Mayank Chhaya Daily

A couple of points about The Economist’s view of India

I am an admirer of the craft of conflation for the sake of it. I do not necessarily believe in the final product of that conflation but I do like to see where the process ends up.

Take for instance what I am about to say. In the early 1990s, The Economist described the New York-based India Abroad as a weekly of “unusually high quality.” In the late 1980s and 1990s, nearly 35 percent of all cover stories and other stories used to be reported and written by me. I can conflate these two facts to claim about 35 percent of the credit for India Abroad being a weekly of “unusually high quality.” This, in turn, gives me the right to hold forth on The Economist from time to time.

In a two-piece report (one leader, one article) on India, The Economist makes some interesting points about how a lack of a grand, overarching (my words) strategic vision inhibits India’s rise as a truly great power alongside China. The British newspaper zeroes in on some specifics to be behind this shortcoming. In particular, it speaks of how “the country lacks the culture to pursue an active security policy.” To that end, it points out India’s “ridiculously feeble” foreign service. “India’s 1.2 billion people are represented by about the same number of diplomats as Singapore’s 5m,” it says. It also speaks about how India’s creeds of “semi-pacifism” and non-alignment might have served the country well in some ways are now outdated and need to be given up. All this, in the interest of rising to its inherent potential to emerge as a truly great power.

All these are cogently argued points in the tradition of The Economist which is itself a weekly of “unusually high quality.” For once, the newspaper takes a much less dismissive view of India than it has been known to. Its prescription in favor of significantly increasing the foreign service, bulking up the military, sharpening its security culture and generally recognizing and deploying its fundamental strategic strengths in the region and around the world cannot be quarreled with. However, that view is valid only if you happen to subscribe to the idea that countries with great demographic, cultural, economic and military heft should necessarily cast themselves in the role of a power seeking global consequence. That argument is not valid if you happen to subscribe to the view, like many Indians do, that India’s strengths are fundamentally civilizational, therefore long-term and enduring, rather than strategic, therefore short-term and shifting.

The Economist has been known to represent a distilled view of what was until 1947 arguably the greatest colonial power, namely Britain. India was arguably the most important part of its standing as the greatest colonial power. As a nation-state which is not even 70 years old yet but a civilization stretching back at least 5000 years, India unconsciously takes a contemplative, philosophical view of the world which by its very nature runs counter to what The Economist prescribes. It is probably wise to consider some of the specific suggestions made by the journal if India’s objective is more short-term. But as an Indian I suspect the country’s entrenched civilizational predilections will continue to overwhelm its more realistic, practical needs.

A part of this inability or reluctance, if that is what you want to call it, has to do with the fact that unlike the West, India does not treat life as a profession or a career which has to have a specific path and achievable goals and objectives. The underpinnings of India’s statecraft are always more philosophical in nature rather than strategic. What is remarkable is that India’s political leaderships, notwithstanding their often conflicting ideologies, generally tend to agree on this point even without consciously trying. Of course, it is always possible that with the giant demographic of 550 million people under the age of 25-30 , which is in itself bigger than any other country except China,pushing them, India’s future leaderships may become less burdened with this civilizational consciousness and follow The Economist’s prescription.

Stepping on political turd

Four U.S. lawmakers. who are among a group of visitors specially chaperoned to meet Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, have stepped right on it. By it, I mean political turd. The smell on their shoes may not last long but while it does, it would be fairly foul.

Thanks to my friends Hemant Bhrambhatt and Ashok Easwaran, publisher and editor respectively of the Chicago-based weekly Hi India, an ongoing India visit of the four Republican lawmakers and businesspeople has been somewhat upended.

Here are the basic facts. The delegation consisting of Congressman Aaron Schock, Congressman Marlin Stutzman, Congresswoman Cynthia Lummis and  and Congresswoman Cathy M Rodgers along with a bunch of businesspeople was taken to meet Modi. The details of the visit, according to Hi India, are following:

The organizers had canvassed for participants in the trip at prices ranging from $3,000 to $16,000.

The trip was sponsored by a political action committee (PAC), the National Indian American Public Policy Institute (NIAPPI) founded by Shalabh Kumar, a Chicago businessman. An invitation circulated by NIAPPI in preparation for the trip said it was "limited to (an) elite group of American businesspersons".

