Omar Abdullah ko gussa kyon aata hai?

By questioning his state’s accession to India, the Jammu and Kashmir CM is only continuing with a time-tested family formula, reports Haroon Reshi 

The Abdullahs of Kashmir have a long and distinguished history of issuing intriguing statements and adopt seemingly contradictory postures. The great Sheikh Abdullah, reigning Chief Minister Omar’s grandfather and the state’s first head of government, kept New Delhi guessing about his true intentions. A patriotic statement issued in the Indian capital, a not-too-subtle statement underlining the disputed status of Kashmir in the valley and at another time, an unilateral discussion with Chinese Premier Chou en Lai in a third country on an independent status for Kashmir. So which was the true Sheikh?

Farooq Abdullah toed his father’s line. Loyalty to India was balanced by some pretty anti-Indian statements when the need arose – and there were plenty of those occasions. Omar Abdullah, therefore, is just following a hoary family tradition. Two weeks after Parliament unanimously passed a resolution affirming Jammu and Kashmir, including Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), as an integral part of India, Omar Abdullah argued that the state's accession to India was conditional. On March 25, he told the state assembly said, “Those who repeatedly claim that Jammu and Kashmir is ‘atoot ang’ (integral part) of India forget that the accession was only on three subjects; communication/currency, defence and foreign affairs.” Without naming New Delhi, the young CM alleged that the state’s special status had been eroded by successive Indian governments.

Omar Abdullah’s assembly sermon was delivered in the backdrop of the controversial arrest of former Kashmiri militant Syed Liyaqat Ali by the Delhi Police, which claimed that Ali had hatched a conspiracy to carry out a suicide attack in Delhi on the eve of Holi to avenge the hanging Afzal Guru. Omar Abdullah’s government has refuted Delhi Police claims, saying that the former militant was living in POK for the last 16 years and he along with his wife and children were heading to his native place under the government-backed surrender and rehabilitation policy.

 Be that as it may, the CM has a track record of questioning the state’s accession to India – particularly when his chips are down. In 2010 when people were protesting alleged killings by security agencies, Omar told the state assembly that ``Kashmir acceded to India, unlike Hyderabad and Junagadh it did not merge with India.”  On March 5, when a youth was reportedly killed by the Army in north Kashmir’s Baramullah District, Omar hit back, ``What answer will I give to the people. Have we held the Indian flag in our hands for this?”

In his moment of agony, Omar uttered the ultimate truism:`` Somebody (Afzal Guru) is hanged somewhere. The decision is taken by someone else (Government of India) and the mercy petition is rejected somewhere else. And the incident comes knocking to my house as if I have hanged him.”

Why is Omar Abdullah getting desperate? Kashmir watchers believe it has deep roots. ``National Conference (NC) and the Abdullahs, unlike other mainstream parties, are deeply rooted in Kashmiri nationalism. It goes back to the Sheikh’s Quit Kashmir moment and the autonomy resolution passed by a two-third NC majority in the assembly in 2006,’’ Noor Baba, head of the Political Science department, Kashmir University, told TSI.

Baba’s argument seems legitimate. Omar’s father Farooq Abdullah, currently a union minister, is a former member of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation front (JKLF). Nearly 26 years after the accession, Farooq had formally joined the JKLF, when he had visited POK in 1973.

Mustufa Kamal, Sheikh Abdulla's nephew and Omar’s uncle, told TSI: ``You may or may not like it but Kashmir is an unsolved dispute. When Omar Abdullah says that Kashmir had acceded to India only on three counts, he is reminding you of an undeniable historical fact. What is wrong ? Truth should prevail. Kashmir is not an integral part of India like the other states.''

It would appear that public opinion is on his side. Says Sheikh Abdullah's biographer and well known scholar Muhammad Yusuf Teng, ``The NC has never accepted J&K as an integral part of India and I believe this is the only reason why it is the only grassroot-level cadre-based regional political party in the state. Omar wants to refresh the party’s basic position by challenging the ideology of the Indian state.''He should know.

