MESSAGE FROM MUMBAI

As a political animal, there’s nothing more fascinating than following the Great Indian Dance of Democracy. Every once in a while, when millions of ordinary Indians put their faith in the power of their vote and pass verdict on their elected representatives. And so it was this past week in Maharashtra, one of India’s largest states. The Indian voter has spoken and this is his message from Mumbai.

RETURN OF THE GOP
I hate to sound like a Khadi-sporting Congresswallah, but the fact is that the Grand Old Party is returning to its heydays in the fifties and sixties. The Congress is slowly but surely going back to being the natural party of governance. Not so much in terms of number of seats, but definitely in terms of its umbrella social coalition. And there are two very good reasons for it. The Muslims and Dalits who deserted the GOP through the politics of mandal and kamandal in the nineties are now returning.

To know the Muslim story in this election, just look at Amravati. Look at how the President’s son won. He was trailing till almost five rounds into counting. It’s only in the next four rounds when the votes of Muslim dominated segments started getting counted, that he emerged winner. It’s symptomatic of what Muslims across Maharashtra have done.

For the Dalit story, look at what happened in Vidarbha. Of the 27 seats won by the Congress and NCP, 24 of them have gone to the Congress. The BSP and the RPI, traditional Dalit parties in Vidarbha have been totally decimated. Behenji has to do more than just flash opulent Louis Vuitton bags if she wants Dalits to back her fully.

Whether it’s the Muslims in Haji Ali road or the Dalits in Khairlanji, they’re willing to go saath saath with the Congress ka haath. And if this happens in Mumbai, it’s quite possible it will happen in Patna and in Lucknow. Watch out for the big two next.

YOU LOSE, THEREFORE I WIN
And contributing in handsome measure to the Congress’ impressive display is the imbecile, spineless and divided opposition. In fact, if not for Raj Thackeray, this election would’ve been as good as a goner for the GOP. Consider this. Apart from the 13 seats the MNS won, Raj Thackeray also turned the tide in 28 other constituencies. Which basically means, his party polled more votes than the margin of defeat of the BJP-Sena candidate. That’s a total of 41 seats. And in those 41 seats lies the story of this election.

What gives this a national dimension, is that this is the exact same thing that Vijaykanth did in Tamil Nadu and what Chiranjeevi did in Andhra Pradesh in the last general elections. Between these 3 states, we’re talking of 130 seats. That’s a quarter of the Lok Sabha. In Tamil Nadu, in the last LS elections, Vijaykanth polled more than one lakh votes in 25 constituencies. The opposition space has never been as fragmented today as anytime in the last 3 decades.

WHITHER BJP?
More than any other party, the BJP has the most to worry about, after this election. The party has lost close to 5 percent voteshare in Maharashtra this time. It has been relegated to fifth place. The message is simple. The politics of mandir has run its course. It’s time for a new beginning. And for that the BJP needs a classic Class IV moment. And it desperately needs a ‘Tony Blair’ kind of figure to lead it into the future. That’s what Labour did in Britain after 15 years of Iron Lady Thatcher. It re-defined itself. And has now been in power for more than 12 years now. The Tories are doing that just now. They’ll reap the rewards for it in next year’s election. Political processes take time and the BJP will have to go through this painful but necessary journey. In the interests of healthy democracy, we need a strong BJP. Life would be so boring without the Jaitleys and Modis of the world. Buckle up boys!

UNDERSTANDING RAJ THACKERAY

The easiest thing to do with Raj Thackeray is to hate the guy. And there are a large number of Bombay Scottish educated, Colaba-residing Bombayiites who do that. And much of that anger and hatred is justified. But the more difficult thing is to try and make sense of him. Why does he tick? Why is he so popular and who is voting for him?

Let’s just get the bare numbers out first. Because numbers don’t lie. And numbers cannot be partisan. And numbers definitely don’t speak Marathi or Bhojpuri. Numbers will help us understand the Raj Thackeray phenomenon.

In the last Lok Sabha elections, the MNS contested only 12 seats. In each of those, except one, it polled more than one lakh votes. In the Mumbai-Thane region, which accounts for about nine seats, the MNS polled as much as 21 percent of the votes. Meaning, one in five voted for Raj Thackeray. And this in a Lok Sabha election where the chances of his candidates winning is slimmer than what it would be in an Assembly election.

There is clearly a constituency that he’s appealing to. And mind you, as the CSDS post-poll study showed, Raj is not just taking away traditional Sena-BJP votes. That’s the biggest myth floating around. That Raj Thackeray is dividing the saffron vote and hence helping the Congress and NCP. Muslim youths have voted for him. Dalits have. And so have women. These are not traditional Sena constituencies. These are traditional Congress votebanks. How does one explain this?

Interestingly, unlike his uncle, Raj has never positioned himself as a crusader for Hindus alone. He has carefully projected himself to be a pin-up boy for the entire Marathi multitude. And therein lies his political acumen.

There’s a definite vacuum in Maharashtra’s politics today. There’s no political entity or figure that traditional middle-class young Marathis relate to. And by traditional Marathis, I mean the sons and daughters of erstwhile mill-workers, government clerks, teachers and intellectuals. The Sena no longer appeals to them. They don’t figure in the priorities of the Congress and NCP. So who do they turn to? Naturally, it’s this vacuum that Raj has successfully managed to occupy.

And the Shiv Sena has only itself to blame for allowing this Frankenstein to grow. It’s easy to blame the Congress-NCP for feeding and fostering the MNS. But part of the reason for the MNS’ appeal lies in the Sena’s own failings.

The BJP-Shiv Sena has been the worst opposition in the history of Maharashtra. For ten years, they have allowed an absolutely insipid, imbecile government to stumble from one failure to another.

More than 2 million Maharashtrians lost jobs even before the recession. The state languishes third from the bottom in terms of number of people living below the poverty line. Only UP and Bihar are worse. 40,000 farmers have committed suicide since 1995. And to top it all, the state is reeling under a combined debt of 1.5 lakh crores, the highest in the country.
Yet the BJP-Sena’s complete cloddishness has made the Congress & NCP look like angels. And it’s this empty opposition space that Raj is trying to corner. Love him or hate him, the Thackeray cub is here to stay. Jai Maharashtra!

(P.S. By the way, Karan Johar does owe all of us a collective apology. Not for using the term Bombay. But for making such a lousy film. Downright trash.)

SOUMYA

She was the best among us. The very best. Soumya. Every time I see those eyes, I shudder. Why did this have to happen? Why her?

