Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has had a torrid couple of weeks. Ever since he inked that ill-fated joint statement in Sharm El-Sheikh, Manmohan Singh has been shredded to bits. By the opposition, by the media and worse, by his own partymen. It’s almost as if the genial Sardar has bartered away India’s sovereignty. That all honour and pride were sacrificed, because Pakistan got away with two phrases more.
For far too long, our foreign policy has been guided by narrow mindedness and petty point scoring. It doesn’t really matter where the commas and full stops are in a joint statement. Nor does it matter if India won the Yekaterinburg round and Pakistan made it even stevens with Sharm El Sheikh.
Little men are guided by timidity. Great nations thrive on courage. India is a country standing at the cusp of greatness. We cannot afford to be seen as timid and petty. We need to look at the larger picture. And the larger picture is that India needs to take the initiative in being the dominant player in South Asia. For which we need to ensure a stable South Asia. And that cannot happen if India and Pakistan, the region’s two biggest nations, behave like adolescent fighter-cocks, always at each other’s throats. It can only be achieved by sitting down and talking, through civilized dialogue. We need to think big, think bold.
That’s what Lincoln did. That’s what Gandhi did. And the world remembers them for precisely that. Because in their most difficult moments, they did not shy away. They didn’t buckle. They did not settle for less. India cannot settle for less.
Look at Barack Obama. Here’s a man who’s willing to talk to a country like Iran. A country, which just a few years ago, his predecessor had bracketed in the ‘Axis of Evil’. Today, Obama is not just willing to talk to Iran, he’s even done something that no US President has ever had the spinal cord to do. Apologize for past ills which the US has inflicted on the Muslim world. Because Obama realizes that history cannot bind you from moving ahead. History cannot hinder you from charting a new course. Manmohan Singh knows this too. He knows that India’s path to greatness will only clear if we resolve our disputes with our neighbours. And our dispute with Pakistan tops that list.
Look at China. President Hu Jintao has sorted out every land dispute China has had with its neighbours, (and there are more than 15 of them) save the one with India. Forget about ASEAN and Shanghai Co-operation, where China is the most dominant player already, today there’s talk of a G2. Just China and the United States. India, at the same time, is still stuck in the diplomacy of the seventies.
By de-linking terror and talks, the PM has only done the most sensible thing. That is to not hold the composite dialogue hostage to each and every terrorist attack. It was almost like an on-off button. Every time there was a terror strike, the first casualty would be the dialogue process. Not that suspending the dialogue every time decreased terrorism directed against India. It’s not like we had great leverage with Pakistan in the first place, just because terror and talks were linked.
After the Mumbai attacks, India received a lot of sympathy. And we have used that to the hilt to squeeze Pakistan as much as we can. But there’s only so much sympathy can buy. You can’t keep playing victim all the time. Coercive diplomacy comes with a use-by-date. Civilized nations talk. And that’s all India and Pakistan agreed to do, in Sharm El-Sheikh.
The other big brouhaha was created over the reference to Balochistan. The Leader of the Opposition says, this will haunt us for the rest of time. I don’t know what we’re so afraid of. Great nations don’t run away from the truth, however uncomfortable it may be. They confront it. All that the PM has said is this, “Ok Mr. Gilani, I understand your concerns on Balochistan. Give me evidence of Indian involvement and we are prepared to talk about it.” That doesn’t mean we have readily admitted that we’re fawning terror in Balochistan.
The onus now is on the Pakistanis to prove that India is interfering in Balochistan. And trust me, in the world of covert intelligence these things are as hard to prove as walking on water. Manmohan Singh is a sensible man. He’s not the type who’ll play darts blindfolded.
Yes, agreed there are vested interests in Pakistan that don’t want us to talk. Just like there are vested interests in India which don’t want us to talk. The Army and intelligence establishment in Pakistan are only interested in fanning passions between India and Pakistan. It’s critical to their existence. We need to fight those vested interests. The same interests which are inimical to Pakistan are inimical to India too. The Good Doctor understands this. He wants to break away from 62 years of low trickery and petty pin-pricks. For once, let us give him the benefit of doubt.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
WALTER CRONKITE (1916 - 2009). R.I.P.
Walter Cronkite, the voice of TV news is dead. Thus, screamed New York Times’ lead headline, Saturday morning. It was one of those moments. When you know that the world will be worse off. When you know that an institution had passed away.
When I came to work that afternoon, I asked around in the newsroom on how many people knew of a man named Walter Cronkite. Sadly, but as expected, not many did. A man, who for an entire generation was the only source of news, was today an unknown entity for the Youtube generation.