The group has already met Modi in Ahmedabad and invited him to visit the US. On the schedule of an extensive trip is a stay at the Lake Palace in Udaipur, a visit to Karnataka as guest of the state government, a visit to the Taj Mahal, the tiger reserve at Ranthambore, a night at the Rambagh Palace in Jaipur, a visit to the Golden Temple in Amritsar and a dinner hosted by Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. A 'Bollywood Extravaganza' has also been included for the guests.

The cost options given in the invitation were: '7 star trip' (business class travel, private air charter in India) $16,000 per person, '4 star trip' (commercial travel in India with visits to the palace excluded) $10,000 per person, and economy option-with all travel and hotel expenses borne by the individual- $3,000 per person.

Quite predictably, the story by Hi India, which is a straightforward professional reporting job and takes no sides at all, has been grabbed for political exploitation. The Congress Party, an implacable foe of Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party, has been quick to latch on to the story and drop dark hints of wrongdoing here. In the process, they have said things which come close to being libelous. For instance, Congress Party spokesman Rashid Alvi said it was a “shame that the Congressmen were paid for getting a visa and certificate of development for Modi”.

"One feels ashamed over this kind of news. It is an insult to a nation. The Congressmen were given Rs 9 lakh (Rs. 900,000 which is a rough equivalent in rupees of $16,000) each so that America can give him (Modi) visa and a certificate of development.

"This is unfortunate. If the money had been spent in Gujarat for the poor and development, then it would have been much better,” he said.*

While there are very legitimate questions to be asked about who paid for the junket and whether the U.S. lawmakers may have walked into some ethics questions, it is reckless to conclude straightaway, as the Congress spokesman seems to do, that they were “given” $16,000 “each.”

"All I would say is that our trip here was signed off by the appropriate authorities in our government... and specifically by the House of Representatives. I would simply say that three members of Congress don't just leave the country,” Congressman Schock has been quoted as saying by the Indian media.

"So I am not going to get into all the nuances. Certainly some people do not like the fact that we are here... perhaps some people do not agree with what we are saying here... but certainly as American members of Congress we have a free right to come over here," Schock said.

"I have checked appropriate boxes necessary to make this trip legitimate and well within all the rules and accordances of US Congress," he said.

NIAPPI’s Shalabh Kumar has said, "There is a very strong House Ethics Committee that disapproves or approves visits by Congressmen to other countries".

"So an organization like NIAPPI, that is a think-tank, sponsors visits, and trade people who want to go and establish business," Kumar said.

The assertion by Congressman Schock, who is known as much for his absolute political certitudes as he is for his youthfully ripped abs (He is only 32 years old), has to be viewed with seriousness when he says the trip was “signed off by the appropriate authorities in our government... and specifically by the House of Representatives.” If that is indeed the case, the visit acquires a different dimension. The approval by the House of Representatives can then legitimately be conflated by Modi’s well-oiled PR machine to claim that political views about the chief minister in American political circles may be changing. As the readers of this blog might well know that Modi has been denied a U.S. visa since 2005. You may read some more details here.

Schock’s response does not settle the question of who paid for the visit but he is right in saying that members of the U.S. Congress do not just leave the country. There is a clearly defined set of rules that govern such trips and they have to be ethically unquestionable. That said, there have been cases of lawmakers accepting freebies and running into ethics violations.

On a separate note, it is instructive how all the four lawmakers are Republicans whose party has considerable ideological convergence with Modi and the BJP when it comes to advocating entirely unfettered business-friendly policies as well limited government.

I want to acknowledge Hemant and Ashok for bringing the story out in the tradition of good, old-fashioned professional journalism. The story has become somewhat of a political tool but that is hardly Hemant and Ashok’s doing. They have let facts, as authentically available to them, speak for themselves without fueling any partisan political narrative.

*I am not responsible for the quality of Alvi’s linguistic construction. It was possibly translated by the Indian media from Hindi.

Who would like to be in Pervez Musharraf’s shoes?

I wonder whether those who fling shoes in protest against public figures bring an extra pair or use one of the two they are wearing. If it is the former, it is understandable. But if it is the latter, it begs the question—Do they go shoeless for the rest of the day or buy a new pair?