It’s been a year. And it’s gone in the blink of an eye. Her images keep floating in your head like flashes from an old movie. Those eyes. Aah those eyes. They were the most beautiful any woman had. Those eyes lent an endearing quality to her. People took to her, like moths to a flame.

There’s not a soul I know, who has bad things to tell of her. And that in this bitchy, cut-throat, shameful world is a rarity. I can’t think of another living person I know who could boast of this honour. (My grandfather comes closest. He’s been dead a couple of years now)

As a worker, she was one of the finest. I’ve never heard her say no to work. Never. Not even in the dead of night. Alas, if only she had! On the night she died, Soumya stayed back in office, beyond her call of duty. For what? For an ungrateful employer to earn a few crores more!

No matter what I say and feel, it will not even be a patch on what her folks have gone through in this past year. What can we offer? Only empty words. We can’t and never will be able to fathom their grief, unless we’ve lost an offspring so young. Which is why, it was so refreshing to see the parents of Jigisha Ghosh and Aarushi Talwar at Soumya’s anniversary. Apparently, they’ve been in touch with Soumya’s folks. After all, they’ve gone through the most horrendous of horrors. Losing a child to murder.

She was the last person I bid goodbye to before leaving office on that fateful night. I had just returned after a long marriage holiday. And the last thing she said was, “We should go out over the weekend. I want to see your wife and tell her what a big mistake she just made.” Ann never had the good fortune of meeting Soumya. Life is indeed a bitch.

OF CATTLE CLASS & HOLY COWS

For all those Congresswallahs who are seething with rage at Shashi Tharoor’s uncharitable comments about the High Command, a reading of his book From Midnight to Millennium is highly recommended. He has criticized, the Holiest of Holy cows in the Congress. The Godmother herself, Indira Gandhi. This is Tharoor on the original Mrs. G.

"Had Indira’s Parsi husband been a Toddywalla (liquor trader) rather than so conveniently a Gandhi, I sometime wonder, might India’s political history have been different?" Heresy, anyone?

This post is not an attempt to justify or decry Tharoor for what he did. Just an attempt to find humour where it scarcely exists. In our politics.

In the whole debate on cattle class and holy cows, everyone seems to have missed out on the obvious. In the end, it’s not Shashi Tharoor who’s emerged a loser. But it’s the Great Indian Chattering Class. They’ve been shown for what they are. Uptight, humourless twits who can’t take a bit of self-depreciation.

In this country we tend to take everything seriously. And you don’t need a Shashi Tharoor to point out the holy cows in our life. From academics to cricket to even our politics. Irreverence is not something that comes naturally to us. We’d much rather worship than question. In our politics, finding an irreverent politician with a sense of humour is like finding a needle in a haystack. Any Parliament reporter will tell you that. Why do you think Lalu is such a media favourite, despite his million failings?

Maybe Tharoor should drive down to 14, Akbar Road to meet his fellow Stephanian Mani Shankar Aiyar. Now, there are a lot of people who hate Mani’s cocky arrogance, but you can’t grudge the man’s wit. Sample this. “Since Sitaram Kesri is all of 31 years younger than the Congress party itself, he has everything it takes to rejuvenate the party.”

But it’s his pet-hate, the BJP, which brings out the secular fundamentalist in Mani. This one’s about Enron and the BJP. “The mystique of unctuous self-righteousness that the BJP assiduously cultivated has been ripped open. They said they would throw Enron into the Arabian Sea. Now they are, metaphorically, in bed with Rebecca Mark.”

But, here’s a disclaimer for Mr. Tharoor. For all his Aiyarisms, Mani will also tell you how utterly boring it is to be an out of work politician in Delhi. Lesson one in politics: never upset the high command.

Each political party has its own set of Holy cows. For the Congress it’s the Gandhi parivar. For the BJP, it’s the Sangh parivar. For the Commies it’s Marx and his parivar. Anyone who dares to question these is cast out as a traitor. It’s a testimony to just how rigid our politics and especially our political parties have become. Did someone say internal democracy?

Our netas need a class in political humour from the Brits and the Americans. Obama can call Sarah Palin a pig who wears lipstick and yet the world doesn’t come crashing down. David Cameron calls Gordon Brown a complete phoney, and there’s still as much water flowing in the Thames. Only in India are politicians revered to the point of puking.

It’s only fitting to sign off with the most irrepressible of British politicians, Winston Churchill. This is a conversation that happened between him and Lady Astor in the British Parliament. After a bout of intense arguments over the war and his government’s handling of it, Lady Astor signed off by saying “Frankly Winston, if you were my husband, I’d mix poison in your morning tea.” To which the razor-sharp Churchill replies “Frankly, Nancy, if you were my wife, I’d drink it.” Imagine Jairam Ramesh saying that to Sushma Swaraj? Can it ever happen in uptight, puritanical India? Your guess is as good as mine.

A YEAR AFTER LEHMAN

The more things change, the more they remain the same. A year after Lehman Brothers collapsed, what’s surprising on Wall Street is not how much has changed, but how little has.

To be fair with the Ben Bernankes and Henry Paulsons of the world, they did the right thing by bailing out the financial industry. If not, we would’ve not been referring to the events of the past year as just a recession. It would’ve simply been the Great Depression Act 2 Scene 1.

But having said that, what Bernanke & Co didn’t do was reform the system. They just rescued it, that’s all. The fundamental flaw of big banks cutting nine figure paychecks for executives who take irrational risks for short-term profits still exists. Banks are still rewarding bad actors. Only worse, these are the same guys who were bailed out by taxpayer largesse.

Now I don’t belong to the Investment Bankers hate club. I think it’s an honourable profession just like anything else. But my problem with this business is there are too many incentives for irrational risk-taking and too few punishments, if those risks don’t pay off.

And those incentives still exist. At the time of writing this post, Goldman Sachs was preparing to pay its 30,000 employees an average of $700,000. That’s pretty much what it was before the crash. So if I am a taxpayer who’s hard-earned money has bailed out these fattened chicken, then what am I to believe?

The impression that’s going around is that no matter what happens at these big banks, the government will always bail them out. So what’s happening is that investors are once again beginning to lend money to these banks and other financial majors on easy terms. That in turn will prompt the banks to take on risky loans. (After all, it’s somebody else’s money). When the going’s good, the banks keep the profits. When it turns sour, taxpayers will swallow the losses anyway. Heads I win, tails I still win.

A small case in point. Even today, even after the cataclysm of the global financial bust, in Goldman Sachs $1 in actual capital supports $14 in loans and investments. This is the same bloody over-leveraging which led to the financial bloodbath of last fall.

