D.é.j.à. v.u

It is good to see Granta chipping in with a cover article  on the rise of the British Jihad ( Issue 103). Richard Watson writes about the last twenty odd years of the rise of Jihad, in simple informative prose, tracing its paths from the Middle east to  Europe. He also lucidly identifies how Europe’s complacence  esp. the laid back British attitude of the nineties, in spite of the repeated French, German and Spanish warnings contributed to its growth on the British Soil. Further, he also elaborates on what is being never often openly spoken of even today ( with the exception of Kissinger) - the failure of the idea of Pakistan.

It is a nice primer to catch up with some contemporary politics, more so because it is proof that Britain has started realising its earlier mistakes and underestimates (something I am personally guilty of ), and moving in the direction to make amends for it.  I think the article might not be immediately available on the site, but reckon it will go online soon, say a week of or so after the hard copy of the issue hits the stands. So watch that space.

PS- With Jason Cowley hopping to New Statesman, Alex Clark is set to become the first female editor of Granta. Welcome, the bar is open for the ladies. I just don’t want New Yorker type street humour , that’s all.   

Keep on passing many a times during the week, finally today got stalled in the traffic at the right place.  

Penny Lane , Liverpool, Early Autumn 2008.  Clicked using Nokia N95.

I have before written about the thick-headed reaction of the Indian media to the string of bomb blasts in India over the last several months. I had in fact quoted lack of coverage and deliberate negligence of this crucial topic by Tehelka over the last 25 or so cover issues.

And finally now, as you would expect of Tehelka , it has cheekily reflected the coverage of the terrorism into opinions of menopausal minded socialists rather than any real investigative report on the actual event. But more importantly the great grand father of Indian print media, Mr Tarun Tejpal has, for a change, deemed the issue more important than that of, well - Tibet and Bangladesh.

Thank you. And here is what he has to say.

I must say that never in my conscious life have I seen a more retarded and hopeless misjudgement of an important issue than what Mr Tejpal has harangued as some exceptional insight. It is absolutely mindboggling that this man is even a journalist, forget the God-only-knows-where-it-went-vast media experience. So here is the argument against-

Declarative one: India should bear in mind the pitfalls or the success of the Punjab example.

Wrong, and hopelessly so. Punjab was a local, separatist movement for an independent state. It was not a national, or international (How come we forget Kabul Embassy bombing?) or a Global problem. And all the schism and loss of lives mentioned were not just the result of one single entity- the carnage and schism followed an assassination of a prime minister of the country in office, by her own guards following a bold military operation against the terrorists in a religious shrine under her order. The dynamic as we know was multifold: geo-politico-religious. Regard also another similar geo-politico-ethnic struggle, which also cost an ex prime minister a la Eelam.

But Bombings in Bangalore, Jaipur, Ahmadabad, Surat, Delhi has no political or geographical bearings. It is, as claimed by the perpetrators is singularly religious – arising from one single religion without any political objective, claim or motive except that of annihilation of every religion and idea other than Islam. So lets leave the wells as they are.

Declarative two: Muslims are being alienated ie to quote …but more pertinently, in the last twenty years there has been a growing narrative in India that has been trying to focus the Muslim as the “other”.

Why? Why not Buddhists? Or hey why not — Sikhs? May be because they don’t go around planting bombs and sending emails. Or possibly because the world has no means to distinguish a progressive Muslim from a radical one? Or because a Muslim himself doesn’t know if he is a radical or progressive? Or may be because if they are left on their own as the ‘’other’’ – a la Pakistan they would convert their nation into a videogame as they have done? In the entire article Mr Tejpal covers all the fundamentalist violence in one charming single sentence which is this- At such a time in history comes a story of violent young Muslim men planting bombs and creating mindless misery.

Story? This is a story of young Muslim men? 600 Indian citizens dead over last 18 months in different cities including one out of India is a story of young Muslim men? And what history?? What is happening everyday in almost every other city in India is a time in history?

This man is an editor-in-chief of a weekly in a democracy of a billion. As a compatriot, I can’t even call him an embarrassment. He is a disgust.

Declarative three: Don’t do this Don’t do that. So we have to do then? This is the solution offered — what we have to do is calmly disentangle the pieces — understand clearly where it must apply force and where fraternity.

This is it people. Be calm like a cow; chew your cud leisurely, disentangling one by one meditating on which to apply force and on which to apply gentle, tender fraternity. While you are at it, never mind if you are blown away, at the worst it’s a law and order problem.

Hang on, Law and order problem? Are you out of your doughnuts? An acknowledged terrorist – national security issue all over the world is a law and order problem? This is a joke we cant even laugh at.

