Mayank Chhaya Daily

Some observations about Jonathan Yeo's portrait of Charles

British painter Jonathan Yeo has been receiving quite a lot of flak for his official portrait of King Charles. The reasons are not hard to find and understand. Although as someone who paints daily, I have no particular problem with the portrait as a piece of art but it is certainly problematic as a piece of art as a portrait. I do not have any particular problem with it. In fact, I think it is quite bold as a piece of art. 

Coming as it does while Charles is dealing with cancer, there is something compelling about the portrait's sanguine, somewhat sangria-like tones. Yeo took four sittings between June 2021 and November 2023 to finish the portrait that measures approximately 8 1/2 by 6 1/2 feet framed. 

Yeo said of the painting: “When I started this project, His Majesty The King was still His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, and much like the butterfly I've painted hovering over his shoulder, this portrait has evolved as the subject's role in our public life has transformed.”

It is quite obvious that the painting has been widely reviled too. For instance, Jonathan Jones writes in The Guardian, "Yeo’s portrait of the king is replete with all his vices. It is technically superficial and unfelt. There’s no insight into the king’s personality here, just a weird allegory about a monarch butterfly that Yeo says is a symbol of his metamorphosis from prince to king." That's ouch! 

However, as a painter myself, I can tell you that it takes a great deal of talent to produce what Yeo has done. As a work of art it may be an acquired taste but his skills as a painter are quite evident. The treatment where everything else except Charles' face and hands stand out unlike the rest of his body draped in his Welsh Guards uniform almost vanishing into the canvas is an interesting one. It is almost like an apparition.

I am approaching it as art rather than a painting of a real person. One may argue that the whole purpose of a portrait, and that too an officially commissioned one, is to faithfully capture that person's essence and personality. I would argue that the purpose of art is art. I am sure Charles did not sit down expecting a photorealistic image. For that he could have chosen to be, well, photographed.

Yeo's explanation of using the Monarch butterfly as a symbol to underscore Charles's metamorphosis is a bit too obvious. However as an artist, it is his right to do whatever he wants. 

Speaking of artists doing what they want, here is my rapid interpretation of the painting.

 

US disinclined to jeopardize India ties over alleged plot to kill Sikh separatist

The following appeared today in South Asia Monitor. 

By Mayank Chhaya

The disclosure by The Washington Post of the identity of an officer in India’s spy agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) to be allegedly behind the thwarted plot to assassinate a U.S.-based Sikh separatist is remarkable for wholly unexpected reasons.

The newspaper’s investigative report on April 29 reveals almost as an incidental fact the extraordinary length to which the Biden administration appears to have gone to soften the blow on the Modi government.

“White House officials warned the Modi government this month that The Post was close to publishing an investigation that would reveal new details about the case. It did so without notifying The Post,” the paper said.

The fact that Washington alerted New Delhi to the upcoming publication of the damning story underscores how the Biden administration has made a clear determination that robust bilateral relations between the two countries take precedence even over the alleged plot that would have brazenly violated America’s sovereignty had it been successful.

It was bad enough as it is that the alleged plot to assassinate the Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, whom India classifies as a terrorist, unfolded on U.S. soil and nearly worked.

However, now that the Post story has identified Vikram Yadav, as a RAW officer to be a key figure, the alleged assassination plot has acquired specific contours.

Yadav’s identity was no breaking news for the Biden administration since it was uncovered by its investigators. It is not clear though whether Washington specifically shared the details about Yadav’s identity with New Delhi preemptively. The paper has said the U.S. government informed the Indian government that “new details” about the case were going to be revealed.

It is conceivable that the Biden administration did indeed share specific details with India. The foreknowledge of the Post story ought to have prepared the Modi government for any likely fallout.

 It is obvious that the U.S. sees India as perhaps its most important strategic relationship not just in Asia but even globally in the context of an increasingly assertive China. With that being the case, it has rationalized that bilateral relations are not worth jeopardizing over the Pannun plot despite its unprecedented nature.