There’s simply no question that there has to be more regulation. That’s daft. The question is: is there the political will to do the same. Obama is a transformational politician. Can he also be a transformational President? History will judge his Presidency by what he did to correct the flaws which led to the catastrophe of September 2008. Or what he could have but didn’t do.

REMEMBERING YSR

In May of 2003, the Times of India carried a very poignant photograph. It showed a bare-chested man, by the side of a highway in Andhra Pradesh, taking a shower from a government water pipeline. The photo would’ve been nondescript, if not for its subject. The man in the picture was YS Rajasekhara Reddy. YSR was then criss-crossing the most backward districts of his state, in what’s now being called his famous padayatra. But back then, it was called a gimmick by the state’s second most powerful politician.

Hundreds of miles away, in Hyderabad, the state’s most powerful politician, the self-proclaimed CEO of Andhra, Chandrababu Naidu was rubbing shoulders with corporate czars and chairmen of global banks. The state was going through one of the worst droughts ever. But Naidu’s worldview was restricted only to the swank IT super-structures of Cyberabad. Poverty, hunger and disease were unknown aliens. Who has time for the starving millions when there are millions to count in Swiss banks?

Well ten months later, the starving millions punished Naidu in the only way they knew. With the power of their vote. Back then too, no one in the media (both national and regional) gave YSR a chance. Naidu was after all the model Chief Minister. Who could dare predict his defeat?

Now as the country comes to terms with the shocking and sudden death of the Tiger of Cudappah, my mind goes back to that one image. It, in many ways defined YSR. The man, the politician and all that he stood for. He was a people’s politician. Always there to lend a ear or a shoulder. It’s this incredible people’s connect that made YSR what he was. In his native village of Pulivendula, people will tell you that YS knew the head of every family by his first name. In contrast, Naidu appeared aloof and distant.

I’ve had the good fortune of meeting YS on a couple of occasions in Delhi during his various trips to meet the high command. The first thing that strikes you about the man is his body language. He was so supremely confident. He would always look you in the eye, even if you asked the most uncomfortable question. And not to forget, the YS smile. He had the most endearing and warm smile you’ll find in any of our netas. It immediately drew you to the man. In the cut-throat world of our politics, it’s difficult to find a politician who smiles from the inside. Chandrababu would pay a million bucks to smile like that.

Unfortunately in our politics, there are no headlines for good governance. All the headlines are reserved for bad governance. What YS managed to prove with the 2009 victory is that people will vote for you purely on the basis of good work. It was incredible, during the campaign you’d run into these extremely poor people, ordinary folk who didn’t know where their next meal would come from, but they’d still be able to name atleast one scheme that YS had started. Arogyasri was very popular. So was the Indiramma housing scheme. The point is that these poor people may not even have been direct beneficiaries of these schemes, but to them, atleast here was a man who appeared to care for them. And that’s all the starving millions in this country ask for. Some compassion. A bit of empathy.

At a time when politicians are taking management lessons to run their constituencies, YS was a misfit. Straight out of the old school. A classical, old-world politician who’s politics was all about caring for the poor and the weak. There was no great rocket science to his politics. Just basic human compassion.

Mass hysteria is not something alien in the melodramatic world of South India. We’ve seen it when MGR died. Then when NTR passed away. And most recently when Annavaru, Dr. Rajkumar bid adieu. But mass hysteria was always reserved for filmstars or for matinee idols turned politicians. Never for an out and out politician. YSR changed that. And that gives you an indication of his greatness. Johar Rajanna. Johar.

KAMINEY: HOW HYPE CAN KILL A GOOD FILM

If the title of this post is misleading, let me clarify right at the start. Kaminey is not a bad film. In fact it’s a good film. But it just stops short of being a great one.

Especially when you compare it with the regular Bollywood staple, this is like manna from heaven. It’s the kind of film which a Karan Johar, even if he’s twice re-born will not have the skills or daring to make. It takes a man of supreme conviction and craft to put together such a racy, pulsating film.

My problem with Kaminey is that it didn’t sweep me off my feet. It didn’t blow my top off. Like Dev D or Departed did. The kind of film which sends an electric shock through your cerebrum, shaking your system down to the marrow. Kaminey just pretended to do that.

And part of it has to do with the stratospherical hype that preceded the film. The makers of the film and their friends in the media made this out to be our answer to Tarantino and Guy Ritchie. And it falls short only because of this irrational chest-thumping and trumpet blowing.

Not one film reviewer in this country gave it less than four stars. In fact the film critic of the country’s most popular newspaper gave it the same rating as she had given to Love Aaj Kal. There cannot be a greater travesty. It’s like equating Cabernet Sauvignon and horse piss.

It seems to be a bit of a strategy these days with Bollywood films. Go on this publicity blitzkrieg before the release of the film. Send the lead pair (sometimes with the director, to bring that intellectual touch) to do the rounds of TV studios. Hype the movie to such heights that out of sheer curiosity the viewer will go and watch. And if you’ve made it in the opening weekend, then it’s as good as a home run.

But publicity also has its negative side. The audience has already been fed with great expectations. So they expect to see Citizen Kane every time they walk into a movie hall. And invariably, the real thing always feels pale compared to the hyperbole built around it. And that’s what has killed Kaminey, an otherwise perfectly good film.

For three-quarters of its length, Kaminey keeps you engaged. Just like any edge of the seat thriller. But it’s in the climax that Vishal Bhardwaj lets you down. It’s too tepid an end for a movie which promised to take you to the moon and back. In the end, it’s just regular caper fare. Why should good always prevail over evil? Why should both the brothers live and one not die? Why should it always be happily-ever-after?

Funnily I’m reminded of Marlon Brando’s famous line in On the Waterfront. Funny, because Terry (Brando) says this to Charlie (Rod Steiger). “I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender.” This one’s from a fan to our very own Charlie.

FEAR AND FARCE IN LANKA

During and even before the war, ordinary Sinhalas considered Mahinda Rajapakse, a national hero. Some one who had dared to do what no other President could even contemplate in mere thoughts. Today, after the war, he is revered. Almost saintly. Someone who can do no wrong. And more importantly, even if he does, cannot be criticized.

Mahinda, along with his two brothers, Gotabhaya and Basil have reduced Sri Lanka to a family run business. Their word is the Gospel truth and their will be done. So much so, independent journalists are today either dragged to court in frivolous libel suits or even better, coldly bumped off.