For all the grandma criticism he has espoused, is there any concrete advice he has hidden in those words. I can’t figure, if there is please let me know.

Declarative four: Muslims are victimised by every other lightning that has struck a Muslim in India. So hey come on chaps lets plant bombs all over and make victims of everyone else. This is Mr Tejpal’s idea of democracy – and how it can be islamicised. Of course that’s irrelevant because its only BJP, which is nurturing religious ideologies. The rest of it of course is just a story of young passionate Muslim men who just go about sending emails and planting bombs in markets on Saturdays.

Declarative five: Tejpal’s Magic formula two - we must provide men and materials, resources and federal structures. But for it all to work there must be leadership, inspiration, clarity.

Yes Yes. So this is the solution suggested and I repeat again - men and materials, resources and federal structures!!! This, ladies and gentlemen is how we fight terrorism …and how people everywhere are fighting it… with words which have no meaning….materials? (Of course) and resources (yes of course) Crystal clarity like this and inspiring leadership.

The solution offered is a school essay of sixth grade, which even seventh grade boy would laugh at.

Declarative six: The truth according to Tejpal is — The truth is we are pathetically soft when it comes to the necessary virtues: health, education, infrastructure. (For perspective: more than 2 million children under five die every year because of malnutrition.) We have no will to make these happen. And we are hard when it comes to human rights, to dealing with dissidence — Kashmir, northeast, endless delays in courts, the abject condition of under-trials.

Right!! What has terrorism got to with all this? This is the classical Indian trait I have written about so often – conflating one issue with all nonsense available. Remember Shabana Azmi accusing Indian polity about discriminating against Muslims, while every other law of the country is discriminated in favour of them and conflating it all with infanticide, illiteracy  and I don’t know… lack of proteins in the diet?

So we fight terrorism by fighting protein energy malnutrition.

Couple other parallel declaratives: Khushwant Singh is an idiot, whose sorry face tells all of us that he needs his prostate checked. I or any other Indian citizen are not paying our taxes to get told what Khushwant Singh approves/ed ; It would be tremendously appreciated if  the readers are extended a bit of courtesy than made to read a rant about every idiot you’ve known as some great prophet. Like for instance  quoting another idiot you know- your charming police friend, who can pluck out a confession from thin air — is not an argument against a law and you should have known it for your age, forget vocation.

Finally, Let me respond to the absurd arguments against precharge detention law:

There is no such thing as draconian laws. There are only laws, and no laws are or were ever without purpose. The idea of the precharge detention is unique and in response to the new idea of terror unleashed on the human civilization by radical Islam. The purpose of precharge detention is to break the network of terrorist cells, and their co-ordination in case of a suspected impending terrorist attack. It is neither a solution nor a substitute to anything else. It is only a mean, to give an advantage in extreme circumstance; it shall be proposed as a bill and voted in the parliament. So there is no question of its illegality. If there is a concrete argument against it, lets state clearly than saying my uncle and aunt don’t like it.

But of more importance, I personally hold the lives of my compatriots too worthy to speak of it as an opinion of a friend (police or otherwise), so here is list of all the precharge detention times of important countries:

UK 42 days, was 28 till this summer , USA 48 Hours , Canada 24 Hours , Australia 12 Days, Ireland 7 days, South Africa 48 Hours, New Zealand 48 Hours , France 6 days, Germany 48 Hours , Italy 96 Hours, Spain 5 Days, Norway 3 Days, Turkey 7.5 Days, Denmark 3 Days, Russia 5 days.

So the argument must be why being the second only country after Iraq to be targeted by terrorism, we still don’t have it? India, evidently, has meditated for too long.

Further, there are some high school arguments saying such laws could be abused? Well, any law can be abused, like how you could get run over if you want to cross the road. So not crossing the road is not an option, what a silly man !

Interestingly, Mr. Tejpal points out that India being a complicated country - liberalism, tolerance, equality, justice, individual liberty as virtues to be utilised in the fight against terrorism. From Habeas Corpus to racial tolerance, none of the ideas are Indian, yet are cited as examples to defend Islam when Islam disowns and fights against each and every one of those attributes. And the grand irony being all the very countries that came up with those ideas are having precharge detentions!