A lawyer in Karachi, who was among some 20 others protesting against former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, threw a shoe at him on Friday. Musharraf, who has just returned to Pakistan after over four years in exile, was at the Sindh High Court in connection with a bail hearing. While Musharraf was granted a bail extension by the court, there was nothing in the order to protect him from flung shoes. This one landed close to him but did not hurt him. Of course, it will take much more than a few flying shoe to deter the former military dictator from pursuing his objective of leading Pakistan again. Perhaps he should have asked the lawyer to throw the other shoe as well to complete the pair because as he goes about rehabilitating himself he is going to have to walk a lot. An extra pair of shoes can always help.

I am reminded of the December, 2008 incident in Baghdad where not one but two shoes were hurled at the visiting U.S. President George W. Bush. Here is what I wrote then:

In a cruelly ironic reaffirmation of democracy striking roots in Iraq, a correspondent of the Al Baghdadiya TV hurled not one but two shoes in rapid succession at President George W. Bush who was on a farewell visit to the country he believes he freed up.

Television footage of the ugly incident is widely available. The good news is that the president’s reflexes are swift and impressive for a man under his kind of stress. When the first shoe is flung at him, he ducks with complete precision. It appears he was not expecting the second one. He seemed a bit flustered but managed to dodge that any way.

In many Asian cultures, including in India, shoes have been used as an expression of utter contempt.  Garlands of shoes have been frequently thrown around politicians in India as an expression of extreme disapproval or displeasure. In the Middle Eastern culture too shoes are a tool of protest.

Bush was obviously unprepared for what he encountered. Unfortunately for him, the incident will be emblematic of his Iraq policy as he leaves office.

Unlike Bush, Musharraf seeks to return to office against formidable odds, including the cases of the murder of former Balochistan Governor and Chief Minister Nawab Akbar Bugti in August 2007 and the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi in December 2007. He may manage to sidestep a shoe but those charges would require much more skill and tenacity. Then there is the publicly issued threat of assassination by the Taliban.

As you can see, Musharraf must want to lead Pakistan badly. Why else would he expose himself to all this? Not too many others would like to be in his shoes.

A short encounter of an inveterate tree hugger

Mayank Chhaya (Picture by Jashn Chhaya)

Trees like mountains have a way of inducing serene tranquility in me. Some of it has to do with the fact that both trees and mountains are so rooted in one place. They don’t come to you. You have go to them. 

On a current visit to San Diego, I chanced upon a bunch of trees on the Scenic Harbor Drive. Despite my best efforts I have not been able to find the name of this particular tree. All of them were pretty in a minimalist sort of way but one in particular, the one under which I am standing with an unintentionally smug expression, was simply irresistible. It was as if I came to San Diego only to visit this tree. Going by the number of people who had cruelly scratched their names on its trunk and branches it seemed as if there was something special about this tree.

Trees do speak to me. It is just that I am yet to decipher their language. Most likely they are saying, “Hey, get off my roots” or “Don’t act so fresh. Who said you can hug me without my permission?”  Being a inveterate tree hugger I do not wait to find out whether the tree approves. It is an entirely impulsive and selfish act. I hugged this tree as well. I think I heard it tell me, “Really?! Why?” As I said, it is a selfish act. I feel charged for some time to come.

A thing or two or three about same-sex marriages

This post is rated Tongue-in-Cheek (T-in-C).  I do not disclose whose tongue is in whose cheek. Reader discretion is advised.

Has anyone considered the possibility that America’s Supreme Court may not be rushing to grant constitutional sanctity to marriages among gay and lesbian couples out of pure altruism? The nine traditionally married Supreme Court justices want to spare gays and lesbians all the annoyances that straight married couples encounter on an hourly basis. I suspect the justices are motivated by an entirely altruistic impulse of protecting an unsuspecting minority from the real consequences of marriage such as being really really married.

It is amusing to watch the ongoing hearings in the Supreme Court over the question of whether gays and lesbians can be married with the same the constitutional protections enjoyed by straight marriages. I say amusing because the drift of the court’s opinion does not seem to be outright rejection but the unspoken question, “Can we do it later?” That later being after some of them have retired and gone. It appears as if they want to skirt the issue without appearing to be skirting the issue. In particular, I was struck by the comments attributed to Justice Samuel Alito. He has been quoted as saying, “Same-sex marriage is very new.” He said “it may turn out to be a good thing; it may turn out not to be a good thing.”