It’s best illustrated by this incident which happened last week. The Sunday Leader, the only paper in Sri Lanka which has a modicum of independence has been dragged to court by Gotabhaya, the Defence Secretary. Apparently an article in the Leader had dared to criticize the President’s brother. This was the response from the Ministry of Defence, posted on their website. “It is traitorous and unethical to oppose a national hero like the Secretary of Defence, with whose unwavering commitment and focus Sri Lanka is a free country today.” Reminds you of a certain German Nazi dictator?

In May, Sri Lanka clung at the cusp of hope, after the defeat of the LTTE. After all, Rajapakse had promised the Tamils the moon and beyond, after the war. Today over a tenth of Sri Lanka’s population is cooped in internment camps. All of them Tamil. Like pariahs in their own land. The government had promised to send them back to their homes soon after they were screened for remnants of the LTTE and after their villages were de-mined. Three months on, nothing has changed. More than 2,80,000 languish like livestock, in the most abysmal conditions.

And it only gets worse. The ICRC, the only international aid agency has now been prevented from entering these internment camps. Four of their offices in Trincomale and Batticaloa in the east, have been shut. And in this background, the government is preparing for elections in the North.

How does one explain this to Mr. Rajapakse? A token election when basics like food, water and shelter are hard to come by is self-defeating. There’s an occupational army, the bulk of the population is in far-away refugee camps, and there are just govt propped candidates in the electoral fray. Is Mr. Rajapakse holding this election, just for his friends who stood by him during the war?

The government has put up Mr. Douglas Devananda, a controversial Tamil Leader in Jaffna. Someone who was staunchly opposed to the LTTE and a stooge of the government of the day. He can hardly be called a true representative of the Tamil people. There’s no visible opposition. Devananda will win this election, hands down.

The government has clearly got its priorities warped. A recent survey by Social Indicator in Jaffna shows that more 40 percent of the population is indifferent to this election. In fact, about one in three feels their condition has worsened in the last one year. So much for military success. Three out of five kids in internment camps are suffering from malnutrition.

Things are eerily similar to 1975, when the EPDP ruled the north with an extra-judicial iron fist. It led to the birth of the LTTE. After 30 years of blood and battle is the government just rewinding Sri Lanka’s history? Has the decimation of the LTTE meant nothing? One can’t escape the sense of déjà vu.

LAST PROPHET OF SECULARISM

Even as the national media collectively orgasmed over Rakhi Sawant’s engagement this past weekend, a colossus passed away in Kerala. More than a million people braved the rains to pay homage to Panakkad Mohammadali Shihab Thangal, the President of the Indian Union Muslim League.

For the devout, Shihab Thangal was the descendant of the Prophet himself. For the politically attuned, he was the most influential Muslim political leader in Kerala. Not the rabid, chest-thumping, victim playing, regressive kind. But one who was fiercely secular and progressive in spite of the gravest odds.

For more than three decades, Shihab Thangal was the cornerstone of coalition politics in God’s Own Country. The rudder, without whom, the experiment called UDF would never have seen the light of day. For a man who never contested an election and who never held any governmental / constitutional post, Shihab Thangal wielded unparalleled clout. His was the last word for a large majority of the Muslims of North Kerala.

The man was avowedly secular, down to his bone marrow. Imagine a Muslim leader saying this, just days after the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992. “Not one stone will be thrown at a Hindu house. In fact, every Muslim will stand guard at his Hindu brethren’s house.” It takes a man of extreme conviction or plain balls to say that. If God’s own country didn’t flare up after the infamous events of 6 Dec 92, then God has this steadfast disciple to thank. In the face of the gravest provocation, Shihab Thangal did not dilute his own or the League’s fierce secularism. And in hindsight, he was proven right.

But political clout alone doesn’t explain the phenomenon that Shihab Thangal was. He was also a supreme religious head. For the believers of the Word, he was a descendant of the Holy Prophet himself. He was also a great philanthropic. Someone who realized that the truest disciples of Allah are the ones who take care of their brethren.

There’s a fascinating story about the poor people who used to visit Thangal’s ancestral home, Kurappanakkal in Panakkad village. Thangal used to ensure that each one of them was given one proper meal and return bus fares. For him, charity was not a service, it was a solemn duty. Something which every prosperous Muslim owed to his Creator for the blessings he was bestowed with.

What makes his story even more fascinating is when you compare him with other Muslim leaders of his time, in the rest of India. Not one of them can even hold a candle to kind of contributions Shihab Thangal has done for the Muslims of Malappuram. Malappuram wasn’t exactly the most prosperous district in Kerala. In the sixties and seventies, it ranked fairly low in almost all major social indices. Today, Malappuram is India’s first e-literate district. And Shihab Thangal has had no small role to play in this.

Compare this to the Maulvis and Ulemas in UP and Bihar. They have a vested interest in keeping a majority of their community poor and backward. Else, the political relevance of these reverend men diminishes. Agreed that over time, various political parties have treated Muslims as a monolithic vote bank. But Muslim leaders will have to share some of that blame as well. After all you can’t keep playing the victim card all the time.

As the Muslims of Kerala mourn the passing away of one of their favourite sons, let’s also redeem our faith in all that Shihab Thangal stood for. Compassion, humility and decency. He was truly the last prophet of secularism.

UNDERSTANDING BALOCHISTAN, FROM A PAK PERSPECTIVE

Ever since the PM returned from Sharm El-Sheikh, he’s been pilloried for that ill-fated joint statement. More than the D word, it’s the B word, which has got many hawkish analysts fuming. How could the PM have allowed a reference to Balochistan? Doesn’t this indirectly put both India and Pakistan on an even keel, with both equally guilty of sponsoring terror?

Now this is not an attempt to defend the Prime Minister, but just to look at Balochistan, from a Pakistani perspective. To understand why our neighbours are paranoid about a swathe of wasteland, which many in Pakistan themselves call "the dump where Allah shot the rubbish of creation."

Balochistan is critical for Pakistan. Balochistan is to Pakistan what Xinjiang is for China. It’s the jewel in Pakistan’s crown. There are two very simple reasons for this. One, that it has tremendous reserves of natural gas which is critical to Pakistan’s energy needs. Just over the last month or so, there have been bloody riots in Pakistan over the lack of electricity. Delhi’s power woes would seem like a dream when compared to the blackhole ordinary Pakistanis have been putting up with, day after day. Chambers of Commerce estimate Pakistan lost as much as a billion dollars in exports last fiscal, due to power cuts. Its manufacturing has fallen by 8 percent. Even Richard Holbrooke, in his visit there last week, had to pepper his praise for the Pak Army’s fight against the Taliban with the crucial need to tackle power cuts. That’s why Balochistan is critical for Pakistan’s future energy needs. Two important pipelines, one from Turkmenistan and the other from Iran pass through this region. This gas will not reach power generation stations in Karachi and Lahore, if Balochi nationals keep bombing the pipelines which carry them, every other day.