However, some other political observers attribute more than just nationalism to this Abdullahspeak – more specifically the 2014 assembly elections. ``The fact is Omar Abdullah and his party are going to face a tough situation in the 2014 elections. To convince the people, NC seems to have nothing in its hand to sell. It has lost its ground in Jammu to the BJP and in Kashmir to the PDP. Now their leaders are trying to allure Kashmir’s Muslim sentiment by questioning the accession to India,” Zareef Ahmad Zareef, author and President, Valley Citizens Council, told TSI, adding, ``The ground reality is that Omar Abdullah has failed to deliver. He could not even fulfill the promises he had made to the people in terms of the revocation of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and the implementation of the recommendations of the working group on centre-state relation headed by Justice (retd) Sagir Ahmed, who has recommended more autonomy for the state.”

Apart from the mysterious deaths at Shopian in 2009 and the killing of 100 people during the stone pelting agitation next year, Omar's tenure has been marked by relative calm until the Afzal Guru hanging this year. That has been a signal for another round of curfews, arrests, an unofficial media gag and detention of popular separatists. Concurrently, militants appeared to be beginning to reassert. Half-a-dozen panchayat members have been killed in the past six months. There have been frequent skirmishes and casualties between militants and Indian security forces.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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Book Review: Ash in the Belly: India's Unfinished Battle against Hunger

Silent suffering

India in the 21st century surges ahead, impatient to claim its long-sought status as an economic giant, with a burgeoning middle class. Confident and predatory, Indian business leaders stalk the world for new corporate acquisitions. According to Forbes, the combined wealth of India’s fifty-five wealthiest people was $ 246.5 billion in 2011. Between 1996 and 2008, wealth holdings of Indian billionaires are estimated to have risen from 0.8 per cent of GDP to 23 per cent. Yet it is an irony that India is also home to the largest number of impoverished people who sleep on an empty stomach in the world’s largest producer of milk and the second-largest wheat grower.

Often neglected by the government and dismissed by the middle class, 360 million poor people estimated by Planning Commission are around us in our films, literature, poetry and find a mention in  election manifestos and budget speeches at regular intervals. Even now our attention is diverted when 24x7 electronic media invades the countryside with their intrusive cameras and accusatory interrogation to break exclusive stories of starvation deaths.

Harsh Mander, the author of Ash in the Belly, has fought a long battle to put an end to hunger – as a former bureaucrat in districts of central India, a member of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council and as a food security campaigner along with noted activists like Kavita Srivatsava, Jean Dreze, Colin Gonsalves and Biraj Patnaik, among many others.
Alternating between analyses and harrowing life-cycle tales of hunger narrated by destitutes from intensely food-insecure social groups in eight villages in Odisha, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh, Mander, in his book, attempts to uncover the political economy of hunger in India, its sociology and psychology and the achievements and failures of public policy in battling its occurrence.
 
The book moves the reader enough even before one embarks on the first chapter as the author’s note and prologue establishes how hunger, reality of millions of Indians, is insufficiently acknowledged except by those who are condemned to live with it.
Gajalachmi, 32, a widow from dalit Madiga caste of Andhra Pradesh in Medak district, died of hunger and caught in the vicious cycle of debt. In death, she had to be buried as she had lived without solace and dignity. “And without even a fistful of rice,” notes the author.

Though hunger is an unremitting way of life in India, Mander warns us not to reduce people living with hunger to statistical ammunition, subjecting their suffering and valiant resistance only to cold economics of costs and benefits, and calculus of calories.

A group of women of the Musahar community in Uttar Pradesh, Mander recalls in their conversation that the most terrible of lessons that each one has to teach her children is the lesson about how to sleep hungry. “If they are small, we sometimes beat them until they sleep. But as they grow older, we try to teach them how to live with hunger. This lesson will equip them for a lifetime. It will be their companion for the rest of their lives”.

