Shoe-ing accurately

Throwing shoes at people has suddenly become a rage. If you don't like what somebody is saying or doing just throw a shoe at him. Just ensure a dozen news channels are there to capture the moment. The benefits of doing so are many. Mr. Muntazer al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journo who started the trend by throwing his shoe at George Bush became a hero overnight. Iraqis took to the streets in his support. Some parents even offered him their daughters in marriage. Others offered to support him financially during his incarceration and subsequent joblessness. The man who threw a shoe at the Chinese PM was far less successful. But that's only because he chose the wrong man to throw his shoe at. The Chinese have a habit of censoring all embarrassing news from the state controlled media. This seriously impairs any such unconventional bid for grabbing eyeballs. Otherwise, given the number of things the number of people in China are unhappy about, this man would have become an overnight star in China and an even bigger superstar in Tibet. Our own Jarnail Sigh has found his fifteen minutes of fame after throwing his shoe at the home minister. While the minister has himself tried to downplay the incident and "forgiven" him, other political parties are apparently making a mascot out of him. One party has allegedly announced a reward of five lakh rupees and another has offered him a ticket for the coming elections. I am sure others yet will come out with even more novel ways to fete him.

While the world debates on how to react to these new champions of the Shoe, I have only two observations to make. The first observation is that all these people are lousy shots. Not one of them could actually hit his target. That seems like a terrible waste. If your target has presented himself to you on a dais, standing up tall and erect to offer the largest surface area possible, the least you can do is to offer him the courtesy of at least touching his person with your missile. If you cannot do that, you have no business to be in the shoe throwing business. The second observation is a recognition of the age old Indian values of frugality and price consciousness. Where as all others chose to throw expensive branded shoes at their chosen targets with the Iraqi throwing the most expensive shoe, the Indian chose to throw a cheap unbranded shoe at his target. He must have realized it would be a terrible waste of hard earned money to spend more than is absolutely necessary on a shoe he would be wearing for just half a trip for it was always unlikely that the police would be courteous enough the return the offending shoe after the incident.

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Why should Pakistanis leave India?

Now that our Army and police have cleared the streets of Mumbai the self appointed moral guardians of our society have started stepping out from under their beds. Shiv Sena was the first to proclaim their return to action with another of their all too familiar diktats. They have proclaimed that all Pakistanis in Mumbai have to leave the country. I was watching a Shiv Sainik on TV calling all "rashtra bhaktas" to join them in driving out all the Pakistanis in our media yesterday. Their main targets are basically the people who are trying to make a name for themselves on the various television talent shows. Apparently, they (Shiv Sainiks) respect their(singers', actors', etc) art but they do not need Pakistanis in Mumbai. He also said that all producers and directors of television serials have been served notices to expel Pakistanis from their shows or face rashtra-bhatks's wrath. It is funny how these people are so creatively challenged that they cannot even come up with new speeches for their different agitations. Replace Pakistanis with North Indians or Muslims and you will get the speech they used in their "agitations" against those people. What is not so funny is how these people, who presumably represent a significant number of our countrymen, can never come up with anything that is constructive for our society. They are obsessed with dividing and destroying the fabric of our society. What harm have any of these Pakistanis done to anybody? They are ordinary people who are trying to realize their dreams with their hard work and dedication like millions of other Indians. How will driving them out help us? Why target them? The answers are simple. Driving them out will not help anybody but these people do not carry AK-47s and hence can be attacked without fear of retaliation. The people who attacked Mumbai did not ask for Shiv Sena's permission before entering Mumbai. They attacked Mumbai in broad daylight. They were easily recognizable after they fired their first shots. Where was Shiv Sena then? Why didn't this band of rashtra-bhakts come forward to protect their rashtra then? When all of Mumbai was out on the streets expressing solidarity with the victims of the attacks the leaders from Shiv Sena and MNS were conspicuous by their absence. Raj Thakeray has not issued a single statement since the attacks. The fact the a Bihari has been hounoured by the Maharashtra Governor for saving the lives of many Indians with no regard to his own life during the attack on CST has probably put a seal on his big mouth. I am waiting to see just how long this seal lasts. Probably, till he decides that the public has forgotten this inconvenient fact. We will never be able to face the enemies by dividing and persecuting helpless people or by pointing fingers at foreigners. Doing so will only serve to justify the actions of these extremists. The only way to face them is to become so strong and united ourselves that these enemies give up trying to divide us. In view of this fact, I submit to you that the only people that Mumbai and India do not need are these Shiv Sainiks and their copies.