The second reason is that Balochistan, because of its arid terrain and vast swathes of rocky wasteland provides crucial buffer against any invading force. Already India is slowly but surely encircling Pakistan. Now India can attack Pakistan, not just from its eastern flank. We’ve got strategic depth in Afghanistan, in the west. An air force base in Tajikistan, in the north, from where we can fly fighter jets to bombard Pakistan. And reputed American scholars have admitted that the Indian consulate in the east Iranian city of Zehdan is doing more than just issuing visas. India is even engaged in building a world class port in the city of Chahbar in South East Iran. It’s India’s answer to what the Chinese have been doing in Gwadar.

The Pakistanis, and this is not just the military-intelligence establishment, are paranoid about India’s growing leverage in Afghanistan. They’re mortally scared of the day, the favourite benefactor of the Pakistani state and the country which ordinary Pakistanis love to hate, America, withdraws from Afghanistan.

And India hasn’t exactly helped in quelling this paranoia. We’ve been cultivating strategic depth in Afghanistan for a while now. India says we have only 9 consulates in Afghanistan. (That’s more than what we have in the US and UK, by the way). The Pakistanis say we have about 22. In the world of covert intelligence, where nothing can be the absolute truth, I am prepared to believe that the actual number is somewhere in between. From Pakistan’s point of view, you have a neighbour who you’re perennially suspicious of in the eastern flank, with unprecedented clout in your western flank. Naturally any country would be paranoid. That’s just what the Pakistanis are going through.

By agreeing to put Balochistan in the joint statement, Manmohan Singh is directly addressing the intelligence communities on both sides. And this is where the media seemed to have missed the tree for the woods. For the Indian intelligence establishment, this is a wake up call. A clear message from the Prime Minister that you can’t go on forever without any form of accountability. After all, the intelligence community, because of the very nature it’s DNA, is perennially suspicious of peace. They are the first ones to raise the red flag to any peace overtures.

And to the Pakistani intelligence establishment, who are most paranoid about Balochistan, Dr. Singh’s message is clear. Look, we’re willing to talk about your worst fears. And we’re not going to shy away from it. We’re willing to talk about it, like civilized nations. Now it’s upto you to show the same earnestness in addressing what you’re doing in Kashmir and other parts of India. He has directly addressed General Kayani and his gang, the so-called real power centre of Pakistan. It’s upto them to meet us half-way.

In the near-term Dr. Singh is getting plastered for allowing the B-word to slip in. But in the long term, it’s Gilani who needs to be worried. Because, unwittingly now, Balochistan has been internationalized. The spotlight of the international community will start falling on this piece of land, which until now, the Pakistanis have been deliberately loath to discuss about. What happened to Kashmir in 1948, is now happening to Balochistan, sixty years later. It may not seem so on the face of it, but there’s a method to the Sardar’s madness.

IN THE PM'S DEFENCE

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.

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.

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?

CHURCH IN YOUR PANTS?

I am a practicing Christian. And I am proud of it. I am also a supporter of equal rights for gays and lesbians. And I am equally proud of it. And I don’t see a contradiction between the two.

First, nowhere in the Bible is there any record, no direct quote from Jesus Christ about homosexuality. Either condemning it or condoning it. Not one word. The other important thing to note is that nowhere in the Bible does it say anything about homosexuality as a sexual orientation. It only refers to certain homosexual acts.

And these acts/events/incidents are interpreted by different people at different points in history. But interpretations are always defined by time, place and societal context. And interpretations change with the afore-mentioned variables. Just a couple of quick examples. There are portions in the Bible which view slavery and slave trade as a legitimate activity. Not anymore. Again, in the Old Testament, deliberately withdrawing before ejaculation was equated to abortion. Not anymore. The church has evolved with the times. Things that were taboo are norm nowadays.

At the heart of this debate is viewing homosexuality as a sexual orientation. You can no more deplore homosexuality than you can condemn left-handedness. It’s not a disease. It’s just the way some people are. That’s it. Homosexual affection can be as selfless as heterosexual affection. Gay persons desire and need deep and lasting relationships, just like heterosexuals do. They too are human after all. The Bible only mentions “Love your neighbour as you love thyself.” It doesn’t mention the neighbour’s gender.

The Catholic Church in India has blindly taken this position because Vatican has decreed so. But that’s where the problem lies. In India, the gay rights debate has little to do with whether God is accepting of homosexuals or not. Whether it is anti-Christian or not. It’s about an archaic, asinine law called Section 377. A colonial relic which we should’ve junked along with the British. Instead it continues to discriminate against and criminalize millions of gay and lesbian men and women. Why? Are they the children of a lesser God? Were they not also created by the same God, who created you and me? By opposing homosexuality, the Church is also uncannily supporting this ridiculous law. It’s the only issue on which the Church, the Jamaat e Islami and the VHP are on the same side. Not the kind of company, the Church would like to keep.

This is an appeal to the various denominations in India to come clean on this issue. Supporting homosexuals in their fight for civil rights is equivalent to supporting Dalits in their fight against the caste system. Christianity is pillared on the fundamental of social justice. Everyone is equal in the eyes of God. At its root, this problem is about equality. It’s not as much about ‘them’, as it is about all of us.

NAXALS ARE NOT TERRORISTS, MR. CHIDAMBARAM

The ability of governments to score self-goals is just phenomenal. The UPA government has done just that by banning Naxal group CPI (Maoist). By equating Naxals with terrorist outfits like Lashkar and HuJI, the government has once again missed the tree for the woods.

Before we get to anything else, let’s get this one simple fact straight. Naxalism is not born out of the flawed interpretation of some religion. Naxalism is born out of hunger. Out of poverty. Out of extreme social and economic deprivation. Naxlism breeds precisely because Mr. Chidambaram and his institutions cannot provide vast swathes of our poor people three square meals a day and a decent life. That’s why poor, famished people who have no other resort, take to the loud bang of a gun. To make a deaf government hear their voice.

WHAT ABOUT STATE SPONSORED TERROR?

It’s funny how when any poor man raises a gun against the state it’s termed as terrorism. But when the state itself raises a gun against its own people, it’s called patriotism. What about extra judicial killings? What about custodial deaths? Doesn’t this amount to terrorism as well? Transparency International says, every year around the world more people fall victim to state sponsored terrorism than to terrorism per se.