Similarly Antamma in Andhra Pradesh, widowed early, only begged once for the leftovers from the government-funded school meal for children. Soon she was torn by guilt afterwards that she had eaten the children’s share.

One wonders how India could be on a trajectory of higher growth often highlighted by policy-makers when millions of children, women and men go to sleep hungry every night. Anyone complacent about the development that India has achieved should read this compelling and insightful book that reminds us that the right to food with dignity is indeed the right to life.
Though these tales may evoke sympathy, they equally reminds us that a much larger population who struggle daily to feed their families and themselves co-exist with readers and policy makers who gloat over shining India or high growth story.
“People living with hunger are not helpless – pitiable and passive receptacles of charity agents and state largesse – but are active agents with often sturdy spirit and humanity, who stoically endure want and oppression,” Mander writes, while passionately arguing for the passage of a universal right to food law which guarantees food to all persons not as State benevolence but as a legal entitlement.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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Movie Review: ABCD

Anyone can make a film

If you put your heart into dance, dance will never leave your heart – that is the profound aphorism that the plot of ABCD – Anybody Can Dance is predicated on. It is a film that wants you to leave the auditorium with a spring in your steps and a sparkle in your eyes, even if you are not much of a dance freak.


Nothing wrong with that per se. ABCD – Anybody Can Dance is a rather well-meaning entertainer that showcases plenty of nimble-footed, high-spirited dancing talent. It is the overall impact of the film that comes up woefully short for want of genuine emotional force.


As you get into the swing of things, you certainly want the underdogs to come out on top. But their struggles with themselves and the world at large do not add up to much simply because the antagonists are poorly etched, shadowy figures sans the malefic drive that would make the audience want to hate them with all their hearts.   
For all its energy and style, choreographer Remo D’Souza’s 3-D dance film suffers from the lack of a screenplay good enough to catapult all the youthful hype and hoopla beyond the surface level and make this the ultimate tribute to the joys of choreography.


ABCD – Anybody Can Dance holds its own only when the actors are engaged in what they are good at – swaying to the beats of foot-tapping music. Besides Prabhu Deva and Ganesh Acharya, the cast includes Dance India Dance participants like Dharmesh Yelande and Salman Yusuff Khan, among others.


They are all wonderful dancers no doubt, and their acts do exude infectious verve and vigour. Unfortunately, the narrative is too whimsical and jerky to allow the string of robust dance performances to come together as a cohesive, euphoric whole.


The film is understandably replete with dance routines, and some of the set pieces are nothing short of spectacular. Sadly, the newcomers in the cast are infinitely more comfortable with calisthenics than histrionics.
But then ABCD also has Kay Kay Menon in a pivotal role. As always, he is a delight even when he resorts to over-the-top methods in order to be heard above the din.


Menon is the only major member of the cast who isn’t required to break into a jig on the slightest provocation. Yet he brings a certain rhythm to bear upon his performance as the cynical owner of a hip and happening dance troupe who is willing to stoop to any level to win a television reality show.


Pitted against him and his troupe is a livewire Prabhu Deva as a dance teacher who loses his job in the aforementioned company because he does not see eye to eye with the proprietor.


With the help of a friend (Ganesh Acharya), the slighted protagonist cobbles together his own team of dancers, boys and girls from a disadvantaged background.


The rich kids-poor kids divide isn’t the only classic cliché in the screenplay. There are subplots galore and love, friendship, heartbreak, parental opposition, drug addiction, jealousy, betrayal, tragedy and eventual triumph are all thrown into the cauldron for good measure.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
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Goodies and not-so-goodies

the sixth edition of the DSC Jaipur literature Festival had, as always, much going for it, with many sessions leaving the audience asking for more. But there were moments during the event that one had a nagging feeling that it was probably beginning to bite off more than the organisers could chew
 
Merely six years or so ago, when the inaugural edition of Jaipur Literature Festival was held, no one, not even the optimistic organisers, would have thought that it would go on to become arguably the biggest literature event in Asia, if not the most serious one. And it is in its sheer size that lies both its attraction and repulsion. The sixth annual DSC Jaipur Literature Festival, in more ways than one, has added up on that reputation.