“But you want us to step in and render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution, which is newer than cellphones or the Internet? I mean, we do not have the ability to see the future,” Alito said.

His point seems to be about the difficulties people face while operating the cellphones that are getting increasingly smarter and the Internet which is getting increasingly faster. Haven’t you noticed how so many people push random buttons while operating smart phones? I think that’s what he is referring to—about pushing all the wrong buttons. Marriage, after all, is about pushing buttons.

Chief Justice John Roberts has an entirely different argument. He seems to be coming to the issue from the nomenclature standpoint. “Same-sex couples have every other right,” he has been quoted as saying. “It’s just about the label in this case,” he said and added, “If you tell a child that somebody has to be their friend, I suppose you can force the child to say, ‘This is my friend,’ but it changes the definition of what it means to be a friend.”  He seems to be implying that by extending the child-friend analogy we can force to say that gays and lesbians are married but that changes the definition of what it means to be married. In other words, what straights do is marriage with all the real pecuniary and emotional benefits and what the gays and lesbians do is, well, whatever the heck the gays and lesbians do except marriage.

I am surprised no one is saying that justices ought to recuse themselves from hearing this case out of the rationale of conflict of interest.  They are all straight married people and they have direct vested interest in upholding the sanctity of marriages strictly between one man and one woman. How can they decide the issue of same-sex marriages? To me it constitutes a conflict of interest.

More seriously, this whole debate over what marriage is a bogus exercise because it involves an entirely arbitrary constitutional sanctification of a coming together between two persons of two specific genders. That is because at the heart of the debate is the ridiculous question of procreation, as in marriage is about procreation gays, lesbians cannot procreate and therefore same-sex marriages are no valid. Shorn of all the constitutional arguments, the simple fact is that people should be able to marry whomever they choose to marry and enjoy every right guaranteed under a democratically evolved constitution. Gays and lesbians also must enjoy all the freedom to be disillusioned about marriage as an institution as well as experience all the hourly rewards and annoyances that come with it.

Go, Figo yourselves

There are those who look at this ad and say, “But (former Italian Prime Minister) Silvio Berlusconi will never drive the Ford Figo” as if that is the most objectionable aspect of it.  This apparently unauthorized ad for the American car company’s hatchback for the Indian market has met with a swift and entirely justifiable  condemnation. There is humor that pushes the envelop and then there is humor that is just gratuitously offensive.  The ad falls without any pretense in the second category.

It is not that hard to understand what the Mad Men of the Indian branch of the ad agency J Walter Thompson (JWT) were thinking when they came up with this possible cartoonish option for Ford. I say not hard because it so obviously betrays the easy misogyny of its creators. The tagline “Leave your worries behind with Figo’s extra-large boot” is precisely the kind of medieval view of women that characterizes many men and is at the heart of ongoing problem of violence against women. I am not for a moment presuming that the ad was necessarily a brainchild of a male ad creator. It could well have been a woman but the prospects of that being indeed so are fairly low. If their purpose was to create an ad that was consciously but ironically over-the-top and demeaning of women, it has failed so miserably.  If the creators’ idea of being imaginative is tying and gagging three women straight out of a cheap S&M catalogue, it is quite pathetic. Apart from its intrinsically offensive undertones, what makes the ad revolting is that it is not even funny. There is humor which is deliberately offensive but at least has the merit of being funny. This one fails on every measure.

I wonder whether JWT India’s team thought that the demographic of potential Figo buyers that they were going for is such that they would immediately know that the man with a smug smile, flashing a V sign is the controversial Italian politician Berlusconi with a penchant for wild dalliances with freshly pubescent women. I am not entirely clear what the purpose of showing Berlusconi to a potential Indian customer is.  The message seems to be that the trunk of the Figo is so large that you can dump three women with their boobs and butts spilling out and yet have room for humor. The creators should know that there is nothing even remotely funny about a woman being stuffed in the trunk of a car, even that of a Figo. Such images merely reinforce the subconscious of those men who believe that to get to know a woman is to waylay her and subject her to extreme sexual brutality.

Ford India felt compelled enough to issue an apology as quoted by various media outlets: "We deeply regret this incident and agree with our agency partners that it should have never happened. The posters are contrary to the standards of professionalism and decency within Ford and our agency partners." 