Both President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are in the midst of crucial national elections and the former may not consider worth his while at this juncture to escalate tensions with the latter over what is at its core a feature of global spy craft. The U.S. is no stranger to carrying out such hits on foreign soil. If anything, in many ways it pioneered them.

Domestically, the alleged Indian plot has next to no political consequence for Biden since average Americans are not known to focus on such convoluted global issues as Sikh separatists trying to hive off the Indian state of Punjab from India.

The more damning details of the alleged plot were already known since December last year but there are some specific pointers that are potentially troublesome for New Delhi. For instance, this passage: “U.S. spy agencies have more tentatively assessed that Modi’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval, was probably aware of RAW’s plans to kill Sikh activists, but officials emphasized that no smoking gun proof has emerged.”

With the U.S. presidential election a little more than six months away and Biden bizarrely trailing former President Donald Trump, the Post story may eventually just slide by. The results of the Indian election will be known by June 5. Irrespective of whether Modi wins or loses this issue is of no significant consequence for him either.

For sure, the timing of the Post disclosure is inopportune for Modi. Notwithstanding that, for that minority of Indians which pays attention to such developments, especially the prime minister’s steadfast supporters, the alleged plot is merely reaffirmation of his muscular foreign policy.

Officially, however, Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, has been dismissive about the Post story. In a formal statement he said, “The report in question makes unwarranted and unsubstantiated imputations on a serious matter. There is ongoing investigation of the High-Level Committee set up by the Government of India to look into the security concerns shared by the US government on networks of organized criminals, terrorists and others. Speculative and irresponsible comments on it are not helpful.”

Given that the Modi government is focused almost entirely on the parliamentary election, there is no prospect of any substantive action in the matter until after the election results are out on June 4 or 5.

Timing of Washington Post naming Indian spy operative in Pannun plot inopportune for Modi

The following was published on April 30 in Indica News. 

By Mayank Chhaya

The disclosure by The Washington Post of Vikram Yadav as an officer in India’s spy agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) to be allegedly behind the thwarted plot to assassinate the U.S.-based Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun has come at a particularly inopportune time for the Narendra Modi government.

However, the publication of the investigative story by Greg Miller, Gerry Shih and Ellen Nakashima in the midst of India’s mammoth parliamentary election is unlikely to have any impact on Prime Minister Modi’s electoral fortunes one way or the other.

The more damning details of the alleged plot have already been known since December last year but there are some specific  pointers that are potentially troublesome for New Delhi. For instance, this passage: “U.S. spy agencies have more tentatively assessed that Modi’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval, was probably aware of RAW’s plans to kill Sikh activists, but officials emphasized that no smoking gun proof has emerged.”

It is not altogether inconceivable that a plot to assassinate a U.S. citizen, albeit of Indian origin, on U.S. soil, which is unprecedented in its audacity and brazenness, could not have been executed without the highest echelons in India’s intelligence establishment being at least broadly informed of if not involved in.

The passage of four months since the superseding indictment by the Southern District New York (SDNY) identified as CC-1 and Indian government employee “working together with others in India and elsewhere” has not materially affected India-US relations.

That CC-1 has now been revealed to be Yadav is only a matter of detail. The SDNY was careful enough not to mention RAW in the indictment then.  

The indictment had focused on Nikhil Gupta, an Indian national charged with plotting to assassinate Pannun. Gupta, who according to the superseding indictment describes himself as someone involved in “international narcotics and weapons trafficking”, may be a relatively minor player by himself but he could possess information that could be damning for higher-ups within the Indian establishment.

It described “CC-1” as formerly affiliated with Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and later becoming a “Senior Field Officer” with responsibilities in “Security Management” and “Intelligence”. CC-1 is also described as someone who received training in “battle craft” and “weapons.”

At the time of the indictment Indica News had reached out to find out if Gupta was held in custody in New York but was told by an official that he would not comment beyond what the indictment contains. The official also declined to answer if CC-1 had any affiliation with India’s foreign intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing, better known as RAW on the same grounds.