The 2013 edition of the DSC Jaipur Literature Festival was launched with a keynote speech by celebrated author and activist Mahasweta Devi. In her speech, she reflected upon her long career as an author and described how regional writing draws its inspiration from the rich world of ideas and incidents that mean so much to people who are not in the limelight. "The air I breathe is full of words," she reflected, and I am sure no one in the crowd would have disagreed.

Speaking about thetribal and rural cultures from which she draws the inspiration of her writing, she maintained that a writer must deal with the “culture of the downtrodden” to get a proper grounding in literature. In fact, she proposed that the “right to dream” should be made the foremost fundamental right for all human beings.

In the keynote address, titled O to Live Again, Mahasweta Devi revealed, “My early years proved to be formative for my future work as a writer and activist. I also have a different approach to my writing process and I mull over the subjects in depth before setting out..."

The festival, down the years, has developed a clear pattern on which it pushes itself beyond the limit. There is a potent mixture of debates, readings, recitation and exchange of ideas. Normally, a topic is proposed and writers whose works have revolved around these topics are asked to strike a conversation, quite often, but not always, through a moderator.
The festival has the distinction of bringing together people with extreme and contrasting ideologies on a single stage to explore new ideas. And it has served the festival and the audience well in all these years. So you have “Godless Commies” rubbing shoulders with religious gurus and thinkers, and the spirited proponents of free market capitalism taking on leftists on a single stage.

This year, the festival explored themes as distinct as the history of miniature painting and war reporting, Sharia law and LGBT literature, the art and state of the Jewish novel, the 18th century sexual revolution, and the literature of 9/11.

Seperate sessions also focussed on the new writings in Latin America and among both Iranians in exile and the domestic Iranian readership. Domestically speaking, sessions focusing and critically analysing the economic prospects of India as well as on an exploration of the mixed legacy of the British Empire drew the biggest crowds. And, like most literature festivals worldwide these days, it had something to add to the much explored theme of the decline of America and the rise of China.

Some of the writers that attracted massive viewership included Commonwealth Prize winner Aminatta Forna from Sierra Leone, Booker Prize winner Howard Jacobson, and two Orange Prize winners Linda Grant and Madeline Miller. It also saw some of the most respected novelists in the Arab world, including Ahdaf Soueif and Tahar Ben Jalloun.

In spite of the threats from the Hindu right wing, quite a few Pakistani writers managed to attend and enthrall the audience, including Nadeem Aslam and Jamil Ahmad. From Latin America, Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman, the playwright known for the much appreciated work Death and the Maiden, carried the flag. No literature festival can function without some quintessential Brits. Here too, the audience got the taste of celebrated historical novelist Lawrence Norfolk, as well as three of Britain’s arguably most popular literary writers, Sebastian Faulks, Deborah Moggach and Zoe Heller, whose award-winning books have been mounted into critically acclaimed and intellectually layered cinematic adaptations such as Birdsong, The Exotic Marigold Hotel and Notes on a Scandal. On the poetry front, the audience had the chance to listen to some of the most prominent poets from Europe, including the highly acclaimed Simon Armitage and John Burnside. The session featuring Armitage drew an unparalleled crowd.

If the sessions on fiction writers and poets drew huge crowds, the sessions featuring the non-fiction writers and writings saw even bigger ones. And why shouldn't it,considering this year's edition featured as many as three winners of the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction, Frank Dikkoter on Mao, Wade Davis on Everest and Orlando Figes on Stalin’s purges? On the other hand, Pulitzer winner Andrew Solomon enthralled the audience on his acclaimed new book, Far From the Tree.