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The newly awakened

Would the Mumbai attacks have caused such a furor among the public if they had been directed at the usual targets? There is no doubt that these attacks are completely different from those in the past, both in their nature and their intent. But they are not so different when it comes to the body count. The serial blasts in Mumbai claimed more lives. And as for the symbolic value of the targets, they are definitely not more important than the parliament. So why is it that this time we are so angry about it? Is it because this is the first time that the victims are not just the common people on the streets or trains? Is it because this time the victims are the people who "count" in our society, the ones who actually have a voice? People died at CST just like they died in Taj but I do not hear about their miserable fate on TV. Our society has traditionally shown a strange kind of apathy whenever the nameless and faceless people have been affected by violence of any kind. Take the last serial blasts in Mumbai. The media sang about the spirit of Mumbai for a day or two, the authorities offered condolences and things went back to just the way they were. The people who survived the blast just took the same train to wherever they had to go the next day. There were no protests, no vigils and no calls to change the system. This time things are different. TV screens have been taken over by celebrities who have suddenly woken up to the threat of terrorism. Chat shows are filled with current and has been Bollywood stars talking about how unsafe the country has become. Media is filled with accounts of how angry the people are. I do not understand who are the people they are talking about. The "aam aadmi" has been frustrated and frightened for years now. Who are the newly awakened people? Are they they people who are not affected by bombs in trains or richshaws because they do not travel in them. Have they suddenly started to realize that they too are vulnerable? If the answers is yes, it is both pathetic and encouraging. Pathetic because there is this vast segment of society which just does not matter, people whose lives and deaths do not evoke any reactions from any one who has the power or the position to better their lot. Encouraging because maybe finally, the two classes are identifying with each other. All that remains now is to unite the political class with them. Or will they have to become victims themselves too before that happens?

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Divided we totter

Mumbai police was not able to protect Taj and Oberoi from terrorists even though it had received information about their plans in September. It did not have resources to guard the hotels and also protect the rest of Mumbai from being ravaged by Raj Thakeray and his goons. The ATS chief who died fighting terrorists at CST was busy investigating Malegaon blasts done by Hindu fanatics from within the country. He probably didn't even get time to plan for threats from outside. Our public is more interested in real or perceived insults exchanged between communities than in threats from outside. We are all fighting against each other - Marathis vs. north Indians, Hindus vs. Muslims, south Indians vs. north Indians, Christians vs. Hindus, tribals vs. non-tribals, lower castes vs. upper castes. The list is endless. The ironic part is that in all the fights all the communities involved use the same arguments to justify their violence. Apparently, "someone else is always trying to humiliate them, demean their culture, rape their women, take away their jobs, or inflict some other horrible injustice upon them. They are just returning the favour". Is it so surprising that somebody from outside will try to take advantage of the situation? Every time we have fought against each other some one else has been there to exploit it to his advantage. All this makes me think. Can we really blame outsiders for trying to use our infighting to his advantage? After all, if we have so little sympathy, kindness, consideration or respect for our own people, why should an outsider have any such feeling for us? Our behaviour after the attacks has only served to justify the fact that we deserve to be taken advantage of. Look at how our leaders are behaving. The home minister of Maharashtra dismisses the attacks which took 200 lives as a "small incident". The chief minister of Kerela calls the home of a fallen soldier not worthy of a visit from his dog. Every political party is out to gain political mileage from the attacks. Every celebrity wants to turn the event into a PR drive. Every security agency is busy trying to pin the blame on somebody else instead of analysing and rectifying its own errors. If this is the way we react to these attacks, how will ever prepare ourselves for the attacks that are bound to happen in the future. We know they will happen but we are just not ready to give up our petty concerns and unite against them. Ariel Durant might have not been speaking of India when she said that a great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within but it sure fits us more than any one else in the world today. But we, as always, will just not listen.