The fact that CC-1 allegedly authorized a total payment of $100,000 for a hit, according to the indictment, of which $15,000 was paid to a U.S. undercover agent, is both problematic and curious. It is problematic because it underlined a conspiracy. It is curious because it is hard to explain how CC-1 via Gupta knew whom to contact for a contract killing and how Gupta ended up contacting an undercover agent to make the advance payment.

The indictment showed an actual photo of the money being given in a car from one hand to another hand. They look like 100-dollar bills but the one held by the apparent receiving hand looks like a dollar bill.

The essence of the indictment, which goes into great detail to explain the plot, is that CC-1, allegedly Yadav, according to the Post, contracted Gupta to find a hitman in New York and promised him that in return his troubles with the Indian police would be over. “On or about May 12, 2023, CC-1 notified GUPTA that his criminal case “has already been taken care of,” and that “nobody from Guj(a)rat police is calling.” On or about May 23, 2023, CC-1 again assured Gupta that CC-1 had “spoke[n] with the boss about your Gujarat [case],” that it was “all clear,” and “nobody will ever bother you again.” CC-1 further offered to arrange a meeting between GUPTA and a “DCP,” which is an acronym used in India for Deputy Commissioner of Police,” the indictment says.

It is unknown which “boss” CC-1 is talking about in ending Gupta’s case with the Gujarat police. However, the fact that it mentions Gujarat, the home state of both Prime Minister Modi as well as Home Minister Amit Shah would not be lost on New Delhi.

That was a very specific claim and fraught with serious problems for at least Indian officials at relatively senior levels. It also has the potential to be used as leverage by Washington with New Delhi.

As it happens in such plots driven by any intelligence agency or operatives in the world, there ought to be plausible deniability built into to ensure that in case things go wrong, their origin cannot be traced back to the highest levels of the government or intelligence. To that extent, it should not be surprising if CC-1 becomes expendable in terms of his direct links to anyone of great consequence in the Indian government.

The indictment is quite explosive and has significant implications for US-India relations. However, given the US’s murky history in such matters and, more importantly, the fact that Washington needs New Delhi on its side in dealing with much larger and more serious global challenges emanating from China’s undisguised maneuvers as America’s only rival internationally, this case may eventually not amount to much. It may become a sword that Washington would keep hanging in its bilateral relations.

There are many remarkable passages in the indictment but this one is particularly telling. “As they plotted the murder of the Victim, Gupta specifically and repeatedly instructed the CS (confidential source) not to carry out the assassination during anticipated engagements between high level government officials from the United States and India. For example, on or about June 6, 2023, on an audio call, Gupta instructed the CS that “we need to calm down everything (for) 10 days” because of such engagements scheduled to occur over the ensuing weeks. Gupta explained that, given the Victim’s public profile as an activist, there could be protests in the wake of his death, which could lead to “political things,” referring to geopolitical fallout if the Victim were assassinated on U.S. soil during those planned meetings. Gupta added that after the planned engagements, there would be “more jobs, more jobs,” referring to more targeted killings like that of the Victim to be carried out in the future.”

Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, said of the Post story in a formal statement, “The report in question makes unwarranted and unsubstantiated imputations on a serious matter. There is ongoing investigation of the High Level Committee set up by the Government of India to look into the security concerns shared by the US government on networks of organized criminals, terrorists and others. Speculative and irresponsible comments on it are not helpful.”

Given that the Modi government is focused almost entirely on the parliamentary election, there is no prospect of any substantive action in the matter until after the election result is out on June 4 or 5.

New Delhi would not have been surprised by the Post story because as the newspaper pointed out, “White House officials warned the Modi government this month that The Post was close to publishing an investigation that would reveal new details about the case. It did so without notifying The Post.”

Manek Chowk of Ahmedabad: Tetris on Steroids

Bhadra Fort and Gate, Ahmedabad (Circa 1411) Photos: MC

After writing 45,000 words more than a decade ago, I have been dragging my feet on my book about Ahmedabad. The expectation is that my current visit to the city after nine years will not only revive the biography but even propel me to wrap it up.