DISPROPORTIONATE USE OF FORCE

Just look at the number of troops fighting the naxals. There are 26 battalions, that’s 26,000 men of the Central Paramilitary Forces alone who are dedicated to fighting Naxals. In addition you now have the elite anti-naxal COBRA force which makes up for another 11,000. Apart from this, state governments themselves have special anti-naxal forces. The greyhounds in Andhra Pradesh number about 18,000. Jharkhand has a special force of about 14,000. In all, if you look at the entire red corridor, there are about half a million security men taking on a motley army of Maoists. And has anyone bothered to check the number of Maoists. Deprived men and women whom, the Prime Minister calls India’s enemy number one. All over the country, the cadres strength of the Maoists is just 10,500. If this is not an unequal war, then what is?

And after all this, the number of violent incidents attributed to Maoists has been reported only in 4% of the police stations across India.

WHY A BAN IS FUTILE

The Government had earlier banned the previous avatar of the CPI Maoists, the People’s War Group (PWG). Not that the Maoist movement simply withered away. It assumed a new name and a new form. Bans per se amount to squat. If the government is serious about tackling the Naxal menace, it has to review the way it perceives Naxalism. It’s not just a black and white law and order menace. It has to be treated as a socio-economic problem. These are our own people who are begging for their voices to be heard. But the question is: Is a Van Heusen clad Home Minister listening?

WHY INDIA MUST TALK TO PAKISTAN

There’s been a lot of chest-thumping over the last few weeks on why India should not talk to Pakistan. Pakistan has done nothing to dismantle the terror infrastructure operating from its soil. Pakistan has allowed the perpetrators of 26/11 like Hafiz Saeed to walk scot-free. And nothing has changed on the ground. All very pertinent arguments, but they don’t answer one basic, underlying question. What do we achieve by not talking? The answer is simple. Nothing.

Let’s get this straight. In the aftermath of 26/11 India had only two choices. Option one was to militarily attack Pakistan and destroy what we believe are terror training factories in PoK. Now, we don’t have either the diplomatic gall or the military guile to do that. More importantly such a response would have only led to a full-blown military conflict. It’s naïve to assume otherwise. Almost a sixth of the world going to war with each other with the prospect of nuclear missiles flying into Karachi or Kolkata isn’t exactly a rosy thought. The only other option is talks.

Students of international relations are always taught this. Military action is always over-estimated. And diplomacy is always under-estimated. Iraq and Afghanistan are two classic examples of how the use of force was grossly exaggerated. And public discourse also has some classic cases of how multi-national diplomacy can bring around some of the most devious nation states. A case in point is Libya.

In the eighties, Libya was a country, much like Pakistan, which used terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy. The most infamous being the Lockerbie bombing of 1988. 270 people were killed. 160 of them Americans. It was the deadliest terror strike on American nationals before 9/11. The masterminds were traced down to Libya. But the government headed by Muammar Gaddafi refused to hand them over. America didn’t thump its chest promising to bomb Libya out of the face of the planet.

Instead, what followed was a superb thesis on carrot-and-stick diplomacy. A calibrated process, which combined multi-lateral economic sanctions with the threat of military action. At the same time, every positive step taken by Libya was matched with concessions. Finally, after ten long years, Libya came around. Both the Libyan suspects were convicted by a court in the Hague. The case was finally settled in August 2003. Libya has now expelled terror groups, closed down terrorist camps and given up using terror as an instrument of foreign policy. It’s a slow process, but it has worked.

We can do the same with Pakistan. But for that we have to start talking. And more importantly we have to bring major world powers on the table for this. I know this is a tricky subject. India has always been wary of third-party intervention in our dispute with Pakistan. And I’m not suggesting that either. But never before has India been presented with such an opportunity. The Americans have more stake in Pakistan than ever before. More than India, it’s America which wants Pakistan to renounce terror against India so that it can fight the bigger war on the Western front, along the Afghan border. India should be able to leverage Obama on this. After all, Indo-US ties have never been as strong. India should be able to convince America to follow the same carrot and stick policy with Pakistan, which they did with Libya.

Which is why when Zardari and Manmohan Singh shake hands in Yekaterinburg, it could mark a new beginning. It’s upto us to make it count.

THE SILENT REVOLUTION IN TAMIL CINEMA

I’d been wanting to write about this for a long time now. But things sort of galvanized over the weekend. I managed to catch two delightful and out of the box Tamil movies in a short trip to Chennai. Kungumapoovum Konchumpuravum and Pasanga are as different as chalk and cheese. But they have now come to symbolize what’s been going on in Tamil cinema for quite a few years now. They are products of this wonderful silent revolution which is sweeping Kollywood.

In Kungumapoovum, the hero is a debutant, Ramakrishnan. I’ve pasted his pic below. He’s the kind of guy you’d find as a helper in a tea-stall or as a cleaner in a mechanic shop. The kind of guy who’s not worth a second glance, leave alone casting him as a lead protagonist in a 70 mm film.

The look and feel of the average hero has undergone a radical change. The hero has been completely deglamourised. He doesn’t have to be as good-looking and fancy as a Kamal Haasan. He doesn’t even have to bash up the baddies and mouth powerful dialogues like a Rajinikanth. He can be the average, regular guy next door. No six-packs. No dimpled smiles. Just the regular kind of guy who wouldn’t bring the world to a screeching halt, if he went missing for a day.

So you have heroes like Ramakrishnan in Kungumapoovum, or the boys in Chennai 28 or even a Sasi Kumar in Subramaniapuram. None of them fit into your bracket as an average Tamil film hero. Even comedians like Vadivelu and Lawrence have today been cast as heroes. And their movies have done well. It takes some spinal chord to make a movie like Pulikesi and make it work at the box office.

The other defining feature of some of these movies is the caste factor. There’s been a de-Brahminification of cast, plot and setting. Stories like Paruthiveeran which are set in some quaint dusty village in Theni with lower caste lead protagonists have become runaway hits. Kungumapoovum was set in a tiny fishing hamlet in Tuticorin. Pasanga was set in a corporation school in Virachalai.

And the reason for this silent revolution is the phenomenal directorial talent from small towns which is taking Kollywood by storm. A Balaji Sakthivel, an Ameer, a Mysskin or even a Bala for that matter have now come to symbolize this phenomenon. The good thing is that they’re being backed by big banners and established players in the industry, unlike in Malayalam where new talent is seen as a nuisance.

This revolution, which can be called, the post-Rajini Kamal, post Mani Ratnam-Shankar phase in Tamil cinema started with Balaji Sakthivel’s watershed movie Kathal. It marked the beginning of a phase where to make a box-office success, you didn’t need big stars or big banners. All you needed was a solid script. Sine then, the range of stories we’ve seen in Kollywood is just mind-boggling. From the story of two eighties ruffians in Subramaniapuram to the beautiful Mozhi to even a film based on cricket like Chennai 28.