The problem with Mr Tejpal and every other so called socialist is they are too old and too set to understand newer problems; the revision that is going on in India is too basic for them to comprehend, to complicated to fit into their simplistic naxalite minds. The de facto evidence of the revision is the realignment of the powers that is happening irrespective of all the democratic laws and its glorious talks- One - Demolition of Babri Masjid 1991, though in itself is symbolic, the Yathra before it is almost a referendum which went not only unstopped but also well supported throughout India. The leader and the culprits are still free and functioning as the opposition. Two - Gujarat 2002, regardless of the monumental efforts of the media, activists and every one-else-who-could-utter-the-word-Gujarat, the state government was re-elected. India it seems is slowly and clinically exercising the choice, which she had forgotten for long time. As alarming as it is, given the hypocrite moron likes of Tejpals it also seems natural.

As I have said before India is sitting on another religious time bomb and it is going to only escalate and escalate big. Unless Muslims from within act to find some sense , which seems elusive and unless people like Tejpals let go of their ossified ideas, the west is going to exploit India as the battleground to engage directly with Radical Islam. 

Here is the last Anecdote, thus concluding the anecdote week.

James Joyce, while writing Finnegan’s Wake was almost severely blind and often dictated chunks of texts to Samuel Beckett, who used to stay with him as a protege. It is believed that the dictation did not work very well for him; in the middle of one such session there was a knock at the door which Beckett didn’t hear (  may be he was be going deaf ? or probably Joyce was compensating for his own failing vision?).

Joyce said, ‘Come in,’ and Beckett wrote it down. Afterwards he read back what he had written and Joyce said, ‘What’s that "Come in"?’ ‘Yes, you said that,’ said Beckett. Joyce thought for a moment, then said ‘Let it stand.’"

Aside: Finnegan’s wake is a book I cant judge.  From my earlier attempts I could see that it is way way above the faculties and the knowledge I am blessed with. I simply do not have the qualification, and I only hope sometime during my lifetime that I can come to  make a proper educated comment on it.

PS- I know all the anecdotes were that of men, it was conscious.

Often in the last few years there have been growing concerns over the rapidly multiplying Islamic population in Canada. Though most of them are middle class Iranians migrated a generation before (and in my view are the best group within Islam who have transformed their values smoothly in the last half a century), there are a few rising pockets of fundamentalists, which is not terribly surprising. Here’s an exclusive footage of a training camp in Canada released by NEFA. Though the terrain and climes look Canadian, I don’t know, cant say for sure if it isn’t one of those CCCP shards.

Regardless of all the above I think the time has come for Canadians to let go of their enchante French attitude. I personally believe that the French influence is too deep for them to do that, which is a bit of an irony because, to borrow  Huston Smith,  if not for  Charles Martel in 733 AD in the Pyrenees, London, Paris and Amsterdam would have been praying five times a day.

I think the first step is Canada should give more autonomy and freedom to the US anti-terror cells working on their soil, or snow or whatever.

PS- BTW that reminds me of Huston Smith book on religion, an excellent primer, which an interested Indian reader can buy for dirt price in India.

Milk has been running late. But for now, here’s the much awaited trailer released last week. As expected, it looks promising. Penn’s lookup has a tinge of young Liam Neeson, but God it’s so good to see him on screen. Check the shot where he is getting down the stairs( of a metro subway station?), where he seems to have perfected the art of gaywalking. Long live the God who made Sean Penn.  

And here are the first shots of  Juliette Binoche from Shirin, looking absofuckinglutely gorgeous in the traditional Iranian head-scarf( name?); must be the same God. Long live again.

Milk trailer music: Angels of America and The Life of David Gale

Taking on from the need for clarity from yesterday, David Lean who is a family favourite of your’s truly, dad and every other uncle is well known for his clear vision, which if it could be seen, can only be as beautiful as his long shots.  Remember Lawrence  appearing as a spot on the great Nefud desert or Lara disappearing into the pure snow while Zhivago watches from the window? Absolutely ensorcelling.  David Lean has achieved great success by solely being able to conceive and express his vision as clearly as possible to such an extent that his works carry the implicit stamp of Made by David Lean. Remember his insistence on blank title music, Entr’acte and exit music for his classics, which can be seen even on DVDs now?

Once David Lean was searching for an actor to play the lead role in one of his grande-epics. Brando and Finney, the big boys of those days, somehow couldn’t manage to take up the role.  And even after months of search in London with thousands of auditions, it seemed no one  was able to impress David Lean. Until one fine noon when Lean walking into the audition saw a tall, young, blue-eyed, struggling-theatre-actor give his audition for the role. David Lean instantly stopped the actor in between the ongoing audition announcing  to his team - He’s the boy.

The boy of course was Peter O’ Toole  who went on to  play perhaps the most indelible role in the history of cinema - TE Lawrence or more popularly Lawrence of Arabia.