As part of that revival, this afternoon I decided to loaf around the heart of Ahmedabad in Manek Chowk, between the Bhadra Fort and Sultan Ahmad Shah I’s mausoleum; Ahmad Shah being the founder of the city in 1411. Today happens to be the 613th anniversary of Ahmedabad’s founding.

Manek Chowk was always a sensory overload for as long as I remember. The two predominant fragrances of Manek Chowk are a mélange of incense from the Bhadrakali Temple and the loban dhoop from around Badshah Aney Rani No Haziro (the mausoleums of the sultan and his queen). Between the two fragrant bookends lies a whole range of olfactory and auditory experiences.

Speaking of auditory experiences, decades were rewound for me in minutes while navigating through the often stiflingly narrow lanes as vendors asked me, “Bolo saheb, shun lesho?” (Tell me, sir, what would you like to buy?) It is very nearly a rhetorical question since the vendors do not wait for you to answer. It is like a reflex action for them.

One vendor, who was lovingly stacking up brassieres by stiffening their cups into little hills, asked me “Bolo saheb lesho?”

“Hun bra nathi pehrto, (I do not wear a bra),” I said.

He laughed and said, “Pan Bhabhi to pehrta hashe ne. (But your wife -- me being his presumed brother meant my putative wife would be his presumed Bhabhi or sister-in-law -- must wear it.)”

“She has many bras but thank you,” I said and continued towards the Haziro.

During my last visit nine years ago, I vividly remember sensing a great deal of disquiet around Ahmed Shah’s tomb. The chapter about Manek Chowk describes that feeling thus: “The air around the tomb seemed to be trembling with a certain menace and pain.” The feeling was no different this time around too.

What I found particularly remarkable for me personally was that I slipped into the hubbub and frenzy of Manek Chowk without missing a step or a heartbeat. It was as if I had never left it. The clinching evidence of that was the ease with which I zigzagged and jaywalked through the utterly unruly traffic. It was as if Tetris was on steroids. In fact, I paused in the middle of the road to admire myself for a moment.

Watching Macbeth on the banks of the Sabarmati is a weirdly affecting experience

Watching Shakespeare’s Macbeth on a moonlit night on the banks of Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati river, somewhat distracted by a cacophony of honking vehicles and an occasional ambulance blaring its siren, was a weirdly engaging experience.

Speaking of engaging, having grown up in the Ahmedabad of the 1960s and 70s I never thought a play in English, and that too one by Shakespeare, would have an eclectic audience of those in their 50s and 60s as well as those aflame in their early teens would enjoy lines such as these delivered powerfully by Mallika Sarabhai as Lady Macbeth:

“Come to my woman’s breasts

And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers,

Wherever in your sightless substances

You wait on nature’s mischief.”

Or for that matter even this effectively delivered one by Yadavan Chandran as Macbeth as soon as he enters:

“So foul and fair a day I have not seen.”

Shakespeare is an acquired taste for most people since it demands attention and focus when it comes to its dialogues, monologues and soliloquies. There is often an element of grandiloquence to the language delivered with a medieval English cadence. Those could be a bit jarring when delivered in a variety of Indian accents. I must admit that that was a definite concern for me as I entered the lovely amphitheater at the Sarabhai family’s iconic Natarani complex.

I must also be candid in saying that my concern with accents was not wholly unfounded, but I got past it quickly. Mallika, of course, being a consummate international performer was the exception to that concern. In parts, so was Yadavan. They both delivered credible and affecting performances. Sarabhai, in particular, had several riveting moments before the impending assassination of King Duncan while hatching the plot and in the immediate aftermath. As Macbeth flounders about a bit, she is remarkably in control of the situation, including the blood-soaked daggers.

It is no breaking news that Macbeth is fueled by an unseemly lust for power, and nothing is beyond the pale for the Macbeths to attain and preserve it. It is propelled by a prophecy by three Weïrd Sisters, also known as the witches, that Macbeth will take over as the king of Scotland. I violate no spoiler alert here when I say that Macbeth does indeed ascend as king after murdering Duncan, represented as an apparition-like dummy in all white.