Yet Cronkite is as relevant today as ever before. In these times of shrill, high pitched reporting and opinionators masquerading as news anchors, Cronkite is the man to turn to. He was the man who America turned to every evening to know what was happening in the world around them. And this relationship between Cronkite and America was built on one fundamental quality. Trust.
No wonder, in 1995, 14 years after he retired from the Evening News, Walter Cronkite was America’s most trusted man. More than even President Clinton, who at that time was at the peak of his powers.
He became something of a national institution. Cronkite’s presence was reassuring. America trusted him with the news, whether good or bad. And for his part Cronkite too stuck to the news. He didn’t need to pilfer news with his own opinion or spiel to make it sound ‘sexy’. He told the news, just the way it was.
“I am a news presenter, a news broadcaster, an anchorman, a managing editor — not a commentator or analyst,” he said in an interview with The Christian Science Monitor. “I feel no compulsion to be a pundit.” He rarely pronounced judgment.
News TV, both in the States and here in India has a lot to learn from Uncle Walter. News television today has been reduced to slam-bang talkathons. It’s so darn predictable. If it’s a political issue, get a Congress guy and a BJP guy. Get both of them to have a go at each other. In between, anchors evangelize their two bits.
And there’s a very simple reason why news TV has been reduced to this dirty theatre. Talk is cheap and talk sells. Talk is also entertaining and lazy. Therefore, there’s so much talk in the news. Anchoring in news TV has been reduced to hectoring and finger-wagging. And often times, I myself, have been guilty of this.
And so as I mourn the loss of such an invaluable soul, let me also solemnly reaffirm my pledge to all that Walter Cronkite stood for. Fairness, objectivity and the pursuit of truth. And that’s the way it is.
When I came to work that afternoon, I asked around in the newsroom on how many people knew of a man named Walter Cronkite. Sadly, but as expected, not many did. A man, who for an entire generation was the only source of news, was today an unknown entity for the Youtube generation.
Yet Cronkite is as relevant today as ever before. In these times of shrill, high pitched reporting and opinionators masquerading as news anchors, Cronkite is the man to turn to. He was the man who America turned to every evening to know what was happening in the world around them. And this relationship between Cronkite and America was built on one fundamental quality. Trust.
No wonder, in 1995, 14 years after he retired from the Evening News, Walter Cronkite was America’s most trusted man. More than even President Clinton, who at that time was at the peak of his powers.
He became something of a national institution. Cronkite’s presence was reassuring. America trusted him with the news, whether good or bad. And for his part Cronkite too stuck to the news. He didn’t need to pilfer news with his own opinion or spiel to make it sound ‘sexy’. He told the news, just the way it was.
“I am a news presenter, a news broadcaster, an anchorman, a managing editor — not a commentator or analyst,” he said in an interview with The Christian Science Monitor. “I feel no compulsion to be a pundit.” He rarely pronounced judgment.
News TV, both in the States and here in India has a lot to learn from Uncle Walter. News television today has been reduced to slam-bang talkathons. It’s so darn predictable. If it’s a political issue, get a Congress guy and a BJP guy. Get both of them to have a go at each other. In between, anchors evangelize their two bits.
And there’s a very simple reason why news TV has been reduced to this dirty theatre. Talk is cheap and talk sells. Talk is also entertaining and lazy. Therefore, there’s so much talk in the news. Anchoring in news TV has been reduced to hectoring and finger-wagging. And often times, I myself, have been guilty of this.
And so as I mourn the loss of such an invaluable soul, let me also solemnly reaffirm my pledge to all that Walter Cronkite stood for. Fairness, objectivity and the pursuit of truth. And that’s the way it is.
Monday, July 13, 2009
THE CURIOUS CASE OF COMRADE VS
In the legions of Communist struggles, the one revolt which is always cited in almost ‘halo’ey terms is the Punnapra Vayalar agitation of 1946. Almost a 1000 Communist party workers fought a bloody battle with the police on the picturesque beaches of Punnapra. Among them was a young 22 year old, coir factory worker. Velikkakathu Sankaran Achuthanandan. It was the first anti-burgeois battle that he fought. Over the years, he has fought a thousand more.
Today VS Achuthanandan or Comrade VS as he’s fondly called is one of the stalwarts of the Communist movement in Kerala. He’s also an isolated man. His party, the CPI(M), of which he is one of the founding fathers, has decided to dump him. The oldest member of the party’s highest decision making body, the Politburo, no longer has a place in this esteemed club. He has been ‘disciplined’, almost as if VS were a 22 year old rebel. You don’t ‘discipline’ an 83 year old veteran.
