South Asia Daily

Meet twirlymen

If not for anything else, give it up for Amol Rajan for the sheer innovativeness of writing a whole book about spinners. Spinners as in those bowlers in cricket who instinctively tap into many laws of physics without realizing it. Also, give it up for the book’s charming title. Twirlymen has the same air of mystery as googly or doosra.

Flipping through the Economist I came across this short review of Rajan’s book and could not resist adding my two bit. I have not yet read the book but the moment one thinks about it it makes perfect sense that a book like this ought to have been written.

Published by Yellow Jersey Press of the U.K. the publicity blurb says, “From W. G. Grace to Shane Warne, Twirlymen is an essential look at that most eccentric of cricketers - the spin bowler.

They are the masters of deception, the jokers in the pack; illusionists conjuring wickets out of thin air with nothing more than an ambled approach and a wonky grip. Not for them the brutish physicality of the pace bowler nor the reactive slogging of the batsman. Theirs is a more cerebral art. They stand alone in a team sport. They are Twirlymen.”

As a teenager occasionally watching the famous Indian spinning trio of Bishen Singh Bedi, Erapalli Prasanna and Bhagwat Chandrasekhar was beguiling. Spinners were like sorcerers who seemed to be drawing their powers from an unknown realm. That unknown realm was largely laws of physics which dictated the spin and the ultimate direction of every ball that a spinner bowled.

If you want to know what a good spinner is, volunteer to be an empire at a cricket game. As the spinner ambles past you and launches the ball in the air, giving it a spin with his wrist and fingers, you would be able to hear a distinct hiss. That hiss is the sound of the ball slicing through the air. It is almost as if an unruly mini planet after being flung around is trying to discover a more steady orbit.

Ending a 369-year-old tradition

The Dalai Lama (Photo: Tenzin Choejor/www.dalailama.com)

For the first time in 369 years the Dalai Lama’s political and administrative powers have been finally transferred to the office of an elected Tibetan leader. In approving the amendments to the 1991 Charter of the Tibetans in Exile, the Dalai Lama has now made his “semi-retirement” more formal. He approved the amendments yesterday in McLeod Ganj in Himachal Pradesh, India, where he lives.

The transfer fulfills a commitment the 75-year-old Tibetan leader made to himself and public decades ago to step back from exercising complete control over Tibetan affairs, such as it is with Tibet having been incorporated into China for more than 50 years.The approval of the amendments may not have any immediate consequence but is potentially important in the event of the 14th Dalai Lama’s death. Now that those powers have been detached from his person and enshrined in an elected government, the transfer empowers the Tibetan administration to take a formal position on the future of Tibet.

It is unlikely that this break from the centuries-old tradition would have any bearing on Beijing’s position on Tibet, the region it considers as a fully integrated territory of China. There is always the theoretical possibility that one day the Chinese government may bypass the Dalai Lama and directly engage the Tibetan administration in India to resolve the question of Tibet. The overriding motivation of such an action would be to negotiate down with an unequal partner, unlike the Dalai Lama whose global stature gives him enormous leverage.

As long as the 14 Dalai Lama is alive, the transfer of political and administrative powers is a largely symbolic decision. Of course, the newly empowered office of the Kalon Tripa or Prime Minister Lobsang Sangay can now legally position itself as the representative of the Tibetans in exile. But there is nothing to suggest that the Dalai Lama’s influence over the broad direction of the Tibetan debate is in decline. On the contrary, now that he is free from some of the constraints of his formal power, he might be in a better position to be be more creative in his approach.

Too Big to Fail

William Hurt as Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson in ‘Too Big to Fail’

In ‘Too Big to Fail’, a HBO movie based on the book of the same name by the New York Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin, most characters sit on the edge of their chairs. And those who are not sitting, are purposefully leaning over as if trying unsuccessfully to grab the world that is going down a financial abyss.

It is about the 2008 financial meltdown that began with the troubles of Lehman Brothers. And you know that the crises that followed Lehman were indeed one giant turd stuck in the world’s throat by the number of times billionaire CEOs use shit and crap in the same sentence.

For instance, in one scene Bill Pullman, who plays Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, says to other heavy hitters of the financial world, “Hank (as in Hank Paulson, the treasury secretary) thinks he can sell the good parts of Lehman to Barclays but someone has to take the crap that is weighing down the company. Nobody knows how much this shit is worth but somebody has to buy it to make a deal.”

Earlier in that scene Dimon also says, “Main street wants Wall Street to pay. They think we are overpaid assholes.”