However, at the back of his mind is also another prediction by the witches that even the descendants of his comrade-in arms-Banquo (Sarvesh Sridhar) will also reign one day. So, Macbeth has Banquo bumped off as well. Macbeth’s paranoia mounts as he goes about murdering others as well, such as nobleman Macduff’s wife and children. Eventually, Macduff and Malcolm, one of Duncan’s sons, mount a rebellion against Macbeth, who tries to seek some reassurance in the witches’ promises but finds none.

Macduff kills Macbeth even as Lady Macbeth, who has become unhinged, commits suicide.

Many of the scenes are done well despite the fact that the play’s staging is almost bereft of any major props. What lends this Macbeth a feel of haunted air laced with an impending peril and death is the music by Raag Sethi.

I found especially memorable the scene where Duncan’s body draped in a glowing white shroud slides over the heads of bearers as it is escorted out of the stage.

Shakespeare’s plays are famously dense with a lot of words. It is commendable that the central characters remember them and deliver them credibly. Particularly for Sarabhai and Chandran, there is an immense amount of verbal burden to bear, but they do generally wear it lightly.

For me, the acoustics were a problem in terms of the clarity of what was being spoken. As I mentioned, that is where the problem of accents somewhat exacerbated the challenge for me. However, about ten minutes into the play, I became accustomed to them.

On a tangential note, there was cloyingly lovey-dovey couple sitting not too far from me, frequently whispering sweet nothings to each other. I was about to do a Duncan on them but mercifully they left early.  

Sharply directed by Massimiliano Troiani, Sarabhai’s ‘Macbeth’ is an intelligent musical interpretation of this Shakespearean classic about power at any cost. One grouse that I have is that the murder of Duncan lacks the commensurate brutality of the sheer visceral act.

All Shakespeare plays are an acquired taste in their original form but once acquired that taste is delicious. It is true of Natarani’s Macbeth too as it unfolded under some early fragrance of the surrounding neem trees on a Friday night. Its witchcraft and murder were heightened by the near full moon. 

Remembering: Human vs AI

One of the themes I am exploring about artificial intelligence (AI) is the obvious difference between humans and AI systems when it comes to memory, as in remembering.

Because AI systems are machines their recall ought to be perfectly accurate to the minutest of details. I would assume that since AI systems have no room for interpretation, both convenient and expedient, while remembering, they will remember their past like clockwork. It will always be precisely the same with zero variation. That is, of course, boring unless what they are remembering was intrinsically interesting when it happened for the first time.

That is not the case with humans. Our remembering is approximation often heightened with imagination. Sure, there is often the essential truth in the way human memory works but there is always the mist or haze or cloud or what you will of unconscious falsification/accentuation/extenuation around it. I would go so far as to say that every act of remembering in humans is distinct even if it is the same event but for some core details remaining unaltered.

The question whether AI will become so evolved as to not just rival humans but even replace them has to take into account whether it will also reach a stage where its memory will be malleable like ours. Attached to that is the question of morality and ethics; whether AI systems will evolve so much as to think about the moral and ethical dimensions of their actions the way humans frequently do.

Since they will remain recognizably machinistic in their physical appearance for the foreseeable future, it is hard to say whether their remembering will prompt comparable facial and bodily expressions and gestures. An important part of being human is, after all, to appear to be human in the way we deploy our various limbs to express ourselves. I wonder whether AI systems will be able to replicate those. I say this because our faces change when we are remembering something. It seems highly unlikely that that can happen with AI systems for now. At best they will be able to mimic human expressions efficiently.

Human memory has biology and chemistry involved unlike AI systems which, I suppose, has only algorithms and chips encased in glistening or brushed steel frames. (Literary exaggeration.)

Someday I would like to expand on this theme with neuroscientists, psychologists as well as AI and memory experts.

Remembering my grandmother Shobha in view of Ram

Thanks to my grandmother Shobha, the Ramayana and Ram were intrinsic to our growing up.  My father Manharray was a voracious reader and someone who had internalized the Bhagavad Gita. My mother Snehalata's default temperament was religious devotion with an unbridled sense of joy. However, in keeping with the glorious tradition of my family, no adult ever tried to even subtly indoctrinate us children about anything religious. That might explain why I have always been what may be defined for the sake of understandable nomenclature as an atheist. 