Reading various reports about the ad not meant for unrestricted public consumption, my sense is that it is something advertising creative directors and copy writers do just for the heck of it, to test their creativity as it were. JWT, according to some reports, was not even contracted for the ad. Be that as it may, it was foolish to think that in this day and age of life lived and consumed in real time something like this would stay within the “creative” confines of the ad world.

An actor prepares….for a prison term

The late actor-director turned politician Sunil Dutt, left, with Mayank Chhaya (I am not entirely sure whether this photo was taken by news photographers Gopal Shetty or Palashranjan Bhaumick)

As Hindi cinema actor Sanjay Dutt prepares to serve out the remaining three and half years of a five-year sentence for his conviction under India’s Arms Act, I am reminded of a meeting with his late illustrious father Sunil Dutt.

Dutt Sr. was one of India’s most respected movie stars, producers and directors who also made a successful transition into politics. I knew him reasonably well and met him several times, particularly after he joined the Congress Party in 1984. My photograph above with him was taken in 1985 at the centenary celebrations of the party in Bombay. The Indian National Congress was founded in 1885.

The particular meeting that I write about today took place in Delhi sometime in 1995. I had gone to meet Dutt Sr. to generally talk to him about his son’s legal troubles in the aftermath of the 1993 Bombay blasts. Sanjay had been arrested for illegal possession of weapons in the run-up to the March 12, 1993 blasts. Dark hints were being dropped by the police and other federal investigators that the actor might have wittingly or unwittingly aided the plot to set off a series of bomb blasts in Bombay which killed 254 people and injured close to a 1000 people. The actor was charged under the dreaded Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, whose acronym TADA has inspired much gallows humor.

I remember Dutt Sr. looking deeply anguished and somewhat helpless over Sanjay’s troubles. After discussing the case in its bare details, Dutt suddenly fell silent for a few moments, welled up and said to me, “Sanju is a good boy who sometimes makes bad decisions.” Dutt said if his son had done wrong, he would have no problem with the punishment. But he said as his father it was his duty to do all he could to make things right. It was obvious to me that Dutt did not want to convey the impression that being an influential and well connected public figure he was trying to minimize his son’s transgressions. He was merely sharing, without explicitly saying so, what felt like a deeply personal moment. As he wiped tears he checked himself and returned to a more impersonal take on the case.

It was also my impression then while talking to him that he internally blamed himself for Sanjay losing his way. Although Sanjay was always regarded as someone with his heart in the right place, it was equally clear that he had a wild side that often became manifest. He has always maintained that he acquired weapons, including an AK 47, because he perceived a threat to his family during those incendiary days. Sanjay’s late mother Nargist Dutt, regarded as one of India’s greatest actresses, was a Muslim who prided herself in her liberal worldview.

Sanjay spent 16 months in prison soon after his arrest but was later released. It was only last week that India’s Supreme Court rejected his final appeal against his sentence and ordered him to return to custody in four weeks’ time. Being one of India’s biggest movie stars, there is a great deal of money riding on his incomplete films. In the intervening two decades Sanjay has done well to rehabilitate himself even as his movie career has stayed on the upswing. He is married and has three children. He enjoys wide spread support and affection within the film fraternity and outside, many of whom have openly sided with him and called for a pardon.

A state governor, in this case the governor of Maharashtra, has the powers to pardon under India’s constitution. However, it is a delicate affair which has the potential of creating terrible political PR over a rich movie star being pardoned merely because of who he is. India’s legal system is way less forgiving of people of low or no means and standing who have been involved in lesser offenses.

There may be a great deal of sympathy for Sanjay Dutt prompted as much by his celebrity as his possibly genuine goodness but there is also the fact of his conviction. At the time of his arrest one of the frequently heard explanations was that perhaps the worst the actor was guilty of was foolishness and it was absurd to suggest that he had any terrorist sympathies or leanings. I had asked his father about it. He said something to the effect, “Itni samajh nahi hai Sanju mein.” (He does not have the guile/capability).

The investigators and prosecutors, of course, have an entirely opposite view of him. They have argued that this was not a simple case of illegal possession of firearms. It was even suggested by the investigators then that Sanjay Dutt could have alerted the police to whatever he knew of the plot and might have helped avert the bombings.

Some 18 years after my conversation with his father the country’s highest court has determined that Sanjay Dutt is required to serve out the rest of his sentence notwithstanding all the real and imagined mitigating factors.

