Laloo v/s Bush

I don't know about other Indians but until recently, I was deeply ashamed of our politicians. Our Laloos and Mulayams, JJs and Deve Gowdas, Thakres and Arjun Singhs, Mayawatis and Mamatas are people who push the envelopes of shamelessness. But, after having followed US politics for the past 3 years, I have realized that Gharo Ghari Maatichya chuli, i.e. it's the same story everywhere. In India, people accused of murder become CMs while in the US, people legalizing torture head the Justice Department. Laloo, in a blatant bid to woo Muslims, published an 'interim' report by Justice Banerjee while the US got the CIA to 'sex up' reports of WMD in Iraq. India's first bahu and mafia queen cannot read and can barely speak Hindi and hence has to have her speeches written in English (or Italian maybe....who knows). In the US, the President attends 'townhall meetings' where the participants are not only prescreened for their views but are also coached on what questions to ask the president. In fact, if someone pulled a tehelka on tehelka itself or on some other news outfit, I wouldn't be surprised at revelations of politicians buying off journalists.

Today I feel as ashamed of our politicians as I did before, but now at least I know they have company. In fact I think Laloo and Bush have a lot in common. Laloo is known for his lack of sophistication and Bush for his lack of intelligence. Both politicians are the 'wildest dreams come true' of cartoonists in their respective countries. Both have pursued policies which, a four year old could tell , were detrimental to the interests of the people they ruled. Yet both have confounded pundits and rivals alike and stuck to power. Luckily in the US, there is a limit on the number of terms a president can enjoy. We should have something like that in India. Though I think Indian multi-party democracy rocks. But Laloo's star seems to be on the demise in Bihar. One can only pray, for Bihar's sake, that it stays down. Lets see what happens to the president's ratings as he tries to push his social security agenda.

Returning to the general topic of politicians, one great drama going on in the US is that of Terri Schiavo. For two years this case was hanging fire and nobody gave a damn. But Tom DeLay starts taking a bit too much heat for his unethical behavior and suddenly all the Republicans can think of is poor Terri. As Jon Stewart pointed out, that's how f@#%ed up your health has to be before your elected representatives will deign to pay attention towards you.

Church and Propaganda

Just recently finished reading Angels and Demons. I liked it more than Da Vinci Code. At the very least the author doesn't chicken out at the end as he did in DVC. Infact, I really wasn't going to write about this at all. But last week I read a news article in ToI which reported that a high Vatican official and a frontrunner to replace the current Pope railed against the author and the books and called upon catholics not to read them. This got my blood boiling. Anyone with even an iota of sense would not be surprised if it transpires in the future that these books were commissioned by the Vatican. After all the message in both the books is the same. They both equate God to the Vatican. The actions of the hero in both books have been aimed at maintaining the faith that Catholics have in the Vatican which he implicitly equates with God.
Infact as a propaganda instrument, I find the two books, truly amazing. The reverse psychology applied is mind-boggling. The author, in both books, sends the message that the Vatican is the true representative of God on earth and the maintainence of it's facade of moral authority is more important than the truth itself. Once again, as I pointed out in a previous post, the 'common man' is saved from 'disillusionment' and 'confusion' by hiding the truth from him. Once again he is considered to be too weak and ignorant to be able to handle the truth.
Well I don't want to repeat one of my previous posts here. But make no mistake, Dan Brown's books are so supportive of the Vatican, I wouldn't be surprised if they reward him secretly with a free entry into heaven.

The Pakistan Problem.

I recently finished reading the book 'The Idea of Pakistan' by Stephen Cohen. I picked up the book so as to get to know how Pakistan is thought of in American intellectual circles. I am not really surprised by what I read. Cohen's views of Pak are no doubt well thought out and articulated. But the conclusions could use some questionings. If the views in the book represent the outlook of a majority of American policy-makers, it would explain America's relationship with Pak.

For one, the basic premise of the book seems to be that Pak politicians and Generals are secular at heart. He points out how Jinnah was a secular intellectual who carved out Pakistan because he feared the Muslims would be side-lined by the majority Hindus. But Jinnah was also a close associate of Gandhi and Nehru. He was well aware of the staunch secular credentials of the Congress leadership. Why then did he incite religious passions in order to get his way. The more logical answer would be that he realised that in a democracy, because of muslims being in a minority, HIS INFLUENCE AND POWER would decline. To say that Jinnah created Pak only to give muslims a home land of their own is too naive. The same holds for the Army. It maybe true that the leaders of the army are largely secular in their private life. But it's their professional beliefs that matter, not private, when it comes to governance, foreign policy et al. The fact remains that they actively consort with Islamic terrorists and fundamentalists in order to further their agenda. And that in itself puts a question mark on their secular credentials in professional life. Their hypocrisy and untrustworthiness is displayed when, one one hand, they argue (to the US) that they are Pakistan's best chance, that without them the country will become a haven for terrorists and on the other, they actively train fund and support these same terrorists.

Cohen argues that Pakistan can progress if it improves relations with India and that this process could be hastened if India showed a flexible attitude towards Pakistan and provided it with a fait accompli so it could sell an unpopular Kashmir 'solution' to it's citizen. Here the author is assuming that Pakistan wants a solution to the Kashmir problem and a normalization of relations with India. This in itself is a questionable assumption because such an occurrence is likely to undermine the power of the Pak establishment. If there are more people to people contacts, Pakistanis may come to realize that Indian muslims enjoy much more political freedom and freedom of expression than they do. That Indian muslims have much more educational, economic and social opportunities than not just Pakistani Hindus but Pakistani Muslims as well. They might realize that in India, the children with a solid middle-class background can come to the US for Graduate Studies. This would be disastrous for the Pakistani elite who rule the country. Pakistan has always made a lot of profit from it's 'strategic location'. This notion is also tied to it's propaganda that it acts as a 'buffer' against Hindu India. If a normalization of relations occurs and leads to healthy and profitable relationship between India and say Iran and Afghanistan, Pakistan looses it's strategic location card.

But to me, the most important question is, even though all the above were not true, why should India compromise? The Kashmir problem is no doubt a big headache which bleeds India. But does it cripple it? No. India is a emerging power whose large economy, population and resources can suffer this problem. Secondly, given the weak/hypocritic/untrusthworthy Pak establishment should India be negotiating with them at all? Why should India give concessions in order to help US foreign policy?

The fact of the matter is the very basis of Pakistan's survival is anti-Indianism. From the hypocritic Jinnah to the cunning and manipulative Musharraf, all Pakistani leaders need India as an enemy to shore up their regimes. What India needs to do is marginalize Pakistan, not in the world, but in it's own foreign policy. India should realize that because of it's large and growing economy and trade, it has to now think and act on a different level. Only by displaying to Pakistan that it enters into Indian calculations only as a dangerous but small pest which needs to be kept an sharp eye on but nothing more, will it be able to reduce the perceived strategic importance of Pakistan in the eyes of US and China. Only by marginalizing Pakistan in it's own foreign policy can it communicate to the US that hyphenating between India and Pakistan is ultimately to their detriment. This will go a long way in atleast alleviating one of the many problems India faces: the Pakistan Problem.