Atheist is not an adequate description of who I am though since I have willfully partaken of all the fantastic literature that has resulted from the articulation of religious ideas. For instance, in the midst of an exultant anticipation among hundreds of millions of Hindus of the January 22 installation and consecration of Ram at a grand new temple at Ayodhya, which is still a work in progress, what I instantly recall are these lines from the Sundarkand of the Ramayana that my grandma recited practically everyday and reflexively so.  She wrote those lines on a piece of paper when I left Ahmedabad for Bombay in 1980 to become a journalist. 

प्रबिसि नगर कीजे सब काजा

हृदयँ राखि कोसलपुर राजा

गरल सुधा रिपु करहिं मिताई

गोपद सिंधु अनल सितलाई

From what I know, it broadly means this:

When you enter the city and embark on a task

Do so with the name of the King of Kausalpur (that would be Ram) in your heart

For him, poison turns elixir

Enemies turn friends

Oceans become like a cow's hooves 

Fires turn soothing cold

For the sake clarity, I am not sure about the simile "Oceans become like a cow's hooves" as derived from the original chaupai (Verse). Perhaps someone can explain that to me.

My point is that the profound power of the Ramayana across India and across languages is such that even someone like my grandmother, who was not educated in Hindi at all, managed to access its essence at the philosophical level.

"Mumbai jaash kaam karva to aa chaupai kaam avshe, (Since you are going to Bombay to work, this verse will be useful.)" she told me. I had that piece of paper for a couple of decades but I have lost it since.

As I have frequently pointed out, I have never been drawn to the idea of religion/god or for that matter even spirituality. However, what I have been acutely plugged into is the astounding brilliance of literature elucidating faith. The Ramayana is a great example of that.

Separately, I wonder what Shobha would have said about Ram's consecration. I would have certainly asked her, "With whose name in his heart would Ram enter the city of Ayodhya?"

Kaifi Azmi: A very brief reminiscence on his 105th birth anniversary

Poet and writer Kaifi Azmi (January 14, 1919--May 10, 2002) Picture courtesy: azmikaifi.com) 

It was sometime in 1991 when I met the great Kaifi Azmi in New Delhi. That was the only time I did.

He was staying in a room shorn of all luxuries in what I remember to be a spartan guesthouse possibly belonging to the Communist Party, of which he was a card-carrying member. He was 72 and, by then, had already been at the pinnacle of his poetic and song-writing career for close to four decades. A handsome man with a rich head of salt and pepper hair, somewhat tousled, welcomed me with an ever so slight a smile. He was a bit under the weather, I was told. 

The purpose of my visit was not a formal interview but just a conversation. We spoke about several themes, including his lifelong commitment to the Communist ideology. I have included that aspect in my memoir currently in the works titled 'A Tangential Life'. However, on the occasion of his 105th birth anniversary today, I want to mention two specific observations about what I think are some of the finest lines in Hindi cinema history and beyond, capturing a woman's profound anguish with such exquisite poetic austerity.

They both distil life's essence the way only a truly great poet possessing deep empathy would be able to. The lines below are respectively from 'Kagaz Ke Phool' (1959) and 'Pakeezah' (1972).

From 'Kagaz Ke Phool's enduring masterpiece 'Waqt Ne Kiya' composed splendidly by Sachin Dev Burman and sung enchantingly by Geeta Dutt.

जाएंगे कहाँ सूझता नहीं
चल पड़े मगर रास्ता नहीं

क्या तलाश है कुछ पता नहीं
बुन रहे हैं दिल ख़्वाब दम-ब-दम

I don't know where I might go

I have set out but without a path

Unaware of what I am searching

The heart conjures up dreams with every breath

From 'Pakeezah's enduring masterpiece 'Chalte Chalte' composed superbly by Ghulam Mohammed and sung mellifluously by Lata Mangeshkar.