In an unrelated scene early on in the movie Richard S. Fuld Jr., the chief executive of Lehman Brothers (James Woods), says “The federal government is snaking my deal? I cannot fucking believe this shit.”

If you want to know how to make financial crises stemming from such abstruse terms as credit default swaps and toxic assets thrilling, watch this movie. I did, sitting the entire time sitting on the edge of my seat. That is when I was not leaning over my desktop monitor.

Paulson, played credibly by William Hurt, is the protagonist of the movie trying to save the financial world from exploding in his face. He looks as if he would soon suffer a heart attack any moment or is already in the midst of a series of them.

As a movie about what led to the giant and politically controversial bailout of the world populated by men “whose sole job is to make money” ‘Too Big to Fail’ is entertaining.  Any movie that can bring Federal Reserves chairman Ben Bernanke (Paul Giamatti) and Paulson together over the breakfast table and make them watchable has to be applauded.

Is Headley delivering the goods?

If I were the prosecution in the Tahawwur Hussain Rana trial, I would pause for a moment and take a long and hard look at whether my star witness is delivering the goods. And if he is doing so, is he delivering them to the right address? The Memorial Day weekend would be a good time to closely examine whether Headley is leading me down the garden path.

It is true that in his carefully guided testimony with the help of a deeply methodical Assistant US Attorney Daniel Collins during the first two and half days from May 28, David Coleman Headley offered some dark hints of Rana’s possible knowledge and involvement in the planning of the Mumbai terror case. Those hints were sought to be strengthened by a supporting email here or a phone conversation there.

But then, it is equally true that during his cross examination by the flamboyant defense attorney, Charles Swift and his wry colleague Patrick Blegen Headley said things that cast doubts about his own integrity. His admissions, disclosures and revelations so far sound more damning of himself than of his once closest friend Rana. We all know that it is superfluous for him to damn himself because he has already pleaded guilty to everything that he has been accused of.

Short of wearing a T-shirt that says “ Don’t trust me. I say anything to get my way”, Headley has said everything that says, “Don’t trust me. I say anything to get my way.”  He obviously tailored information depending upon whom he was sharing it with.

On balance—and I have nothing more than an inexplicable hunch about it—Headley now seems to be looking for ways to help is childhood friend get out of the sordid mess largely unscathed. Although he comes across as the sort who would turn on just about anyone, he does show a measure of gratitude and loyalty towards Rana.

Some of my non-journalist friends ask me if I have detected any remorse in Headley. My response is remorse is a futile emotion because it never really comforts those who suffer as a result of one’s action. I consider remorse as nothing more than a glib afterthought. That said, it does not appear as if he has a genuine sense of wrongdoing and hence any remorse he might express, would only be expedient.

None of this is meant to say that I have made up my mind one way or the other. I am not predisposed towards Rana’s guilt or innocence. This is a perspective based on what one has heard in the courtroom so far. The overriding fact of the case is that more than 160 were systematically killed. And there is no ambiguity about that.

A few observations about Headley and Rana

Tahawwur Hussain Rana’s right eyebrow twitches frequently, as does the right end of his mouth, occasionally making a barely audible smacking sound. It is an involuntary action.It is a nervous tick which probably long predates his arrest in October 2009 in connection with the Mumbai terror case.His also slouches in his chair as if not wanting to be too obvious.

In contrast, his childhood friend David Coleman Headley sits in the witness box with the bearing of someone who is surveying everything around him with urgent but passing curiosity. His face is is largely inscrutable but has an incomplete smile. When he stands up, as is required when the judge and jury enter the courtroom, he has the bearing of someone who has taken a full measure of his surrounding. His two different colored eyes can be unsettling only because it is hard to determine what it is that he is looking at.

There could not be a greater contrast between two men, who until recently were the closest of friends. From the descriptions given by his attorneys Charles Swift and Patrick Blegen, Rana seemed to have been the grown-up in the friendship and Headley an oversized and petulant teenager.

Both are deeply religious within their conflicting Islamic sectarian convictions and as we discovered during the jury trial each tried to relentlessly convert the other to his beliefs. When Headley was asked by Blegen yesterday whether he succeeded in converting Rana from his own Deobandi tradition to the Salafi tradition, he, “Unfortunately, not.”

If you believe the defense’s implicit characterization of Headley, throughout his life he has been a man who is not too troubled by moral compunctions while forsaking anyone who stands in the way of whatever it is he perceives to be his goal. Blegen and Swift cited an incident from his 20s when he took Rana and some other friends to Pakistan’s tribal areas in search of heroine without telling Rana what the real purpose of the visit was. Headley chose to take Rana with him only because he had a military identity card because he was studying medicine at a military college. Rana was taken to clear any obstacle that might come up in Headley’s quest for some drugs.