Pakistan’s exiles and returns 3

Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf (Photo: Antônio Cruz/ABr, 2.5 Brazil)

Continuing the peculiarly Pakistani political rite of passage, former military ruler Pervez Musharraf has returned home after over four years in self-imposed exile.

With one eye on the impending national elections on May 11 and the other on his potential imprisonment the dapper general also has to bear in mind a genuine threat to his life issued by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. There are not too many politicians in the world who face simultaneous prospects of once again ruling their country, imprisonment and assassination. The best that can be said about Musharraf’s return is that there won’t be a dull moment in his life from now on.

Speaking to Western audiences, something he had been engaged in throughout his exile, can offer only so much edification to a general used to a life of unfettered power. It was only a matter of time before he chose to return, notwithstanding the consequences. As I said exiles and returns are an amusing feature of Pakistan’s public life. First it was former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto who returned on October 18, 2007, after negotiating amnesty from corruption charges with Musharraf. A little over two months later she was assassinated in Rawalpindi. She had been in exile for nine years.

Another former prime minister Nawaz Sharif followed suit and soon returned on November 25, 2007 after being in exile for eight years. He had attempted to return once earlier on September 10 that year but was promptly deported from the airport to Jeddah by Musharraf.

Now it is the same Musharraf’s turn even as prosecutors want to charge him with involvement in Bhutto’s assassination. He was to have returned in January last year but could not for any number of reasons. This time around he could not have realistically postponed his return given that he sees the upcoming elections as an opportunity for his All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) party to emerge as a political force. An electoral victory, or at least a reasonably good showing, is perhaps Musharraf’s only passport to reclaiming some measure of normal life. Of course, he is facing a major clamor for his arrest and prosecution for various human rights and other transgressions he has been accused of during his tenure. The most serious, of course, are the allegations of his involvement in Bhutto’s assassination.

There is also the case of the killing of Baloch leader Akbar Bugti during a raid when Musharraf was the president. It is hard to pin that killing on him directly but for his detractors any stick is good to beat him with.

For now, the 69-year-old Musharraf has managed to at least temporarily overcome the most immediate threat of arrest on arrival because he managed to secure a pre-arrest bail for ten days. Ten days are a long time in any politics but particularly so in Pakistan.

Some Pakistani political commentators insist that Musharraf has next to no political standing in the country right now and his ambitions of returning to power via the electoral route are utterly misplaced. However, Musharraf sees an opportunity for rehabilitation for himself mainly because all those who have enjoyed long years of power tend to be high on optimism. And optimism has a way of trumping rational analysis.

Despite the largely negative view of its performance the government of President Asif Ali Zardari has had the distinction of being the first democratically elected dispensation to complete its full five-year term. In Pakistan’s sordidly vengeful polity that must count for something. It is hard to say whether that distinction in and of itself will ensure that Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) returns to power. At least on paper, the most formidable figure who could upend Zardari’s and Musharraf’s calculations is the flamboyant cricketer turned politician Imran Khan and his Pakistan Teherik-e-Insaaf (PTI). There are those who project that Khan could win the next elections. Khan himself strongly believes he will win.

Some of what I wrote about Khan in September last years bears repeating.

Khan describes his movement against Pakistan’s deeply entrenched corrupt political order as a “tsunami.”

He presumably means a tsunami that would inundate the corrupt into oblivion because otherwise there are no upsides to tsunamis. In an interview with Dominic Zeigler, the Asia editor of The Economist in September last year, Khan’s likened the coming change to a tsunami due to the dramatic rise in the number of new voters which he puts at 40 million. This is on top of the 80 million registered voters in 2008. The precise figure was 80,796,382 according to the Election Commission of Pakistan.

One can split hairs over Khan’s curious choice of the word tsunami to describe his political  movement but it would serve no particular purpose. Khan says it will be a tsunami. So be it.

My point is more about the figures cited by Khan, in particular the number of new registered voters that he puts at 40 million. With that number the total number of registered voters should be in excess of 120 million out of the population of 190 million. However, the Election Commission website shows the final voter rolls for 2012 to be 84,365,051, or a rise of a little over four million new registered voters over 2008.

I am hoping I am making a mistake here. If it is Khan who is getting the figures wrong, his “tsunami” may turn out to be a bit of an anti-climax. This is not to suggest that the already registered voters could not feel so disillusioned as to turn on all the established parties and create their own tsunami in favor of the PTI.