ये चिराग़ बुझ रहे हैं
मेरे साथ जलते जलते 

Aflame along with me

These lamps too are losing their light

I pointed out to him how at one level these lines so powerfully captured two particular movie characters' specific states of mind in a given situation but then quickly broke out of the confines of the two films and became so memorably telling of many existential dilemmas and conflicts.

My question to him was about his process of distilling a crowded set of emotions into such verses so brilliantly spare and yet so evocative.

He said once he was given any situation for a song by a director he would get into the skin of that particular character. He said something striking in Hindi. "उस किरदार का मैं जज़्बाती जामा पेहेन लेता हूँ ," Mr. Azmi said. I would loosely translate that as ,"I slip into the emotional wear of the character." 

Once he did that, he said, the poet in him took over. Given that poetry is the art of distilling life to its quintessence the craft then handles the rest.

I also mentioned to him how in both cases it was a female character that he had written so feelingly for and how it seemed he was particularly masterful at that. He smiled and said, "कहीं न कहीं हम सब एक नारी ही हैं. "

Here is to Kaifi Azmi. 

 

Looking at the Lakshadweep-Maldives debate in terms of Earth's geological evolution

I have always viewed continents in a geological sense and not as arbitrarily evolved ideas of countries, nation states, and borders. I suppose it helps me avoid getting ensnared in silly debates. Taking a cosmic view of everything is a great escape for me at one level but, more importantly, it is always how I have thought about existence.

With this as the backdrop let us talk about what is obsessing India currently—the Lakshadweep-Maldives back and forth. The diplomatic spat over the politics of this debate does not interest me at all. However, it did prompt me to again read up on the plate tectonics, the movements of Earth’s crust, over about 200 million years. Not a lot of people may know that what we call the Indian Ocean started forming some 180 million years ago. It was then that a gigantic piece of Earth’s plates or landmass, containing the future Madagascar, Australia, India and Antarctica broke away from the African coast. Some 60 million years after that rupture, which means 120 million years ago, what is now Australia began hiving off Madagascar-India. What is now India split from Madagascar 80 million years ago drifting northwards.

For about 20 million years between 50 and 70 million years ago the drifting Indian plate moved at what geologists say is the highest recorded speeds of up to 16 centimeters a year. For a landmass that giant to move at that speed is astonishing.

Along the way between 67 and 64 million years ago, there was a stupendous eruption of magma that formed the Deccan Traps of India. Known as the “superplume event” that eruption is believed to have been significantly responsible for the last of five mass extinctions. But that is another story.

The rapid plat tectonics of India also created something remarkable. According to a UNESCO assessment of potential World Heritage sites in the Western Indian Ocean, it produced “a unique mid-ocean feature – the volcanic islands and carbonate-topped banks of the western and central Indian Ocean, the Mascarene Plateau.”  It was part of these plate tectonics that also led to the formation of the Lakshadweep – Maldives chains between 57 and 60 million years ago.

I regularly read about the geological evolution of Earth because it is primal and at the heart of all existence on this planet. In fact, as part of my fascination for that I had on April 15, 2022, featured Joao Duarte, assistant professor of plate tectonics at the University of Lisbon, in Portugal,  who is one of the leading geologists focused on the formation of the next supercontinent.

Earth is halfway through its latest cycle of dispersing and assembling continents made possible by plate tectonics, which is a unique geological feature in our solar system. In fact, a significant reason why there is life on our planet is because of plate tectonics and water.

The seven continents that we see now were some 200 million years ago one giant clumped landmass, a supercontinent known as Pangaea. Geologists are now studying when the next supercontinent might form. Although it could happen between 100 and 200 million years from now, the effects of plate tectonics are felt every day.

If there is any point to this post, it is that so many of you get trapped in trivialities on a planet that so spectacularly awe inspiring.  

As Adani Group acquires IANS wire, some pertinent observations

Tarun Basu (sitting) and I at the Jor Bagh office of IANS and India Abroad circa 1992/1993.

The announcement that India’s controversial Adani Group has acquired a 50.5 percent stake in the newswire IANS India unleashes a flood of memories for me; in particular my over a decade-long association with it, significantly helping build it into India’s once most credible independent source of non-partisan news.