After watching him for four days one has some measure of Headley. Going by all that has been said about him, he seems to have delusions of grandeur. For instance, there was a reference made to a dream he had before the Mumbai attack. In that dream, he saw his grave being close to the Prophet Mohammad’s. In a religion where the prophet is out of bounds for even visual representation of any kind because he is considered unattainable, for Headley to have a dream of his grave being next to him can only be explained by delusions of grandeur.

Towards the end of the day yesterday Blegen asked Headley: "You were proud of it (the Mumbai attacks) then?"

"Yes," Headley replied.

"Are you still proud of it today?" Blegen asked.

"No," Headley replied without even a moment's hesitation.

This was probably the closest he has come to expressing remorse about the Mumbai attacks. It sounded lip-deep to me but for someone who has a certain grandiosity about himself this has to have taken some effort.

Rana, on the other hand, continues to maintain somewhat diffident bearing, taking down notes and suddenly getting lost in thoughts.

Accounting terrors

Let’s imagine a hypothetical situation of two friends D and T. D owns a business and T wants to join. D and T decide to open a branch office.

D tells T that he needs no money for the branch office because he has lined up an investor. Now imagine that the money set aside for the branch office by the investor is $25,000.

Since T has taken no money from D there is no particular need for him to report income and expense to T other than out of professional courtesy. That’s where things get tricky. One day D sends an email to T explaining the following. Disregard the fractured language.

The most curious aspect of this message is when D tells T “Since I am bringing the $2500 for the office so you will then owe me $18500 instead of $16000 previously..” If T invested no money in the branch office and D managed everything from the investment of 25 grand, why does T owe D anything at all? Equally, if T needs no fund from D, why does D’s debt jump up by $2500. Numbers do not seem to add up.

What I have called a hypothetical situation is actually real and taken from the ongoing trial of Chicago businessman Tahawwur Hussain Rana, accused of supporting terrorism in the November, 2008 attacks on Mumbai. David Coleman Headley, Rana’s childhood, friend, set up an immigration services office in Mumbai ostensibly with $25000 provided by Major Iqbal, a shadowy figure from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

The apparent accounting error was gleefully pointed out by Rana’s attorney Charles Swift as he began to cross exam Headley in a Chicago federal court yesterday. Headley, who had during the last three days of his testimony been a picture of precision in his replies to the prosecution as their witness, seemed to fumble explaining the contradiction how Rana’s debt went up in connection with an office he had invested no money in.

As a B grade Hindi movie lawyer, with his coat bursting at its seams around his girth and a tie askew, would say, “Yeh point note kiya jay, me lord. (A point to be noted, me lord).”

Aloof as a lab technician

Key Mumbai terror plotter David Coleman Headley talks about death and destruction with the aloof air of a laboratory technician mixing various chemicals to see which combination would be most combustible.

If there was ever a plan to showcase his remorse about Mumbai, his two days of testimony in the federal court of Judge Harry D. Leinenweber in Chicago, it is going in the opposite direction. Here is a man who says the Mumbai attack evened scores for the bombing of his school in December, 1971 during the India-Pakistan war, that led to the creation of Bangladesh. The man sure holds long grudges.

One had heard about Headley’s cool and measured composure and one is getting to witness it now. As Assistant US Attorney Daniel Collins carefully walks him through all major and minor details of the Mumbai plot, Headley responds as if he has dropped by for a casual chat. His replies are precise, almost well-rehearsed. He remembers details of who said what years ago, making me wonder whether he is improvising it. He is under oath and improvisation is not an option. He cannot possibly wing it. And yet I find it hard to conceive of someone who can remember minute details about his dozens of meetings with the masterminds of the Mumbai attacks.

The man is clearly good at his chosen profession. That chosen profession may not be all that respectable but he gave his absolute best. Yesterday, for instance, while talking about his reconnaissance of various potential sites to strike, he spoke of Mumbai’s Siddhi Vinayak Temple. He visited the temple to shoot some surveillance video. While he was there it struck him that it would be a great idea to get some red and yellow threads that the faithful tie around their wrists. He carried those threads, described in the court with some liberty as bracelets, back to Pakistan and gave it to Sajid Mir, the Lashkar-e-Taiba operative who oversaw the training of the ten Mumbai attackers. They indeed wore those threads in order to blend in.