It’s also a tribute to the Tamil cinema audience, the ordinary folk who make or mar these movies. It’s a tribute that the viewer is willing to watch good cinema, shorn of stars, shorn of glamour as long as it tells him a story well. And that’s whole but simple point of any cinema. To tell a good story well. New age Tamil cinema has well and truly arrived.

THE RISE AND RISE OF MK STALIN

If life played out as per plan, Mu Ka Stalin, the second son of Muthuvel Karunanidhi, would’ve been Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu way back in 2001. After all, Stalin as Mayor of Chennai had changed the face and odour of the city. Stalin’s most famous contribution to the growth of Chennai was the privatization of garbage. A city that’s infamous for the stench of the Cooum, one fine day woke up to the beauties of privately collected garbage. Suddenly there were big green waste bins with ONYX written on them at every street corner. Young men and women dressed in bright yellow and green, wearing caps and gloves used to come home to collect garbage. Chennai hadn’t seen anything like this before. And voters were very enthused to vote positively for the DMK.

But Stalin made one small but costly mistake. He underestimated his opponent. In 2001, Jayaraman Jayalalithaa had more than 30 criminal cases against her. She had just finished a stint in jail and was disqualified by the Election Commission from contesting. No one, not even the staunchest of Amma loyalists gave her a chance. She did the one thing Stalin will never be able to. She spread out her palloo, went from constituency to constituency, and begged for people’s votes, in the name of her mentor Puratchi Thalaivar MGR. The image moved the melodramatic Tamil electorate. MGR’s chosen heir had become a woman wronged. A professional actor, Amma played victim to the hilt. When the votes were counted the AIADMK alliance won 196 out of 234 seats. Stalin was left waiting.

But his moment arrived last week. After an eight-year hitch Stalin was named Deputy CM. But it has been a long and hard grind for the DMK scion. Stalin shot to fame in 1976. He had just passed out after studying history at the Madras Presidency college, all of 23. Indira had put India was under emergency. His father’s government got dismissed. And Stalin found himself in jail under the notorious MISA. He spent a year confined in an 8 by 10 prison cell. Even today he shows you marks on his body and proudly proclaims them as the scars of democracy.

In 1984 he fought his first election from the Thousand Lights Assembly constituency. He lost by a narrow margin. Then there was a long hiatus in the wilderness. Stalin even tried his hand at acting. He acted in two serials, one for Doordarshan and the other for the family owned Sun TV. In fact, some people even today recognize him as Soorya, the lead actor in a serial by the same name.

But 1989 changed all that. The DMK rode on the anti-Rajiv storm across the country and won by a handsome margin. Stalin too won from Thousand Lights. He became a youth icon and got the title Ilaya Thalapathi or Young Lieutenant. It’s stuck with him ever since. Even today when he’s 56 years old.

As always the political purple patch was short lived. The DMK got decimated in the Rajiv Gandhi sympathy wave of 1991. Only 2 DMK MLAs won. And Stalin was not one of them. Five more years in the wilderness. Only to come back with a bang in 1996. Stalin got elected as the Mayor of Chennai defeating the formidable VS Chandralekha by well over four lakh votes. That’s when Stalin started being groomed as Karunanidhi’s heir-in-waiting. Apart from the garbage bins, Stalin also rechristened Chennai’s infamous public transport system. From PTC (Pallavan Transport Corporation) it became MTC (Metropolitan Transport Corporation). The city also saw the mushrooming of a dozen odd flyovers and mini-flyovers. But none of this was good enough for victory in 2001.

In the 2011 elections, Stalin will finally emerge out of the shadow of his legendary father. His opponent though will remain the same. The Regent of Poes Garden. He made the mistake of under-estimating her in 2001 and paid the price for it. Ten years later, the Young Lieutenant will hopefully be wiser.

MADE FOR TV ELECTION

Elections 2009 are being fought on two fronts. One, on the ground through campaigns, rallies and speeches. The other, inside television studios. This election is the first one to be fought under the intense glare of television cameras. And that’s why some people are calling this a made for TV election.

Look at every single issue that has dominated this campaign. Varun Gandhi’s hate speech, the shoegate scandal involving journalist Jarnail Singh, the tu-tu main-main between Advani and Manmohan Singh, Karunanidhi’s breakfast to lunch fast… every single issue has been shaped by TV. It’s almost as if elections 2009 are the biggest reality show of this season.

And there’s a very simple reason for this. The airwaves are crowded like never before. In the last elections in 2004, there were less than 50 news channels in the country. Today that figure has tripled. There are almost 150 news channels, English, Hindi and vernacular put together. That’s 300 million news watching viewers. That’s 300 million votes at stake.

So much so, today some Hindi channels, like Aaj Tak, our sister channel for example, has TRPs that can match General Entertainment channels like Star Plus and Sony. This was unthinkable some years ago. And this has happened bang in the middle of the IPL season. I think the entire TV news industry can take a collective bow for that.

For the urban audiences, TV has replaced the election rally. TV is where election issues are being debated, dissected and given shape. TV has become the single biggest source of first-hand information and opinion for urban India. And politicians being smart people have latched onto it. Today you’ll find a Congress spokesperson and a BJP spokesperson in every single debate show on TV, every single night. Even parties that have an aversion to TV have gotten smart. The Comrades of the Left who always thought TV to be ‘bourgeoisie’ have got well-spoken, made for TV leaders like Sitaram Yechury and Brinda Karat. Even the BSP which brandished TV news media as ‘manuwadi’ has found an articulate spokesperson in Shahid Siddiqui.

But does that mean elections are won and lost on the idiot box? Not at all. If that were the case Arun Jaitley should’ve been Prime Minister of the country by now. TV in India hasn’t reached a stage where a debate can cost Nixon his presidency. But we’re getting there. And fast.

There are some viewers who complain that news TV has been reduced to a bunch of talking heads. The same old faces, the same boring issues. I agree with that partially. It’s not as if Indian elections don’t offer interesting stories. Muslims of an entire village in Etah boycotted Mulayam Singh because he joined hands with Kalyan Singh. But that story never made it to the nine o clock news. Dalits in a village in Solapur decided en masse not to vote for Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde because their village hadn’t seen electricity in five years. Again that didn’t feature in any prime time bulletin. TV is guided by what sells and what doesn’t. What gets more eyeballs and as a consequence, TRPs. But then again, that’s the nature of the medium. TV news is less than 20 years old in India. It’s still evolving. Give it some more time. Maybe by Elections 2014, it will get more altruistic. But till then, let’s have more of the Ravi Shankar Prasads and the Abhishek Manu Singhvis.