Tarun Basu, IANS’s original founder and editor-in-chief from 1986, and I, first as its Bombay chief of bureau in 1987 and then its South Asia Chief Correspondent in 1989, were at the core of the newswire’s nascent operations in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was Tarun’s vision to create a worldclass newswire out of India that started it all. It was his background, first in the United News of India (UNI) and then Deutsche Presse-Agentur or DPA, the German-owned global newswire, that came into play while building IANS from scratch. I was among its earliest recruits in 1987.

In fact, when Tarun and I met for the first time in Bombay that year at the now defunct Samovar restaurant near the Jehangir Art Gallery I had just left the Associated Press (AP), the giant American newswire as its Bombay bureau chief. Tarun made it a point to tell me that beyond writing for India Abroad, I would have the opportunity to write for its new wire operations used by several newspapers. Even then he was clear that he wanted to make it into India’s first global newswire.

It was originally named India Abroad News Service (IANS) as an offshoot of the pioneering and best-known New York-based Indian American weekly newspaper India Abroad founded by the late Gopal Raju. At its founding the idea was to eventually become a credible, high quality, independent news agency that offered a uniquely Indian perspective on global affairs. In the years that followed my first meeting, it did indeed become some measure of that vision.

As India Abroad News Service right until the time I left in 1997 it had correspondents across the world, including out of Australia, Fiji, Malaysia, Singapore, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, parts of the Middle East, South Africa, Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, across the U.S., Canada, Brazil, the Caribbean. It was an unprecedented news footprint for an Indian wire run on an excruciatingly tight budget but with impeccably written, edited and sourced stories. All of those stories were run in India Abroad, which was once described by The Economist as a weekly of “unusually high quality” for a non-mainstream paper.

The most exciting if frequently frustrating part was that every story first came to Delhi, which meant that Tarun and I had to edit every single one of them. The volume of stories increased from ten or so a day to about ten times a day in the early 1990s. More often than not, I used to be the one editing and rewriting the wire feed from around the world. I was familiar with global issues as wide-ranging as from the separatist politics of Parti Québécois, a sovereignist party in Quebec in Canada, to the post-Soviet breakup angst in Russia and from Trinidad’s Indian Trinidadian-dominated politics to Fiji’s equally Indian-dominated politics. That was because everything went through the IANS hub in Jor Bagh, Delhi.

It was astonishing that for quite sometime with just two journalists, Tarun and I, who also did an enormous amount of firsthand reporting from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, were at the heart of the wire editing operations.

In the early 1990s, even though the desktop was already in use in newspaper operations, there were many IANS subscribers in India who still wanted the old-fashioned ticker tape. That meant every story that Tarun and I cleared was printed and handed to the remarkably good-cheered and efficient teleprinter technician Chandrapal Kashyap who would literally churn out dozens of ticker tapes which were packed in yellow manilla envelopes along with physical copies of the same stories. Since many of our subscribers were non-English newspapers, they needed printed copies for translation by their copy editors. Every morning by 10 or so Ashok Sharma, an unfailingly reliable courier would go to newspaper offices in the city to deliver the first batch of customized packets on his scooter. This went on for years.

To think that that scrappy and gutsy newswire operation is now taken over by a giant conglomerate with a checkered reputation as a “strategic acquisition” is a strange feeling. In principle, I have no problem with news operations being bought and sold. That comes with the territory but it is important who buys them and what their intentions are. On the face of it, the intentions here may not be journalistic in the strict professional sense. Sure, there would be some thin veneer of what may remotely resemble journalism but by and large the larger purpose is something else.

It is a pity because even now, especially now, there is great potential for IANS to become a truly independent global wire. Tarun and I reminisced this morning a bit about the wire. We both think that it again has a great opportunity to rival the likes of the AP, Reuters, AFP, Bloomberg and DPA if Adani Group has the sense to recognize that the most important asset for a newswire is its credibility.  If it is going to look for lackeys in its ranks who do the official bidding both for the group’s owners and their political benefactors, then this would be a pointless investment.