The trick, as they say,  William Potter is not to mind it.

Naipaul was one of the regular guests on British Television show Take it or Leave it. Once after attending one of its shows he was descending in a lift with John Betjeman, Margaret Drabble, and Auberon Waugh ( Son of Evelyn Waugh who Naipaul greatly admired). So in the elevator Auberon Waugh, who had met Naipaul for the first time asked him, ‘Everyone calls you "V.S." But what is your name?’

‘Vidia,’ answered Naipaul.

‘May I call you Vidia?’

‘No, as we’ve just met, I would rather you called me Mr Naipaul.’

There was a pregnant silence as they waited for the lift doors to open.

Actually that reminds me of another Naipaul anecdote, one more closer to my heart.  I think I must even have the paper cutting of this one somewhere. This was immediately after Naipaul’s Nobel when he was on a visit to India. I think it was most likely during the January Rajasthan Lit festival after the December Nobel.  In a discussion which was attended by who’s who of the Indian writing brigade, the subject of the talk was Post Colonial literature. Sitting around a table in an open lawn, as they usually do in the Rajasthan Lit festival, apparently, every other great writer in India kept on expressing their deep thoughts on post colonial literature, while Naipaul sat patiently listening to them all for about 15 minutes before interrupting the talk to announce ‘What a bunch you are?  What do you  specifically mean by Post colonial literature? You all keep on chatting as if it was one single entity; unless you specify which exact post colonial period  there is little sense in attempting a discussion. For all the fifteen minutes so far, Mr X’s Post colonial literature there might probably be different from Mr Y’s post colonial literature here. This is a waste of time’. After having said that, he stormed out of the discussion leaving behind a dumb-founded group to chatter about.

Personally, this was so important for me because till then I was leading myself to believe that asking people to be specific  and clearer in their thoughts was wrong or perhaps, even rude.  I was often accused of being demanding during conversations, including Dad  who often alleged that I analysed every word  in a conversation to pick out a contradiction.   So, I suppose till then  it was a sort of personal conflict to suppress what came natural to me against what perhaps would be construed as unpleasant. But then with that story and with me learning the fact that people fancy themselves to talk about topics they do not know, purely for the pleasure of them wanting to hear themselves talk on such subjects made it clear for me that they had to be put in their positions.

Here’s another Naipaul example which I just remembered. Check out this Charlie Rose interview of Naipaul from 2001; it is delicate, cleverly designed to be fair to the reputations of both Charlie Rose as an interviewer as well as Naipaul as the interviewee, without compromising the quality of the thoughts exchanged. The interview flows smoothly, but, in one very brief moment the truth suddenly slips out as almost a blooper exposing the covert dynamics of the interview.

Start the video at 30 mins when the interview commences and follow through till 34th min when Charlie Rose asks ‘what has changed about the way you go about your book?’ Naipaul reflexly asks him back ’since when?’. It’s direct and blunt. And immediately Charlie Rose acknowledges his folly and ends up elaborating his own question, with many more questions, thereby submitting to the roles being reversed in his own interview. Instantly the incongruence between the men becomes glaring.  Suddenly Naipaul’s answers are far clearer than the questions for which they were the answers. It’s a sort of a theme on which Kundera would write a book.

Fundamental moral: until you are clear and specific, and not necessarily right mind you, think it through always.

Once Arthur Schopenhauer was visiting a famous green house in Dresden, Germany. He was captivated by a particular plant and spent an unusual amount of  time studying it. The curator of the house,  taking him for a biologist asked him - ” Sir, who are you?”

Schopenhauer slowly turned around and regarded the curator for a moment and replied "If you could only answer that question for me, I would be eternally grateful."

Following the Giroux anecdote I thought it would be nice to share some of the interesting anecdotes all through the week, one for a day. Here’s the next. This one is of C Rajagoplachari, or popularly known as Rajaji, one of the sharpest mind India has produced.

Once travelling in a train from  Madurai to Madras ( or vice versa, I forget which) Rajaji was sharing his first class compartment with a British officer. The officer, in the customary British manner to start a conversation had remarked that it was a very hot afternoon. To which Rajaji replied  ‘Not hot enough, not hot enough.. to keep you English gentlemen out of India’.

Same time tomorrow.

Mr Giroux goes to meet the Holy Ghost. 

Anecdote: When Giroux had suggested large scale editing for On the Road, Kerouac had reportedly replied - There is not going to be any editing of the manuscript, it has been dictated by the Holy Ghost.