For public consumption, the festival had Diana Eck from Harvard, whose book India: A Sacred Geography has caught the nation's imagination. On the other hand, philosopher Michael Sandel brought his immensely popular BBC Radio 4 series, The Public Philosopher.

If Harvard sent its best bet forward, then Columbia was not far behind. The audience enjoyed the session of the much-appreciated post-colonial and post-modern literary critic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Rivals Oxford too sent one of the most potent weapon from its arsenal; acclaimed authority on Eastern Europe, Timothy Garton Ash and the Shakesperean Christopher Ricks. On the arts front, the conversation between Anish Kapoor, Marc Quinn and William Kentridge left the audience clamouring for more.

The more nuanced among the readers particularly loved the sessions by Elif Batuman of the New Yorker and Ian Buruma of the New York Review of Books.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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Mind your Language

Even police should be made accountable for their sweeping remarks

Controversial remarks from responsible citizens are not something very new to the society. However, a big question today is, do we also hold police officials accountable for their sweeping statements that malign individuals. Although the Indian Constitution clearly allows a citizen to seek punishment on anyone who shows the citizen disrespect “on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, caste or community or any other ground whatsoever”, sweeping remarks are still not considered as a part of hate speech and, thus, go unprosecuted – and more so if the commenter belonged to the police.

The country was furious when Asaram Bapu, a self-proclaimed Godman  blamed the recent rape victim herself for her plight; and a case was registered against him in Bihar. All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM or MIM) MLA, Akbarrudin Owaisi was sent recently to Adilabad district jail for spreading communal hatred. Very recently, Swami Kamlananda Bharati was arrested on January 14 in Hyderabad for making a hate speech against Muslims. In 2007, the authorities had charged the late Maqbool Fida Husain for hurting the religious sentiments of Hindus when he had painted Mother India as a nude woman. Likewise, in 2007, Pune police arrested four software-engineers for posting an obscene profile on the Internet.

In this context, an example is the recent remark of the Thane Police Commissioner that women should keep red chilli powder and should not venture out late night to avoid rape. Another example is when in January 2013, the Punjab police heartlessly revealed the name of a gang rape victim. The contentious statements coming from persons who upon joining their service pledge to keep the nation and its citizens safe has outraged many. But the moot point is, when all of the above instances against citizens ended up in the police taking action, then why not hold police officials also accountable and responsible for their inept comments. In a sting operation conducted by Tehelka across 23 police stations of NCR, the shallow attitude of police officers and their stance on rapes in the city was revealed. The investigation exposed how certain police officers blame women equally if not more for the crime and concluded that some police officials think that “almost all women deserve to be raped.” Such a comment shows abysmal lack of thoughtfulness on the part of police officials. The situation is somewhat similar in the US where NYPD warned women not to wear short skirts because they could get raped.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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The Perils of Bodo Anger

THIS WAS PERHAPS THE DEFINING ANGER OF THE YEAR. MONALISA GOGOI GOES DEEPER INSIDE THE PSYCHE OF THE BODOS TO FIND OUT WHY THEY ARE UP IN ARMS AND ARE WILLING TO FIGHT EVEN A DE FACTO CIVIL WAR
assam violenceThe 2012 ethnic violence in Assam that claimed more than 100 lives has been interpreted in many different ways. For local Bodos, it was entirely a clash between indigenous people and illegal migrants. Politicians who use communalism to make a point have given it the spin potraying it as a clash between local Hindus and Muslim migrants from Bangladesh and elsewhere. Most familiar with the region agree that illegal migration has encroached upon tribal area and space, creating a sense of identity crisis for the indigenous people. Though the violence has come to an end, the question on everyones' lips is this: why do Bodos become angry from time to time? What are their principal grievances? Is it only related to illegal migration?