Headley’s testimony is offering some powerful insights into the collective mindsets of jihadi groups. I will write about some more this Friday.

******

Email addresses are some of the lighter aspects of the ongoing trial of Chicago businessman Tahawwur Hussain Rana in connection with November 26, 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.

Considering the kind of communication that was going on between key Mumbai terror plotter David Coleman Headley, Lashkar-e-Taiba operative Sajid Mir and Pakistani intelligence officer Major Iqbal, they had to be creative about the kind of addresses they used.

The one I found particularly funny was chalchalo@yahoo.com. Those who know Hindustani/Urdu would understand the meaning. Chal means a move and chalo means make. Together it means make a move. This particular email belonged to Sajid Mir and aptly describes the kind of activities he was engaged in. When Mir decided to give up that email address, he switched to get.me.books@gamil.com.

Then there was impervious2pain@yahoo.com used by Headley in his communication with Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed also known as Pasha, a retired Pakistani army officer.

Headley reveals rare details of Mumbai terror plot planning

The following appeared worldwide on the IANS wire. As you might have guessed, I am covering the trial of Chicago businessman Tahawwur Hussain Rana, accused of providing support to terrorism in connection with the November 26, 2008 Mumbai attacks.

By Mayank Chhaya

Chicago, May 24 (IANS) From how to pray without leaving the forehead indurated to the language of the train announcements at the Victoria Terminus station, the Pakistani planners of the Mumbai terror attacks paid meticulous attention to every detail, key plotter David Coleman Headley testified here.

The 50-year-old Pakistani American, who has pleaded guilty to all 12 charges of his involvement in planning the attacks, Monday offered a rare and extraordinary look inside the behind-the-scenes planning of an operation that left the Indian state practically paralysed for three days starting Nov 26, 2008.

Under a plea bargain deal that requires him to cooperate fully with the federal prosecutors, Headley was expected to disclose all that he knows about the planning of the attack and he lived up to that obligation as Assistant US Attorney Daniel Collins carefully walked him through all major and minor details of the plot.

Headley's attorney John Theis sat in the front row as his client answered questions in somewhat muffled tones even while disclosing remarkable details.
At one point as he discussed the kind of conversations he had had with his Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) handler Sajid Mir, Headley said he was even told how to pray in order to avoid "mihrab", the dark spot that devout Muslim men have on their foreheads because of the regular friction with the floor while praying.
The significance of this particular detail being that since Headley was to travel to Mumbai as a white American on a US passport, a mark like that on his forehead may arouse suspicion. As a result, he was advised to pray without touching his forehead to the ground.

Another seemingly minor but crucial detail that came to light during his four-hour-long testimony concerned the train arrival and departure announcements at Mumbai's Victoria Terminus or Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus.

Headley told the court that he pointed out to both Sajid Mir and Major Iqbal, a shadowy figure reportedly belonging to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), that the announcements were made in English and Marathi. If the attackers did not know English, they could run into difficulty trying to find out when trains were arriving.

The overriding theme of prosecutor Collins' questioning was to establish how closely the LeT, as represented by Sajid Mir, and the ISI, as represented by Major Iqbal were involved every step of the way, directing Headley what to do, when, where and how. So much so that Mir and Headley even discussed which Islamic denomination the latter's fellow accused Tahawwur Hussain Rana belonged to as well as the need to win him over to the Salafi side of Islam.

Salafi adherents treat the companions of the Prophet Mohammed and the two immediate generations of Muslims that followed as their role model. Headley said LeT believes being a Salafi "is a prerequisite to jihad". He said he was told by Mir that only when Rana, a Pakistani military physician turned businessman at whose trial Headley testified, was made a Salafi can the real agenda be pushed.

Headley and Rana even debated who should declare jihad, whether a head of an Islamic state, as Rana believed, or someone else. Headley explained to Rana that a head of state was necessary only if it was to be "offensive" jihad but for "defensive" jihad of the kind currently underway it was not necessary.

Another striking disclosure that Headley made relates to the 2002 Muslim massacre in Gujarat in the aftermath of the killings of 50 Hindu pilgrims at Godhra. In fact, he cited that massacre as one of the triggers for him personally to get involved in the Mumbai attacks.

He said between 2002 and 2007 the LeT had received hundreds of letters from Muslims in Gujarat to help them. He even referred to an undercover video recording of a Hindu activist called Babu Bajrangi who had bragged about personally killing many Muslims.

The broad focus of his testimony was also on the number of times he met Major Iqbal and Sajid Mir to finetune plans for the Mumbai attacks as well as watch many video surveillance tapes of the city that Headley personally shot during his visits prior to the attack.