When VS along with fellow comrades blew up the Mayithara bridge in Mararikulam, his hometown, it was one of the most fervent challenges to the then Dewan of Travancore, the legendary Sir CP Ramaswamy Aiyar. Prakash Karat wasn’t even born then. Today, 61 year old Karat, guided by pelfs and pimps, has decided to dump the 83 year old VS.
Not that VS is not used to such ham-handed behaviour by the high command. The legendary EMS had censured VS because he offered to donate blood to Indian soldiers in the Indo-China war of 1962. For the Comrades, defying China was sacrilege.
VS’ luck has been awful at times. If he had his way, he should’ve been Chief Minister back in 1996. The party had won a decisive victory. VS was the state secretary and the man tipped for the top job. Unfortunately he lost from his hometown of Mararikulam, for the first time since 1967. He was done in by his own detractors within the party. VS had to make way for EK Nayanar. Five years later he won a handsome victory from Malampuzha. His party though bit the dust.
For the next five years, as Leader of the Opposition, he was at the helm of every major people’s agitation. From Muthanga to Plachimada to Idukki, if there was a people’s cause, VS was always there at the forefront. Come the next election in 2006, he was the most eligible claimant for the Chief Minister’s chair. Unfortunately his party let him down once again.
Once again Prakash Karat, guided by power mongerers decided not to give a ticket to VS. There was a people’s revolt. Something the Communists had never witnessed before. At virtually every street corner, a VS cutout or a VS poster sprang up. The iron-fisted theorists sitting in AKG Bhavan were hit by a tsunami of people’s power. For the first time, the Polit Buro had to reverse a decision, under popular pressure. VS got a ticket. The LDF won and VS became Chief Minister.
But the same sharks and savagers wouldn’t let go. For three years and some months now, they’ve made life hell for VS. He was Chief Minister only on paper. The real power lay in the corridors of AKG Bhavan, both in Delhi and Trivandrum. At every possible instance, VS was cut down to size. And last week’s decision to drop him from the Polit Buro was the final cut. The unkindest of all.
VS now has only two options. One, to succumb to the party high command and accept it’s decision meekly. The other, to revolt and walk out of the party. Which one will 83 year old, angry young man choose?
Today VS Achuthanandan or Comrade VS as he’s fondly called is one of the stalwarts of the Communist movement in Kerala. He’s also an isolated man. His party, the CPI(M), of which he is one of the founding fathers, has decided to dump him. The oldest member of the party’s highest decision making body, the Politburo, no longer has a place in this esteemed club. He has been ‘disciplined’, almost as if VS were a 22 year old rebel. You don’t ‘discipline’ an 83 year old veteran.
When VS along with fellow comrades blew up the Mayithara bridge in Mararikulam, his hometown, it was one of the most fervent challenges to the then Dewan of Travancore, the legendary Sir CP Ramaswamy Aiyar. Prakash Karat wasn’t even born then. Today, 61 year old Karat, guided by pelfs and pimps, has decided to dump the 83 year old VS.
Not that VS is not used to such ham-handed behaviour by the high command. The legendary EMS had censured VS because he offered to donate blood to Indian soldiers in the Indo-China war of 1962. For the Comrades, defying China was sacrilege.
VS’ luck has been awful at times. If he had his way, he should’ve been Chief Minister back in 1996. The party had won a decisive victory. VS was the state secretary and the man tipped for the top job. Unfortunately he lost from his hometown of Mararikulam, for the first time since 1967. He was done in by his own detractors within the party. VS had to make way for EK Nayanar. Five years later he won a handsome victory from Malampuzha. His party though bit the dust.
For the next five years, as Leader of the Opposition, he was at the helm of every major people’s agitation. From Muthanga to Plachimada to Idukki, if there was a people’s cause, VS was always there at the forefront. Come the next election in 2006, he was the most eligible claimant for the Chief Minister’s chair. Unfortunately his party let him down once again.
Once again Prakash Karat, guided by power mongerers decided not to give a ticket to VS. There was a people’s revolt. Something the Communists had never witnessed before. At virtually every street corner, a VS cutout or a VS poster sprang up. The iron-fisted theorists sitting in AKG Bhavan were hit by a tsunami of people’s power. For the first time, the Polit Buro had to reverse a decision, under popular pressure. VS got a ticket. The LDF won and VS became Chief Minister.
But the same sharks and savagers wouldn’t let go. For three years and some months now, they’ve made life hell for VS. He was Chief Minister only on paper. The real power lay in the corridors of AKG Bhavan, both in Delhi and Trivandrum. At every possible instance, VS was cut down to size. And last week’s decision to drop him from the Polit Buro was the final cut. The unkindest of all.
VS now has only two options. One, to succumb to the party high command and accept it’s decision meekly. The other, to revolt and walk out of the party. Which one will 83 year old, angry young man choose?
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