DEFENDING THE DEVIL

Two-thirds of India has already voted. Yet, it’s still an open house. But one thing’s clear. None of the three fronts, in their existing form, UPA, NDA and Third Front will be able to form the next government. There’s going to be a fair amount of churning, after the elections. And no secular government can be formed without the Left. Which is why, the possibility of a third front is now far more real than it was at the start of the elections.

Ironically though, the one thing you’ll hear, whether it’s from hard-nosed political reporters or paanwallahs on the street is that a third front government is bad for the country. Jo bhi sarkar aaye, third front ki nahin aaye, that’s a common refrain. It’s almost as if the third front will ruin all the gains made in the last ten years under the NDA and UPA. It’s almost as if the third front is the devil incarnate. If that is the case then here’s my attempt at playing devil’s advocate. Here’s why I think, the third front is not such a bad idea after all.

First, we need to clarify a few historical wrongs. The so-called third front governments in the past have all been either at the mercy of the Congress or the BJP. In effect, they were susceptible to blackmail and pressure. Readers will surely remember the trauma of the 1989 National Front Government and of the 1996 United Front Government. One was toppled by the BJP and the other by the Congress. They fell, not because regional satraps couldn’t do business with each other, but because of the sheer greed and manipulation of the national parties. In the first instance, the BJP realized the potential of the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation and dumped the Third Front. In the second, a wily old Sitaram Kesri used low trickery and political skullduggery to pull the plug. The national parties should share as much blame, if not more, for the failure of Third Front governments as the men and women who comprised it.

The very idea of the Third front is aligned to the genius, diversity, and contradictions that make up this fascinating thing called Indian politics. The third alternative, at least in theory, comprises forces that have historically fought the status quo. Look at all the social justice movements in India. Whether in the North or in the South, the Lalus, Mulayams, NTRs and Karunanidhis have empowered entire communities who were historically treated as backwards. Today a Kurmi in Nitish’s Bihar knows the value of his vote. A Jatav in Mayawati’s UP can make or mar the fortunes of a Brahmin candidate. Power now flows bottom-up and not top-down. And regional parties have played a substantial role in that by empowering backward castes. In that sense, they have made our politics more federal.

The other myth that’s being propogated is that the Third Front is anti-development. Let me give you a couple of examples to show why that’s just a lot of bunkum. The surface transport ministry has been with the DMK for the last ten years or so. As a result, Tamil Nadu today has the best roads in the country. NHAI reports and other independent studies on roads, vouch for that. It wasn’t the case ten years ago. Same’s the case with Bihar and the Railways. A Bihari has been the Railway Minister for the last decade. Today, Bihar is one of the best connected states in India by rail. In the last five years alone, Bihar has had 52000 crores worth of rail projects and 52 new trains.

There are some people, especially those in Dalal Street who say India’s economy will be in the doldrums if the Left were to be part of any future dispensation. They will ruin the fruits of liberalization that this country’s middle-class has come to love over the last decade and a half. Well, I am all for free markets. But the numbers that make up the India story tell a different tale. Less than 2 percent of India has investments in the stock markets. More than 30 percent can’t invest in two square meals. That's the fascinating story of the two Indias. May the more important one win on the 16th of May.

LANKA WITHOUT LTTE

So after 25 years of blood, gore and destruction, the war in Sri Lanka is drawing to a close. Many Sri Lankans are likely to breathe a sigh of relief on the prolonged bloodshed coming to an end. The war, for the past two and half decades, has brought immense suffering and misery to all the people of all Sri Lanka, whether they are Sinhalese, Tamil or Muslim. Every single family in this small island has been affected by the war, in one way or another. Soldiers, civilians, doctors, journalists.. they’ve all died in this war. Falling victim either to artillery shells or to suicide attacks or sometimes to state-sponsored extra-judicial killings.

But does the end of the war mean, end of all problems? Let’s get this straight. Prabhakaran is not the fundamental problem. He’s only a symptom of the problem. Some would say the most vocal, potent manifestation of the problem. The fundamental problem is the legitimate aspiration of the Tamil people to a life of dignity, equality and autonomy. That fundamental problem doesn’t end, with or without Prabhakaran. You cannot have a Sri Lanka where 3.5 million Tamils feel they’re treated like second class citizens. They have every right to demand a Sri Lanka where they are given the same rights, opportunities and freedom as the Sinhala majority. And if by consensus, regional autonomy is the only way of doing that, then so be it. How far the Sri Lankan state can convert military success into lasting and durable peace will depend on how fast Mr. Rajapakse can come up with a devolution package for the Tamils.

Usually, one-sided military victories in ethnic conflicts are not followed by major political reforms. It hasn’t happened in Bosnia. It hasn’t happened in Darfur. Sri Lanka cannot afford that to happen. In the long run, the Sinhalese political establishment might learn that regional self-rule under unarmed, non-se­cessionist and integrationist Tamil political parties might not be such a bad idea after all. Anything would be better than 25 years of bloody battle with 70,000 lives lost.

Here’s where the problem is. Mr. Rajapakse is dependent on hard line Sinhalese nationalist parties and groups. They have a disproportionate influence on the policy agenda of his administration. According to hardline Sinhala parties like the JVP and JHU, Sri Lanka does not have an “ethnic problem”. What exists is a “terrorist problem”. For them, this terrorist problem is spearheaded by the “fascist” LTTE. And a military victory is adequate to resolve that problem.

And what’s aiding them is that 9/11 has completely obfuscated the difference between terrorism and armed rebellious insurgency. In George Bush’s world view everyone’s a terrorist, whether it’s a Mullah Omar, an Osama bin Laden, an Isak Muivah or a Velupillai Prabhakaran. America’s ubiquitous War on Terror has destroyed all nuances and subtleties. The LTTE has not been fighting this war based on some distorted interpretation of any religion. They’ve been fighting for the legitimate political aspirations of the Tamil people. You may disagree with the method, but you cannot ignore the message. Branding the LTTE’s insurgency as terrorism and crush­ing it is fine. But it should not obviate the fact that the secessionist rebellion, despite its defeat, represented the voice of almost a fifth of Sri Lanka.

For the Tamil people, Prabhakaran’s legacy will hang around their necks like an albatross. The Tamils, as a community will be compelled to accept that defeat was the only major outcome of these 25 years of armed struggle and suffering. That’s how history will remember this war. As a non-resident Tamil, it makes me cringe.