From discussing landing sites to the schedule of a major conference of defence industry which was to be organised at the Taj Mahal Hotel and from how to transfer attackers from a Pakistani boat to an Indian vessel to determining the nearest taxi stand, the three men discussed everything in great detail.

--Indo-Asian News Service

Someone so perfect as IMF chief that he may not make it

Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia

Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, a key member of India’s economic brain trust for the better part of the last two decades, has an excellent shot at becoming the next managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In fact, the role fits him so well that it is possible that he would be disregarded.

For someone who has overseen the reform of the Indian economy as long as he has, Dr. Ahluwalia is equally at home with the World Bank-IMF system having previously served there in very senior positions. He last served as the first director of the IMF’s Independent Evaluation Office between 2001 and 2004. It is remarkable how quickly and easily his name has cropped up in the Western media, including in The Economist and The New York Times, as a credible candidate for this powerful position.

If robust economic management is a primary requirement for the next IMF chief, then Dr. Ahluwalia wins hands down. A Rhodes scholar with an M. Phil from the Oxford University, Dr. Ahluwalia represents the very best in terms of both scholarship as well as hands-on running of a giant bureaucracy. He is currently the deputy chairman of India’s Planning Commission and in that role he oversees the entire country’s economic planning and management.

This is as good a time as it will ever be to liberate the IMF from the US-Europe stranglehold and bring in someone from an economic success story in the face of huge odds. While India still remains very seriously mired in large-scale poverty, there is no denying its extraordinary success in turning a basket case into one of the world’s two most important economies in a span of two and half decades that also saw its population grow more than 400 million.

The 68-year-old may be weighed down by his age but that is more than made up by his enormous experience and success.

Dressing up as a prince

In his latest column friend and fellow journalist Aseem Chhabra writes about Manavendra Singh Gohil, whose two identifiable features are that he occasionally dresses up as a prince and that he is gay. Neither, I must add here, is an attribute nor an accomplishment. Nor, for that matte, a career.

Aseem has a justifiable grouse with Gohil, who has successfully managed to project his story in the Western media as one of hard struggle of a “prince” who came out in the face great royal familial ferment. After the 46-year-old Gohil was featured by Oprah Winfrey some years ago he was rocketed into an orbit no Indian gay man has managed.  Aseem quotes from an essay published on Winfrey’s site before Gohil was interviewed on the show as saying, “In 2006, a royal Indian prince revealed a secret so taboo, it ripped his family apart, stunned a nation and made international headlines.”

Homosexuality has not quite been a “secret so taboo” in India which has “stunned” the nation. The essayist pulled that one straight out of his or her own ass. Except causing some predictable outrage and embarrassment to his immediate family Gohil’s homosexuality was a staggering non-event in Rajpipla, let alone Gujarat, India and the world. The immediate provocation that prompted Aseem to write about Gohil was a recent fundraiser in New York where the “prince” dressed up as, for want of a better word, a “prince” “trying desperately to sell himself.”

Let me give a context to Gohil and his princeliness. Gohil did not become gay by dint of hard work. He was born gay. Also, he also did not become a “prince” by dint of hard work. He was born a prince, such as it is. As kingdoms go, Rajpipla was more like an outhouse of a minor kingdom. Even those who believe in such non-sense as royalty would struggle to describe Rajpipla as a kingdom and its inheritors as princes.

The British developed a completely fake system of grading royalties and principalities during the Raj. Quite like those phony titles such as ‘Sir’, and ‘Rao Bahadur’, they had a system of gun salutes. Gun salutes literally meant the firing of canons in honor of a particular king or prince. The number of times that the canons were fired depended, in the Indian context, on how prosperous the kingdom was. The 21 gun salute was considered the highest honor. On the gun salute scale, it seems Rajpipla qualified for the 13 gun salute.

Think of the gun salute scale as the Richter scale, except the Richter scale is real science. The 13 gun salute may not seem that far from the 21 gun salute but it is actually very low because the magnitude that separates any two numbers on this scale drops dramatically with each lowering. To put in the terms most might understand, if the Nizam of Hyderabad was in the front row of Indian kings along with those of Gwalior or Vadodara or Mysore, Rajpipla would be somewhere close to the exit. I exaggerate, of course, but you get the point.

There is something instructive about the fact that Gohil is still holding on to two main identifiers of his life, his lineage and his sexuality, neither of which he played any part in creating. On the other hand, what difference does it make if he wants to dress up as a prince to raise money for a good cause?