Perhaps my confusion arises from not considering that the voter rolls are always being revised and by the time the national elections take place either by the end of this year or early next, the number of new voters to register could be what Khan believes it would be. Even then I do not see how four million could multiply ten times in the interim period.

Be that as it may, so far what I am saying about Khan is merely statistical quibbling which is not the point of his rise in recent months. If the size of the political rallies that he has held are any measure, then there may be something to his claim that a large number of Pakistanis is lining up behind his movement. But then again people gathering in large numbers in any South Asian country is does not in and of itself mean they are coalescing around a shared cause.

When one looks at the breakdown of the voter rolls, one cannot help but be struck by the sheer demographic and hence, by implication, political weight exerted by just two of the country’s six provinces. Punjab with its 48,308,644 registered voters and Sindh with its 18,432,877 registered voters alone account for 66,741,521 voters. That constitutes over 79 percent of the voting public. The other big number provinces are Khyber Pakhtun Khwa with its 12,064,597 voters and Balochistan with 3,278,164. The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Federal Area account for 1,675,967 and 604,802 registered voters.

I am not quite sure what Khan considers his stronghold but I suspect that he is looking at a combination of the voters in the age group 18 and 45 who together add up to about 57 million. He is possibly also eyeing the votes out of the FATA and Khyber Pakhtun Khwa because lately he has positioned himself as strongly opposed to US policies such as the drone attacks. The drone attacks have impacted these areas quite a bit and have intensified anti-American sentiment. This is my surmise and I could be wrong.

Over the last 65 years Pakistanis have tried all kinds of leaders who have fallen woefully short. There may not be a particular danger in trying out a cricket superstar notwithstanding his nebulously defined political ideology. As a bowler Khan was regarded as one of the best swingers of the ball, particularly the reverse swing. Let’s see if he reverses the tide of history in Pakistan in the next general elections.

I think it is only appropriate that I slightly rework the great Pakistani poet and rebel Faiz Ahmed Faiz here. The people of Pakistan, after voting Khan to power, could say, “Aur kya dekhne ko baqi hai? Imran se bhi dil laga ke dekh liya.” (What else is there to experience now?  We also tried falling for Imran).

Prepping for two upcoming movies

I have begun pre-production work on two movies that I am involved in—one as an executive producer and writer and the other as writer and director.

The first one is a gentle drama based on a true story drawn from the life of a friend in Chicago, while the other is a purely fictional political action thriller written by me. With as much luck as money I am hopeful that both these projects will be completed before 2013 runs out. If not, I will have the satisfaction of having been able to say that I have begun pre-production work on two movies. I always wanted to say that from my childhood.

We had our second meeting to discuss finer details of the first film yesterday. The outcome of the meeting was that we will shoot about ten minutes as a promo to be pitched to the moneybags. This particular film is based in Chicago and Los Angeles and has three central characters—a woman professor in Chicago, a businessman in Los Angeles and a young Indian American student. I can’t tell you more because I am bound by a non-disclosure agreement. That’s not true but I always wanted to say that from my childhood.

The second film is a multilingual political action thriller to be shot mainly in English and Hindi with a smattering of French and Gujarati. The central character is a half Algerian, half Indian (Gujarati) contract killer hired for a major hit in India. I intend shooting the movie mainly in Algiers and Ahmedabad with some scenes in Diu. The movie has played out in my mind several times, including very specific frames and shot divisions. As a tribute to my profession, a daily newspaper reporter and the printing press have a major presence in the film. In fact, the film opens inside the printing press. I am quite excited about the way the assassin’s character is introduced in the first few frames of the film. I am directing this film even if it means making a fool of myself because I always wanted to publicly make a fool of myself from my childhood.

Too many other childhood wishes may well come true this year, including purposefully peering through a movie camera on a movie set even as actors anxiously await my instructions. I have decided not to say “lights, camera, sound, action.” My line to signal the start of everything will be, “Yup.”

Currently, I am casting for both these movies which have not even been funded yet. My business plan is to find a whole lot of suckers drawn by the vague promise of showbiz glamor. I am not sure about the first one but the second film will be made under my own production and publishing company called Yet Unnamed Productions as well as Yet Unnamed Publishers (YUP). The catch line of my venture is “YUP, That’s right.’ At least the logo of the company is ready. I have designed that. All that I need now is a lot of money and people and office and talent and things of that nature.