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Mothers and sons

Margaret Alva has alleged that the Congress Party sold tickets to politicians before the Karnataka polls and that tickets are given on the basis of inheritance rather than on merit. While the first allegation has to be proved, the second can be easily verified by a brief glance at the list of nominees fielded by Congress in the last couple of polls. Neither of the two allegations are as earthshaking as the electronic media - perennially starved of news - would have us believe. Given the state of Indian politics it would be surprising (though probably not news worthy) if any aspect of our democracy is found to be free from corruption. I am pretty sure the opponents from the other parties have the same skeleton in their closets as well. This is the most probable reason they are not making as big a deal out of Alva's revelations as they could have.
The bit about inheritance being more important than merit is even more ridiculous coming from someone who has spent her life serving a party which has been ruled almost uninterruptedly by a single dynasty for the last five generations. Inheritance has always been of paramount importance in the Congress Party since it first came to power. In fact, none of the rulers from this dynasty have had any claim to the throne - either because of their talent or their experience - except for their inheritance. Ms. Alva is not concerned by the lack of democratic spirit in her party. She is merely miffed that her son was not allowed to benefit from the lack of it.

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Obama, Clinton, McCain

Looks like Hillary Clinton is finally out of the presidential race. Good. Never liked her. Pundits say that President Clinton will be better for India than President Obama but I don't care. Political alliances are driven by need. If America needs us and we need America, any president will fall in line. I would rather choose the guy who I feel has greater personal integrity. Clinton totally compromised hers when she condoned her husband for Monicagate. I can't help feeling she has a "you scratch my back, I will scratch yours" kind of a relationship with her husband. That she supported him in his presidency so that she could use him to get into the senate and then the president's chair. I just don't understand why women go ga-ga over her. I mean, this is the woman who humiliated every self-respecting woman by her conduct during her husband's scandals. Now she is using his name to get what she wants. How is she an inspiration to anybody? A feminist is someone who earns what she deserves by her own merit, not by using her father's or husband's name. Thats why neither Indira Gandhi nor Sonia Gandhi are celebrated as feminists in India, even though both of them were/are the most powerful persons in the country in their own times. I have heard a few of her speeches. They are so rhetorical and jaded. Her favourite line seems to be "It took one Clinton to clean up after the first Bush, it will take another Clinton to clean up after the second" or some such variation. That one sentence tells us all that is wrong with her. It's witty but it says nothing and it proves nothing. All it does is invoke her husband. Compare her with Obama. The first thing that struck me about him was how fresh he seems. The answers he gives to questions are well thought out and consistent. True, he seems a little long winded sometimes but thats because elaborating on some issue takes more time than simply coming up with a witty quip. And more than anything else, the stands he has taken on various issues have been consistent with what he has said and done in his entire political career and not changed with swings in public opinion. For example, he has been against the Iraq war from day one. Thats more than can be said about Mrs. Clinton. Now all I hope is that Clinton stops waiting for him to be struck down by lightening (cause that's the only way she is going to win) and gets out of his way as soons as possible. Let him and the party focus on taking on John McCain and the Republicans.

The Obama vs. McCain battle will have a far more serious impact on the world than Obama vs. Clinton. McCain seems like an older version of Bush, just more pig-headed. He reminds me of the war mongering general from Mars Attacks ("we must nuke 'em, nuke 'em, nuke 'em"). He plans to send in more troops to Iraq. Honestly, you would think that after Vietnam, Afganistan and now a decade in Iraq, Americans have learnt that you cannot crush ideologies. No matter how sick or pervert it is. Force is not the answer. People like John McCain do not understand it. They do not have the balls to stand up and say that what they did was a mistake and it will go no further. And when someone like him becomes the president of the most powerful nation in the world, it can only mean trouble for everybody. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

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