian politics known as the Dhritarashtra syndrome. Last week as expelled Samajwadi Party heavyweight Amar Singh held forth on the fate that has befallen the Samajwadi Party and listed his grievances in exhaustive detail, it became clear that once again another political "outsider" had fallen victim to the Dhritarashtra syndrome. The blind parent, blindly partial to his own bloodline, usually alienates the second-in-command. In a fit of self-destructiveness, he fatally damages his own political achievements and legacy by becoming intent on anointing his son. Dhritarashtra, the blind king of Hastinapur has many 21st century avatars. The spirit of Dhritarashtra enters the bodies of men, who are always clever politicians who have built political parties, yet men who throw their cleverness to the winds, when it comes to the political future of their....

From Three Idiots to a Nation Of Idiots

379

Before I went to see Three Idiots watching the film had become something of a sacred duty. Friends telephoned from Mumbai and hissed furiously, "You mean you haven't seen Three Idiots? Why? It's the best movie ever." Cousins cornered me at family gatherings and shouted, "When are you seeing Three Idiots? Its brilliant, its excellent, it's the best." With a chorus of "excellent", "brilliant", "fantastic", "the best" ringing in my ears, jet propelled by the force of family pressure I dutifully lined up on a freezing January afternoon in Delhi, and accompanied by a glassy-eyed horde who had no doubt also been dragooned into the theatre by armies of friends and relatives, we all surged in, breathless with anticipation, to watch Three Idiots. And did Three Idiots the film live up to the hosannahs and eulogies that I heard chanted? Did the film deserve the tidal wave of frenzied....

Over to you, citizens of India. It's time to demand justice for Ruchika

112

Our criminal justice system has once again failed. Once again the ghost of a young girl cries out to be heard. In a country that celebrates its woman president, its woman speaker of the Lok Sabha, its woman leader of the Opposition and its woman head of the Congress party, once again this country is in danger of failing a powerless young woman. The criminal justice system has failed Ruchika Girhotra, as it once failed Bhanvari Devi, Jessica Lal and Priyadarshani Mattoo. Indian society's horrifyingly patriarchal face, is revealed again, where a powerful and influential male babu or politician is able to twist the system so efficiently that for 19 long years not only is justice denied, but a modest family is harassed, driven out of employment, and forced into hiding out of fear. Justice denied so completely that a desperate child, alone in her solitary grief, has been driven....

Speaking the language of change

51

2009 marks the return of the English-speaking politician. Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh is India's new king of climate, leading our country's charge against Western nations who are forcing India to accept carbon emission cuts. The IIT-educated Ramesh is an unlikely nationalist folk hero, and in spite of being targeted by the Opposition on his alleged sell out to the West, it is he who now embodies India's national interest at Copenhagen. Even before Jairam Ramesh became Mr Green India, the Harvard Business School educated Home Minister P Chidambaram has already been consolidating his image as Mr Strong India. Chidambaram proudly claims that in spite of several attempts by terrorists, India has been able to foil all terror attacks in the last year. His speeches have charted a bold new position of defending the `Idea Of India' from "Islamic terrorism", "Hindu extremism" and "ideologically-driven violence." ....