I would not blame you if you cannot really figure out whether I am mocking or I am serious about the two movies. Let me simply say that they are well and truly underway.

Does UNHRC vote against Sri Lanka mean much materially?

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) yesterday adopted a resolution on the question of serious human rights violations in Sri Lanka during the fierce military decimation of the Tamil Tigers-led insurgency in May, 2009.

The vote in the 47-nation body went 25 in support of the resolution, including India as widely anticipated, 13 against, including China and Pakistan as equally widely anticipated, and eight abstaining.

With the vote done, now what? A similar vote occurred last year too without it materially changing anything for Sri Lanka in terms of its economic and strategic attractiveness both for China and India. In fact, both the Asian giants continue to covet Sri Lanka, China more so than India, by pouring in billions of dollars in infrastructural investment in the aftermath of the war. If you did not know better you might think that the war, ruthless in its meticulous execution, has only helped to burnish Sri Lanka’s image as a destination that China and India would like to saturate with financial love.

A lot is being read into the the UNHRC resolution by analysts but as someone who has reported on Sri Lanka at the height of its insurgency it strikes me that it has no real impact. India’s hyperloquent (Not a real word but invented here earlier) Tamil political parties, which exercise considerable influence on the country’s politics on this issue, have been demanding that the conduct by the Sri Lankan military during the war be called a genocide. New Delhi, deeply aware of the word’s legal and cultural meaning, has steadfastly refused to go down that path. At the same time though, it has to appear to take a principled stand on the question of human rights violations against the minority Tamil community in Sri Lanka.

The Indian government has struck that delicate balance by simultaneously watering down the actual text of the original US-sponsored resolution and calling on Colombo to implement the recommendations of its own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC). Once you filter out all the noise surrounding the resolution you realize that what the U.N. resolution actually calls for is not that radically different from what Sri Lanka would find sensible to do anyway. I think it is the appearance of external intervention that Colombo finds galling even as it is conscious that there is no escaping eventually establishing accountability over grave human rights violations in the conduct of the war that destroyed one of the world’s most well-oiled terrorist machines.

Much to Sri Lanka’s discomfort, what has become emblematic of the war is the manner in which Balachandran, the 12-year-old son of the Tamil Tigers chief Vellupillai Prabhakaran, was killed. Britain’s Channel 4 and independent filmmaker Callum Macrae have come together to make a documentary called ‘No Fire Zone’ about the Sri Lankan army’s massive operation in 2009 that not only wiped out Prabhakaran’s separatist Tamil Eelam movement led by his Tamil Tigers insurgents but killed him and thousands of others. In the immediate aftermath of that military onslaught it was not clear whether Prabhakaran’s family had survived or not.

The documentary’s main focus is on the allegations of grave war crimes committed during the operation. One major piece of evidence in support of the allegations is a set of three photographs of Balachandran apparently sitting inside a Sri Lankan military bunker. There is also a picture of him lying dead on the ground with five bullets in his chest. The allegation is that he was killed in cold blood after being captured alive.

Colombo has called the claim “diabolical” and the documentary evidence “concocted” whose release has been timed to coincide with the UNHRC meeting.

My basic contention about the whole debate is that none of this has materially impacted Sri Lanka’s quest for rapid economic development since the conclusion of the war nearly four years ago. If anything, it has only bolstered the Chinese resolve to invest billions of dollars in the country with India trying to follow suit. If Colombo’s war conduct has not material consequence, what is really the point of a UNHRC resolution and that too so watered down?

I see the emergence in the last couple of decades or so of a strategy of governance where governments have effectively used economic development to overwhelm any other debate. That strategy has worked wonders in China as it has on a smaller scale in the Indian state of Gujarat as well as Sri Lanka. It is almost as if the argument is that as long as there is rapid economic development, particularly visible in great roads, ports and other infrastructure, people might choose to disregard human rights violations and other transgressions. There is a sizable constituency of people, be it in China, Sri Lanka or Gujarat, which has happily bought this line of thinking.

Every time someone with a contrary view speaks of diminishing social indicators, the pushback from this constituency goes something like this: “Yes, but have you seen the roads?” We have see the roads. The only question is where do they lead?