Giroux  did not publish On the Road which was eventually published by Viking and went on to become a cult classic influencing many to-be-stalwarts from Bob Dylan to Wim Wenders. Missing out both On the road and Catcher in the Rye became two big regrets in Giroux’s life, as he often mentioned.

Who’s next Diana Athill? We are losing not only a generation but also a certain quality of vision.

Not surprisingly Delhi has been poked. For those of us who have  been  following counter terrorism dispatches in Asia, (and also for those with whom I had shared on the reader) it  was almost anticipated. Frankly it was expected just before Diwali. And the year’s not over; there is huge concern for Bombay around Christmas - New Year.

There would be the usual Indian ritualness that surrounds such events. But with every such blast the growing dynamic is two fold: 1. The positive reinforcement for the culprits of their success, thus encouraging them further.  2. The increasing alienation of Muslims in India (world at large), regardless of what the pillock Indian media and middle-class might want to believe in. Regarding the latter, during my recent visit to India, I was surprised to find Indians ( Hindus, Christians, even Jains) even in small towns of India ( Hospet for instance) harbour a certain growing resentment  towards Muslims.

Surprising because politics in small towns in India are usually restricted to that of castes, clans, bread and salt. It has never noted to extend into religion under normal circumstances. But lately I noticed this polarization and antagonism, which though alarming is only natural. The causes are clear as daylight - inability of security services in India to capture, forget bringing to the book any culprit involved in any bomb blasts over last 2 years in India. There would be intellectual bloggers in India who would complain about security lapses. How idiotic can one be?  Getting a few grams of Ammonium Nitrate or a few gelatin sticks in India is like buying a kilogram of tomatoes. And with the carnival that is India, no amount of security measure is going to ensure safety. Especially if the people who want to kill other Indians are Indians themselves. 

And two and far more importantly inability of the Muslim moderates to come out with any plausible answer to weed out fundamentalism within. In fact there is a sentiment of disownment. Allegedly India is not secular because a famous Muslim cant get a flat, but that is never acceptable even if a  terrorist email originated in central Mumbai. They are not at all relevant to each other, as much as moderate Muslim is not for a fundamental one. As a result of all,  the enraged and the worst-affected lower class finds itself forced to react in fundamentalist overtones -  a la Gujarat. The consequence is a direct chapter from Huntington. As any terrorism expert would vouch that India would be one of the foremost battlegrounds where in fundamental Islam will  be directly engaged in the near future. I must admit that I was more naive on the issue a few years back. But thankfully a couple of intense conversations over last few years has ignited me to think of it in a better sense; I can remember talking with Dad who rationally explained why America had to invade Iraq, and a conversation with C that lasted whole night in Shimla, and this one with Rajesh perhaps one of the very few on Indian blogosphere which was insightful.

Recently, when one of my English friends alleged that I speak lightly of Indians I had to explain why. Briefly for the simple fact that an Indian, by his very nature, cant sit in a corner and think for himself. Because all his time goes in observing mindless festivals, forced rituals, incomprehensible leaves on second Saturdays and imagining himself saying or writing pseudo-intellect stuff borrowed from distant shores. Indians, or if you are into Marx, the established Indian bourgeoisie cant offer a solution to the problem of terrorism in India. Because they are part of the problem. The Indian reaction for all the bomb blasts over last 18 months, honestly, as admirable as it is ( unlike the grappled terror panic of the west) is almost bordering on that of the cows. Sometimes I believe a cow can think and react better.

As hard evidence here’s the output of the famed St Stephens, JNU, Lady Shriram alumni of Tehelka covering the problems of the nation over the year. In almost every other cover story you cant fail to notice a under-running emotional attempt to sell the story of underdog ( most of the times the underdog is imagined  and without context). There have been 5 major bomb blasts in various Indian cities over last 8 months, and it is not a theme worthy to be investigated, worthy to be on the cover.

That my friends is the difference between you and rest of the world.

Of course I have nothing against Tehelka, I have mentioned it as it is often cited as intelligent and sensible journalism by Indians. Here is an allegedly arrogant, prude VS Naipaul sitting in Wiltshire in England, explaining this in an interview a few months without even visiting the country recently.

Only now are people beginning to understand that there has been a great vandalizing of India. The movement is now from below. It has to be dealt with. It is not enough to abuse these youths or use that fashionable word from Europe, ‘fascism’, There is a big, historical development going on in India.
What is happening in India is a new historical awakening….Indian intellectuals, who want to be secure in their liberal beliefs, may not understand what is going on. But every other Indian knows precisely what is happening: deep down he knows that a larger response is emerging even if at times this response appears in his eyes to be threatening.

That is one man sitting in a corner and thinking for himself.

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