Prabhakar Bodo, spokesperson of the Bodoland People's Front (BPF) and former president of the All Assam Students' Union (AASU), says the BTAD clash between migrants and the indigenous people is an old point of discord dating back to the 1970s. "There was a time when Bodos introduced themselves as a part of the Assamese people but the state's high castes refused to grant them their due. When the Bodos began their movement, the Asom Sahitya Sabha had protested. In 1983 when they demanded the introduction of Bodo as the official associate language, there were loud protests. So Bodo leaders were compelled to withdraw their moral support to the Assam agitation,'' he said.

According to him, Bodos regard themselves as part of the Assamese society but oppose the claims of those who now claim to be representatives of that society, namely the Assam Sahitya Sabha and AASU, who have consistently ignored their sentiments. "They have not planned any developmental activities for the Bodos, who are now convinced that a merger with the Assamese society would endanger their identity. Most intellectualls here do not want to see Bodos grow,'' he alleges.  Bodos, one of the oldest ethnic groups in Assam who also claim  son of the soil status, feel they have been left out of the power stakes. They were also the first to demand a separate homeland. According to senior advocate and former Assam Agitation leader Nekibur Zaman, "The Bodo community is one of the oldest ethnic groups in the state and feel they have traditionally been exploited. At different times during their agitations, they have not got the support of local organisations and have operated in isolsation. The government had suppressed their movements using undemocratic means. Their women were raped and many Bodo youth lost their lives. The security forces tried to suppress their demand with the help of armed forces. The sense of insecurity and dissatisfaction among them led to an armed struggle. And this is how their ethnic militant groups NDFB and BLT came into existence. Because of their armed struggle, Adivasi, non-Bodos and caste Hindus were compelled to leave Bodo-dominated areas, ’’ he points out.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

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Parties Play The Caste Trump Card

With national political parties finding themselves out on a limb in Karnataka, it’s the caste-based regional outfits that are calling the shots. Will the political cookie in this southern state crumble the way of Uttar Pradesh?

Karnataka is gearing up for Assembly elections in April. With the fortunes of the ruling BJP and the Congress hitting the skids in the state, caste-based regional formations are likely to gain in the post-poll scenario.

Karnataka is set to go the Uttar Pradesh way. UP is India’s largest state and is accustomed to electoral fragmentation on caste and community lines. Karnataka, only one third the size of UP, is not. So, if a hung Assembly is what the April elections yield, the development would mark a paradigm shift in Karnataka politics. Congress, BJP and Janata Dal are the three parties that have traditionally jostled for seats in the Vidhana Soudha. Two new forces have lately jumped into the fray. Former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa’s Karnataka Janata Party (KJP) and Badava Shramika Raitha Congress (BSR Congress), led by B Shriramulu, the right hand man of jailed mining baron Gali Janardhana Reddy, are likely to queer the pitch for the national parties by taking away a chunk of their votes.

While none of the five contenders are in a position to sweep the polls, KJP and BSR Congress could both wrest enough seats to give the principal parties a run for their money. But in the run-up to the elections, none of the political formations is keen to get into any alliances, preferring to wait and watch the for eventual outcome. For Congress and Janata Dal (Secular), the April polls could be just another electoral battle. But for BJP and KJP, it would be an acid test. The BJP would be out to demonstrate that it has the strength to live down Yeddyurappa’s exit. For the party leaders who have been instrumental in pushing Yeddy out of the BJP, the likes of KS Eeshwarappa, Ananth Kumar, Sadananda Gowda and Jagadish Shettar, the upcoming election would be an opportunity to prove a point.

Yeddy too, would be determined to make the BJP, a party he served for four decades, pay for the folly of neglecting a regional mass leader with the backing of the dominant Lingayat community.

The BJP will also have to contend with the BSR Congress. Yeddy’s mass support and the Reddy’s money power had catapulted BJP to power in Karnataka in 2008. With both now gone, it would be an uphill task for the party to retain power. BJP is unlikely to win more than 50 to 60 seats. In that eventuality, it would be back on the Opposition benches.

Read more.....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

 

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA