Others

Ajeeb Mumbai ki ghazab kahani

Asian Age — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:16:29 GMT

By Shobhaa De

Nov 21 : Mumbai seems to be going through a major identity crisis. There are any number of really weird people fighting over the metropolis, like it’s a half-chewed bone, left behind by a pack of wild dogs. The scraps left behind are for scavengers of all hues — and yet, everyone is pouncing on them. Why? The answer is obvious — even those measly scraps of this mega city are worth a fortune. And nobody wants to let go of those precious leftovers. From politicians to businessmen, there is just one story worth narrating about this ajeeb city. It is called Real Estate. Take whoever, doing whatever, in whichever sphere — the motive is just one — land grab. Which is why Sachin Tendulkar’s innocuous remark — "Mumbai belongs to India" — has triggered off reverberations, not just in Sena Bhavan, but across party lines. It has been twisted out of context and given political hues by those who would like to appropriate the city and stake an exclusive claim over it. No other city in India generates this level of possessiveness and passion. And the only reason why Mumbai gets people to froth at the mouth each time the "ownership" issue comes up, is because those who hope to plunder it still further, start feeling threatened. Earlier, this perceived threat used to come from "outsiders" who were determined to acquire chunks of pricey property, using locals as fronts. Often, these "outsiders" were underworld kingpins consolidating their hold over their gangs through illegal acquisitions of land in prime areas. The "dons" continued their dirty games from their hideouts overseas, even after getting chased out during the fierce inter-gang battles in the 80s and 90s. These old Bollywood-style dons were soon replaced by a new breed — the political dons. But the objectives remained the same — buying Mumbai. And selling it, piece by piece, to the highest bidder. Dhanda!

The lines have totally blurred now. Most of the old players are either dead or dying. The new laptop dadas wear Versace (itself a dying brand, but who’s to tell these designer goons?), and crack mega real estate deals with smooth-talking builders in shiny suits. Most of the ghastly construction one sees in suburban Mumbai is a product of the scumbags who have stripped Mumbai of all its aesthetics, in their greed to make a fast buck.

I was told by an erstwhile royal who is a globetrotting, card-holding member of the luxe set, that a top Italian designer who visited Mumbai in search of good locations for his stores, actually held his head in his hands and wept after a drive through the city. He couldn’t accept its ugliness. He was appalled by the hideous "development" all over that lacks character or taste. He kept repeating, "How could anybody do this to such a historic and important city? Why doesn’t someone stop this horrible growth?" He fled vowing never to return. Yes, he was that traumatised. Mumbai’s ghazab story can only get worse. There are no real stakeholders left to protect it from marauders who are determined to exploit every last inch of space available. And these marauders are not the feared "outsiders" but insiders themselves, who want to hang on to the booty. Helping them in their sinister design are the greedy worker ants of Mumbai — those who sign "no objection" certificates, okay crazy plans and are a part of this dirty nexus. From lowly staffers in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), to hangers-on of MLAs and ministers, they are all in the conspiracy to own India’s most valuable real estate — Mumbai.

What does the average Mumbaikar do to protect the city or his/her own interests? Well, very little. The cynicism is so widespread, the Mumbaikar shrugs resignedly and life goes on. Every time there is a crisis, Mumbaikars are reminded about their "resilience" and the great "spirit" of the city. This is nothing but a cheap alibi that excuses those who are responsible for the safety and prosperity of India’s premier hub. Mumbaikars shrug, laugh and get back to work after each devastation, knowing that if they don’t, they’ll be finished. They read exposes on corruption in high places, in low places, in virtually every place and are not shocked. They accept that most of the netas voted into power are goondas. They don’t react. Nobody wants unnecessary lafdas, they say tiredly. As long as the goondas get them water in the taps, it’s okay. It’s all a big joke — just like in the current Ajeeb-Ghazab hit movie. Serial blasts, terror attacks, David Headley and whatever else might befall Mumbai in future, one thing is certain — politicians will never get poor. Today, Mumbaikars are willing to say sportingly, "It’s okay, baba… paisa banao. Lootmaar karo. No problem. Grab what you can while in power. But at least make sure the public also benefits a little". Is that too much to ask?

I think it is very fair and very practical. It’s time to do a deal.

Maybe Mumbaikars should talk turkey with those who are busy plundering Mumbai and work out a formula. We have some of the canniest financial brains in the country in this overburdened city. History tells us Mumbai came as part of a "dowry" for a Portuguese princess in the early 17th century.

Time to file a dowry harassment case, in that case? It can’t get more ghazab than that for this ajeeb city.

— Readers can send feedback to www.shobhaade.blogspot.com

Not angry enough

Asian Age — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:15:54 GMT

By Kishwar Desai

Nov 21 : On the anniversary of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks there is no better way to remember the dead than to be angry. And there is enough, just in the normal struggle to survive in India, which should make us furious. And not allow any one of us to ever forget.

Returning to Delhi is always a shock — the airport lulls you into thinking that things have improved. But once outside, you are choked. Not with emotion but by the pollution, and by the implication of a government that is not working hard enough. On every flyover there are children selling magazines or begging under them: hungry and malnourished children who should be in school. Every symbol of progress has another negative and searing one. The last one year, when we swore an end to corruption and held candlelight vigils, has only shown us our own faults in sharper and sharper focus as we voted back the same people who let us down, over and over again. This was meant to be a watershed year, but instead it has been a year where we appeared complacent and self-indulgent. Ready to be attacked, once again, perhaps?

The Delhi sky reminds me of Beijing five years ago, when we had gone there on a brief visit. There was a thick haze of pollution everywhere and the sun struggled, ever more weakly, to come out. Five years ago the chief minister of Delhi had just announced the success of the CNG buses and all of us — harkening towards asthma — could breathe the clichéd sigh of relief. Imagine — Delhi was less polluted than Beijing! What a coup! What excitement!

So we could afford to feel superior. Landing in Beijing we had muttered about how recklessly the Chinese government was indulging the middle class — allowing them unbridled access to cars, to material goods, to consumerism. There wasn’t even a ban on smoking! But didn’t the Chinese have a point? After all the aam aadmi is no longer an impoverished voiceless face in the crowd — the aam aadmi is really the newly-arrived middle class — thrown up in waves on the safe shore of government subsidies and corruption. That is the class to indulge and keep happy — because if your middle classes are content, the so-called home-grown media experts who dominate TV channels and newspapers can be easily bought over. So Beijing was, despite its glossy buildings and new found millionaires, barely visible behind the mist of pollution, and no one really cared. Because the growth rate was and is the deity we have to worship — it doesn’t matter if a few million lungs shut down forever. In a competitive global economy every decimal point counts.

And by allowing a cash-rich culture to flourish, the opium of the middle classes is no longer religion (sadly for the Bharatiya Janata Party) but mobile phones, affordable cars, and homes on EMIs.

The Indian government, alas, seems to be following the same policy — thus the linked wholehearted attempt to keep the industrywallahs happy because after all the growth rate of the country cannot be allowed to dip. If the Sensex falls how can we claim our seat at the Group of Twenty? And what about the trickle-down effect? But the suspicion is that the money is no longer trickling into the hands of the masses, or to improve our security (despite the budgetary allocations) — it is instead going into the coffers of the political parties and politicians.

The real crisis of democracy is that there is a steady decline in the percentage of votes by which people are voted into power — and if you have to either entice the electorate to come out, or bribe them to stay at home, you need money. And in India there are elections all the time. For the Congress coalition, things are on a roll — as the Opposition seems to have committed mass suicide. Soon there will be little to distinguish us from our neighbours such as Pakistan or Bangladesh or even Afghanistan — because there is little debate and no anger about policy. We only seem to discuss trivia all the time.

Remember our crocodile tears at the lack of bulletproof vests for the police during the 26/11 episode? This week the sickening photographs of policemen parked near the Gateway of India sitting in the open, with little protection, ostensibly to provide security makes a mockery of all the 26/11 remembrances which are playing out on TV channels. When will we ever learn?

The recent cases of Satyam in Andhra Pradesh and the infamous Koda kaand in Jharkhand, and the impunity with which culprits vanish, are exonerated or live in luxuriously equipped jails cannot augur well. And yet, we are not angry enough — spending hours discussing Headley instead. This is a conveniently-created distraction of a man in US custody whom the Americans will not allow us to approach for questioning because they have already seen the finesse with which we have turned the Kasab trial into a year-long circus. We are still squabbling over who did what and begging Pakistan for information. The Americans understand anger, they understand patriotism. They will not allow the single death of an American to go unavenged.

The real issues accumulate and fester, and are all interconnected — pushing us further and further on a downward spiral: such as the rampant mining of valuable minerals, displacing indigenous people in tribal areas which is taking place with little regard to the environment or to the global terrorism links which are emerging from there. However, here too we find convenient distractions — how sexy it is to discuss the "stone grinding" in Mayawati’s parks, for instance. The real environmental issues are shoved aside for cheap headlines. How clever is that?

This kind of denial is simply not a good sign — we may be proud of the fact that we are the "least corrupt" in South Asia but that is hardly anything to crow about. Already the media abroad has scented blood and the feel-good stories about India are on the decline. At a recent event in the UK a politician rued that India was squandering away its goodwill. A government which has been voted in with a decisive mandate (no matter how slim) needs to be more pro-active. And we need to be much more angry.

The writer can be contacted at kishwardesai@yahoo.com

Trust the Almighty

Asian Age — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:13:01 GMT

Vishaal Hegde

Nov 21 : I have a firm belief in God and I believe that faith is the most important thing in life.

Unless you have faith in something, be it in God or in yourself, you will never be able to succeed in life.

Right from my childhood I was taught to have faith in God and the power that controls the universe. Over the years, my beliefs have only grown stronger.

Though, I have never come across any miraculous circumstances or turn of events in my life so far, I have affirmed my faith in the existence of the Almighty.

I feel that my positive attitude towards God’s very existence has made everything work smoothly for me.

One of the most important thing is to remain optimistic. If we embrace God happily, good things are bound to happen to us.

If we have a negative attitude towards God, we will end up feeling miserable.

I believe that God is all-knowing and generous. If you ask Him for something, He surely fulfills your wishes in one way or the other. But, sometimes we don’t like the "other way" which He decides for us and that leads to a conflict in our minds about His existence.

I visit temples regularly. I feel relaxed and rejuvenated whenever I visit temples.

We (human beings) only seek God’s help when we are in need. The moment we get what we had asked for, we forget about the cosmic power. I think this is wrong.

Good things have happened to me in life and I’d like to think that my belief in God has given me the strength and direction to my life... in the choices that I have made.

To people who do not put faith in God, I have one thing to say, "Believe in yourself and have faith in God. Things will work out far better than you can imagine".

(As told to Rhik Kundu)

— Vishaal Hegde is a South-Indian actor

What after ‘what next?’

Asian Age — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:29:16 GMT

Shekhar Bhatia

Nov.20 : "What do a Boeing 777 and a Bar-tailed Godwit have in common?"

The question was asked by Dr Steven Chu, the US energy secretary, during a talk he gave at IIT-Delhi last week. A US-born Chinese-American, Steven Chu is a co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics. He believes that climate change and energy are the defining challenges of our time and has spent many years in pursuit of alternative energy. Chu calls himself "a bit of an energy-efficiency nut", and firmly believes that if we paint the roofs of our buildings white and roads in a light colour, it will have the same effect on slowing down global warming as taking all the cars in the world off the roads for 11 years.

When you see a man of his calibre at the helm, you feel reassured. I also wanted to hear his talk.

The Boeing and the Bar-tailed Godwit, he said, "can fly about 11,000 kilometres without refuelling." The Godwit, a migratory bird, flies non-stop from Alaska to New Zealand. "When a 777 takes off for a long distance flight, 45 per cent of its weight is jet fuel. When a Bar-tailed Godwit takes off, roughly 55 per cent of its weight is body fat".

I divide the climate change debate into two parts: One is the story so far, and two, what next. We’ve seen the first in Al Gore’s fascinating documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. It’s a doomsday scenario, and it urges us to do something. We know the threat is real: that the earth is getting warmer, weather conditions are getting more extreme and erratic, glaciers are melting, ice sheets are breaking up and sea levels are rising.

If global warming goes on at the current rate, said Dr Chu, the low-lying areas of Bangladesh would be submerged in the next 10 years and "this might lead to about 10 million Bangladeshis moving into India". That’s one crore refugees in 10 years.

Himalayan glaciers, he said, are receding faster than in any other part of the world. According to an assessment report of the Inter-Government Panel on Climate Change, in about two decades from now, by 2035 when India is projected to become an economic superpower, the last of the Himalayan glaciers will have disappeared. The report also predicts more severe floods and droughts.

We know that this crisis is man-made and if we carry on regardless the result would be disastrous. So why do I get the impression that people are indifferent to this issue, that they appear to be bored with it?

One reason could be that it hasn’t hit us as yet. That we will act only when we feel the heat, when we are forced to change our lifestyle.

Another reason could be that as we go to the "what next" stage, the debate is becoming more complex and getting caught in jargon that we don’t understand. As we move towards the negotiating table in Copenhagen, where do-or-die decisions will — or will not — be made concerning the future of the planet, the debate has shifted from science to politics and economics.

Everyone agrees that the level of greenhouse gas emissions needs to be brought down; the question is how, and by how much. Developing countries will blame the developed ones for the mess, and each will tell the other, "You first". But how do you expect the US to take the lead when back home there are people who even now do not believe that climate change is real? According to the latest Pew opinion poll, the number of Americans "who say there is solid evidence that global temperatures are rising is down from 71 per cent to 57 per cent" over the year.

Dr Chu did not go into the issues of the Copenhagen conference. His talk was more about the energy and climate challenge. Refrigerators, air-conditioners, dishwashers and washing machines, television sets and fans, he said, account for 60 per cent of residential energy consumption. If we make these appliances more energy efficient we will automatically reduce our energy consumption.

The more energy we consume, the more fossil fuels we’ll burn. India imports over two-thirds of its oil requirements. Soon it will be the third biggest energy consumer after US and China. India’s demand for oil will be 10 times its domestic supply; the demand for coal will exceed domestic supply by 60 per cent.

The more oil and coal we burn the more carbon dioxide — the chief greenhouse gas — we will produce. If the emissions continue unchecked, the planet will heat up further.

And so it’s crucial that there is some kind of agreement at Copenhagen. If all countries do not agree on reduction of emission levels, there is no "Plan B". At stake is not only our quality of life: there will be floods, drought and serious shortages. In case of countries like the Maldives, it’s a question of survival.

As Dr Chu said, "This is not about us. This is about our children and grandchildren".

Shekhar Bhatia can be contacted at shekhar.bhatia@gmail.com

Victimspeak

Asian Age — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:22:36 GMT

Robin Sharma

Nov.20 : Back to a theme I shared with readers in The Greatness Guide. Words shape the way you feel. They influence the way you proceed reality. And they can either take you closer to your mountain-top or draw you nearer to the valley. Use world-class words and you’ll get to your world-class life.

I was sitting in Starbucks in Manhattan. The guy in front of me ordered a "chai latte". The barista said she was out of "chai". He looked wounded. Seriously. I wish you could have seen his face. Like he just got an arrow through the heart. His reply? Classic victimspeak: "How could you do this to me?" I waited for his smile. It never came.

No matter where life sends us, we are responsible for the way we respond. We truly are. We can own our reaction. We can choose what we do with the situation. We can be bitter, or show up better. Tons of choices — at all times. Starting with our words. Choose them well. Leaders do.

— Excerpted from The Greatness Guide 2

by Robin Sharma. Published by Jaico

Publishing House, jaicopub@vsnl.com

I believe in pujas

Asian Age — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:35:44 GMT

Nikhil Dwivedi

Nov 19 : God to me is happiness and peace of mind. I feel whatever I do gets noticed by God. It is like a relationship between a father and son. When I do something good, I can feel Him smiling at me. When I do something bad, I know He wants to punish me for it. I feel His presence everywhere. Be it smiles, tears, happiness or loneliness, He is watching all our emotions.

I am not superstitious, but I do believe in performing pujas on special occasions. I feel He bestows His blessings if we perform a puja before starting anything new in life.

He is the supreme power and you don’t need to follow a particular religion to communicate with Him. God and religion are completely different entities. I’m a firm believer in karma. Whatever happens in our life is because of our good or bad deeds. I believe in the Gayatri Mantra. Whenever I feel scared or lonely I recite Gayatri Mantra at least thrice and feel confident and happy from within.

I don’t pray everyday or fast, but I feel the presence of God around me all the time. I believe whatever happens, happens for good.

(As told to Shruti Badyal)

— Nikhil Dwivedi is a Bollywood actor

Minority report

Asian Age — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:34:38 GMT

By Nitish Sengupta

Nov 19 : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s castigation of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) on October 29 for their audacity in appointing an interlocutor for the India and Pakistan dispute over Kashmir was very timely and appropriate. The OIC does not seem to understand that India is a country with a Muslim population of over 151 million, the third-largest Muslim community in the world after Indonesia and Bangladesh, and that Pakistan, a country with a much smaller Muslim population, does not really have any locus standi as far as Kashmir is concerned.

To project India’s case on the Kashmir issue, one needn’t go into the history of Kashmir. Just citing the previous United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s announcement several years ago that the UN resolutions of 1949-50 on Kashmir are not valid in today’s context, is enough. For some strange, unexplained reason, the Indian foreign office has not made use of this extremely significant statement.

In this connection one has to painfully admit that in the last two decades India has failed to counter Pakistan’s propaganda in some of the orthodox Muslim countries, especially Saudi Arabia, and been unable to project itself as the home of 151 million Muslims. Public opinion about India in most Muslim countries, except maybe Indonesia, Turkey and Bangladesh, has become a victim of Pakistan’s propaganda which day in and day out spreads the canard that Muslims in India are persecuted, and that their rights and privileges are seriously curtailed. Unfortunately, this is also the general belief of a number of Pakistanis. It was not so always, but has unfortunately become so in the past two decades, especially from the time of Zia-ul-Haq and his anti-Indian tirade.

India needs to seriously counter this vicious propaganda and project the truth. Public opinion in orthodox Muslim countries must be won over and Pakistan’s bluff called. How one misses an Arab leader like Saddam Hussein at such a time; he was a strong supporter of India on all issues, including Kashmir.

One also needs to remember that in 1971 a very important geo-political change took place in the subcontinent. Bangladesh, with a large Muslim population, seceded from Pakistan after an armed struggle and became the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Thus, Pakistan lost its moral claim of being the champion of Muslims in the subcontinent under the legacy of the 1947 Partition. So how can Pakistan then claim any moral right to Jammu and Kashmir vis-à-vis India?

Since 1947 there have been four armed clashes between Pakistan and India over Kashmir. In 1971, the Pakistan Army was decisively beaten, both on the western and eastern fronts. But not only did India not press her advantage at the bilateral discussion at Shimla in 1972, it also agreed to return 93,000 prisoners of war and all territory seized from Pakistan without any conditions. This remains a unique event in world history. The correct quid pro quo would have been for Pakistan to give up all claims to Kashmir, or at least agreeing to the ceasefire line or the Line of Control between the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir. But, in its generosity, the Indian government did not press these points and decided to trust Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Thereafter, Pakistan did not raise the Kashmir issue for two decades.

It was during the National Democratic Alliance regime that India allowed Pervez Musharraf, on a visit to India, to raise the Kashmir issue after recognising him as Pakistan’s President. Kashmir returned to the discussion table once again, that too at a time when Pakistan was sending terrorists to India, not only from Pakistan but also from Chechnya, Afghanistan and Sudan.

Kashmir was already in turmoil, 1989 onwards, as a result of political mishandling by successive governments in New Delhi. Terrorism had gained new ground and had a clear-cut agenda of ethnic cleansing, in the course of which the Pandit community was by and large compelled to leave the Valley. Mufti Muhammad Sayeed’s period as Union home minister was particularly bad, and it was complicated further by George Fernandes serving as minister for Kashmir affairs, the two working at cross purposes.

India needs to do a great deal in her external publicity programme, especially to counter Pakistan’s propaganda on the condition of Muslims in India. If some of the utterances by the captured "jihadis" are any guide, it is clear that they genuinely believe that the condition of Muslims in India is pitiable, that they are constantly persecuted, harassed and humiliated. While there are deeply unfortunate and shameful events like the Babri Masjid demolition, followed by the Mumbai riots of 1992 and the riots in Gujarat in 2002, these are exceptions, not the rule. Most Indian Muslims would agree that barring these, they live a life of dignity like all Indians. That they have equal rights and freedoms — political, social and religious. One need not go into the statistically-flawed and politically-prejudiced Sachar Commission report which sought to determine the status of Muslims in India only with reference to the number of jobs they hold in the government vis-à-vis the upper classes among Hindus, excluding the dalits.

The fact is that Muslims have made a remarkable mark in India, especially in businesses and professions. Nothing illustrates this better than Bollywood where they occupy a dominant position, as superstars, technicians and musicians. It is time some of our prominent Indian Muslims take the initiative in counteracting Pakistan’s propaganda, and project the truth. A special responsibility rests on the Bollywood community. If some of them, say like the Khan trio, do some plain speaking, especially directed at Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, one can expect these countries to change their attitudes towards India considerably. One recalls the televised tête-à-tête that the late actor Feroze Khan had with Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan — he criticised Pakistani society, praised India, and said that he was longing to return to India to live an honourable life as a free citizen.

A lot of responsibility rests with progressive Indian Muslims, intellectuals, artists and politicians as well to disseminate the truth: that India has a large Muslim population of 151 million, and that Indian Muslims, therefore, have a natural interest in seeing that Jammu and Kashmir remains in India. It is only by conscious reorientation of India’s PR machinery abroad that we can influence public opinion in some Muslim countries. Once this is done, it will surely be reflected in organisations like the OIC.

Nitish Sengupta, an academic and an author, is a former Member of Parliament and a former secretary to the Government of India

Legislator haazir ho!

Asian Age — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:33:18 GMT

Voters must have power to recall

Somnath Chatterjee

Nov 19 : The recent incident in the Maharashtra Assembly where an aggressive physical effort was made to stop a legislator from taking oath in Hindi was a deliberate attack on the Constitution. We are all free to speak in our mother tongue and take oath in any of the languages included in the Constitution. Seeking to prevent someone from doing that in a place like the state legislature, and that too by physical intervention, was an action that amounted to devaluing the Constitution, which the legislators are supposed to protect.

Legislators seem to forget that there is more to winning elections than just enjoying the perquisites. They have a duty towards the Constitution, the nation and the people. The least they can do is to behave properly inside the House. But they are aware that once elected practically nothing can shake them from their position. This is one of the reasons why they begin behaving in a manner highly unbecoming of them.

In such a situation, or even otherwise, if a legislator is not seen doing his/her job properly, people should have the right to recall the MLA or MP they elected. I have been saying this for a long time but nobody seems to be in a mood to change the existing law.

As it is, the electorate chooses one or another candidate nominated by political parties. So, people practically have no choice. But with the right to recall becoming available, they will have some power that they can exercise on those they elect. Moreover, there are rules for impeaching the President and the vice-president. The legislators can bring no-confidence motions against the government and even against the Speaker. But the legislators, once they are elected, cannot be touched until the next election. Of course, there are rules for expulsion but there are limitations to that. Besides, if a legislator is expelled, the people of his/her constituency are ultimately going to suffer if a replacement is not envisaged.

The right to recall has been implemented in various countries — the United States, Canada, Switzerland and some Scandinavian countries, besides a few others. Doubts might be raised over the workability of the system as vested interests may engineer campaigns for recalling a certain legislator by manipulating the popular opinion. To check that, certain safeguards would have to be introduced in the law itself.

In the existing systems in the countries indicated above, a certain minimum percentage of people —from every segment of the constituency — should be in favour of recalling the candidate. Without this the process cannot be initiated. But the final question is whether the legislators themselves are willing to let go whatever advantages they feel they have in the current set-up.

Somnath Chatterjee is a former Lok Sabha Speaker

***

It’s a good idea, but it won’t work

The idea of right to recall is a good and romantic idea which is not applicable in our current system.

To begin with, our system does not leave scope for recall. We have a "first past the post" system and more than one thousand political parties. In such a scenario, a candidate is often elected by a minority of votes. This could be as little as five or seven per cent of the total votes cast, not to speak of the total number of registered votes in his constituency.

This would suggest that something like 95 per cent of voters were against the winning candidate. By definition, the right to recall involves a certain minimum percentage of people saying that they are not in favour of a certain candidate continuing in office.

In our system, clearly, that situation becomes a reality the moment a candidate gets elected since the winner often represents a very small per cent of the votes cast. Going by this logic, a large number of candidates would be fit cases for being recalled. In other words, the "representative legitimacy" of our elected candidates is often seriously in doubt.

Another reason which makes this idea less than practical is the fact that we have very large constituencies. This leaves huge scope for variations and manipulations. We must remember that while we imported the "first past the post system" from Britain, we have not been able to evolve a two-party system which, if implemented, would have made the idea of right to recall more amenable for implementation. A two-party system is almost a must for the right to recall being effective on the ground. The winner in this system does not suffer from low votes.

There could be two solutions to the problem of legislators either not performing as per people’s expectations or resorting to activities like the one seen recently in the Maharashtra Assembly. Either we change the Constitution and follow the United Kingdom model or of other European countries. Else, we must be more honest and show more integrity in our conduct.

If vested interests are involved, no system will work properly. In the case of office of profit bill, for instance, the rules were changed with retrospective effect from 1959 to allow certain individuals carrying on with their public offices along with other positions of profit.

If we begin re-adjusting the laws in such a manner, then any system we introduce will be fraught with the risk of being manipulated.

Also, the right to recall, by its very nature, functions better in smaller democracies or in places where constituencies are smaller in size.

Subhash Kashyap is former secretary-general, Lok Sabha

Talking points

Asian Age — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:08:33 GMT

By Satish Kumar

Nov 18 : The outcome of the recently held high-level Track II dialogue with Pakistan suggests that dialogues do not yield anything because of the rigid attitude and closed minds of our Pakistani friends. Yet one wonders whether there is an alternative to a dialogue, given the fact that war or coercive action are no longer feasible options.

Combating terrorism is the priority on the India-Pakistan agenda at present. But the dialogue on this subject does not proceed an inch without entering into polemics. There is no meeting of the minds on any parameter. Pakistan’s stand is that terrorism is a common problem. No amount of assertion by the Indian side that while the problem is common its causes and sources in both countries are different convinces the Pakistanis. One distinguished participant went to the extent of saying that if 5,00,000 Indian troops in Kashmir have not been able to stop terrorism there, how can Pakistan be expected to succeed in stopping it. There cannot be a more absurd argument in a situation where Pakistani mujahideen have been more than half the source of terrorism in Kashmir. Besides, the argument reveals complete unwillingness to accept that Pakistan has anything to do with terrorist attacks in India, which is just the opposite of what India believes to be a fact. So how can you proceed further?

This brings us to the question of evidence. The stock argument from the Pakistani side is: give us evidence so that we can take action against, for instance, the 26/11 suspects. The evidence already provided by India is not enough. When questioned whether Pakistan has legally sustainable evidence against the Taliban militants who are destroying the Pakistani state and against whom Pakistan’s Army is taking action, there is no cogent answer.

For some reason, the Pakistani side keeps insisting that the Joint Anti-Terror Mechanism should be reactivated. The mechanism was tried out in a couple of meetings in 2007 in the wake of the agreement in Havana in September 2006. Pakistan demanded that terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir be kept out of the purview of this mechanism. While that knocked the bottom out of this mechanism, it is simply impossible to expect Pakistan to reveal in the joint mechanism what action it has taken or not taken against certain terrorists, given the politics of terrorism in Pakistan. The related Pakistani suggestion of intelligence sharing was shot down by Indian participants on the ground that information cannot be shared with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), a sworn enemy of India. Nor is there much scope for dialogue on the Kashmir issue. The Pakistani side clearly stated that former President Pervez Musharraf’s four-point formula died with his exit. If the post-Musharraf government wants to revive it, it will have to redefine it in its own words and bring it to the table again. The four-point formula evolved by Mr Musharraf in 2006 comprised no change of boundaries but making the Line of Control irrelevant, staggered demilitarisation, autonomy or self-governance and joint control mechanisms. It is generally believed that in back channel diplomacy some progress was made on Mr Musharraf’s agenda although it is difficult to confirm. But all back channel agreements can also be said to have died with the exit of Mr Musharraf. And India’s current external affairs minister clearly rejected the revival of back channel approach by stating in New York in September that the back channel was not needed when the front channel was open.

For the rest, the Pakistani side had stale ideas like India should agree to talk to Kashmiri separatists too, without realising that New Delhi’s invitation had been spurned by the separatists on more than one occasion. And yet, some talks with them have been going on.

There was some discussion on mutual threat perceptions when the Pakistani side lamented the launch of a nuclear submarine by India and the Indian side referred to the expansion of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and questioned the safety of its nuclear weapons. But there was no satisfactory answer from Pakistan to the question why it was diverting foreign military aid meant for fighting terrorism to buy weapons usable against India. Nor was there any recognition of the fact that Pakistan was resorting to terrorism as a state policy and was using non-state actors for this purpose.

India’s justifiable anger against Pakistan’s attitude and denial has led it to adopt the posture of no-dialogue whereas Pakistan has been desperate to resume some sort of a dialogue. This has been described by commentators as coercive diplomacy of India, even though there is no coercion in India’s behaviour. India’s refusal to talk is a mere expression of its frustration at the outcome of such talks. And yet relations between India and Pakistan are at a standstill. "No-dialogue" has helped neither India nor Pakistan. One has to understand why.

Pakistan will just not be able to take strong action against high-profile anti-India militant leaders for quite sometime even though it will keep up the facade of legal action against the second-rung leadership. Pakistan is under an ideological siege, an Islamic siege, which is its own creation. Militant leaders like Hafeez Saeed not only have a huge following of Islamic zealots in the Pakistani heartland but also a large capability to resort to organised violence. Besides, by virtue of their strong links with the Army-ISI combine, they are privy to important secrets. No Pakistani government can afford the risk of strong action against them. They are not threatening the Pakistani state, like the Taliban.

Talking to Pakistani friends, their helplessness becomes obvious, though not expressed in so many words. Is there a way by which India can help them out of this siege? No other country can, not the United States, not China. If at all, it is India, and that too only through dialogue.

The dialogue does not have to begin with Kashmir. It can begin with terrorism but not confined to specific incidents. It can address the question of how multi-sectoral exchanges can be expanded between the two countries with the aim of creating more tolerant and plural societies. It can include the consequences of Talibanisation of Pakistan for both countries. It can include Afghanistan at some stage, and later some bilateral issues.

Let the pace be slow and hesitant. But the two countries should keep talking. Pakistan has nowhere to go except turn to India if it needs to know how to create a tolerant society.

The writer is editor, India’s National Security Annual Review, and former professor of diplomacy at JNU, New Delhi

I feel God in music

Asian Age — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:05:30 GMT

Rm. Palaniappan

Nov 18 : It is through my work — karma yoga — that I feel the presence of God. There are times when the body and mind move together, in totality, during work. That is when I experience extreme happiness. I also realise the extraordinary reality that is God when I listen to some beautiful music — be it Western classical, Carnatic classical or film songs. When I work in silence — especially during night time — I feel cosmic energy traversing in my body.

Realisation of myself gives me a lot of energy. Imagine the energy produced in the movement of the universe. Or the energy produced by the Sun. Self-realisation has helped me not to harm or hurt my fellow human beings. I understand that I am a part of this big cosmos.

Visiting temples and waking up early for prayers are a part of my practice. Such practices help me enjoy the present and enjoy the work that I do. I never remain aloof from my fellow humans. I share my joys with them.

I think feeling happy and practicing peace are two important things to get closer to God. And this helps me connect with the spirit of cosmic energy. I always want to be associated with the nature’s good and positive energy. I work and, therefore, I exist.

(As told to Peer Mohamed)

— Rm. Palaniappan is a famous painter. He is also regional secretary, Lalit Kala Akademi, Chennai.

Where are the hawkers?

Asian Age — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:13:08 GMT

Jayati Ghosh

Nov.17 : Near the university campus where I live, there used to be a row of fruit sellers behind the pavement at an intersection. It was very convenient to stop there, before entering the campus, and to be able to choose fresh fruit to take home. These were very busy roadside stalls, popular with commuters on different kinds of vehicles, pedestrians, students, local residents. A few months ago the stalls disappeared, victims of the road expansion and "modernisation" of the city of Delhi before the Commonwealth Games.

What became of the hawkers after they were removed? They were certainly given no compensation as they were in any case chased away from the area. How they find a livelihood now is unclear.

Slightly further away from my campus is a bustling vegetable market that also has stalls selling meat and fish. These vendors live under constant harassment and threat of eviction, and every so often I find that they have had to either shift position or surreptitiously provide their wares because some local inspector has decided they are not allowed.

But these are not the only petty traders who are finding it more and more difficult to ply their trade or even survive in the current economic context. The plight of small-time hawkers in Indian cities cannot be blamed on the economic recession: it started during the previous boom, as the official data shows that employment in unorganised retail activities actually declined even as the economy was growing rapidly.

This seems a bit odd because petty retail trade has traditionally been a refuge employment sector for workers, both male and female, who lose other jobs or simply do not find any other paid work. This has been especially true of the urban areas because poverty and the lack of opportunities for gainful employment in the rural areas tend to drive a large number of people to the cities in search of work and livelihood. For the urban poor, hawking is an important means of earning a livelihood as it requires minor financial input and the skills involved are relatively basic.

Two factors have limited their spread recently. In many states, deregulation that permitted the entry of large corporate entities in the retail sector provided competition to small vendors because of their ability to take advantages of economies of scale. Possibly more important are the urban laws and policies of various types, including zoning restrictions and rules that constrain the ability of small traders and hawkers to function freely.

In most states and most cities of India, hawking is regarded as an illegal — or at best extra-legal — activity. This despite the fact that several judgments of the Supreme Court since the late 1960s have recognised that street vending is a legitimate activity. A National Policy on Urban Street Vendors Hawkers has recognised the problems of hawkers and seeks to improve their conditions. Even so, hawkers remain in the grey non-legal zone because of state and municipal regulation, are considered as unlawful entities and are, therefore, subjected to harassment by police and civic authorities.

Even where hawkers are legally recognised, there are usually very low limits to the number of vendors licensed to function in particular locations or activities. The numbers legally permitted and the spaces which may be legally used cover only a tiny fraction of those who are actually engaged in the trade. Consequently, much of vending by definition remains illegal and thus amenable to either extortion or removal.

So hawkers are typically treated as encroachers of public space and are forced to bear the additional burden of legal insecurity, harassment and bribes to different elements. As pressure on urban land increases, more and more laws are invoked to harass, exploit or coerce the street vendors, including some sections of the Police Act and the Indian Penal Code.

Urban plans and urban development policies also put severe constraints upon hawkers’ activities, by allowing for hawkers to be evicted and prohibiting their functioning in particular areas. Municipal acts and city plans in general do not have any kind of provision for street vendors.

Instead, the common tendency is to view hawkers and street vendors as obstructions to the free flow of traffic and urban movement, rather than an outcome and a necessary part of this flow. It is inadequately recognised that bicycles, pedestrians and bus traffic attract street vendors, who in turn provide important services such as the provision of food and drink for commuters, repair shops, and the like. Without such services at frequent intervals, the traffic itself would be adversely affected.

The presence of hawkers often has other positive social externalities. They can make streets relatively crime free and safer for women, children and the elderly. It has been found that cities that have a large number of street vendors tend to be safer and less prone to violent street crime than those that do not.

In terms of encroaching on public space — a typically middle class notion — it is too often forgotten that urban elites also cordon off public places for car-parking, private gardening etc. Even the sheer amount of urban space taken up by private vehicles owned by better off sections is ignored. For example, it has been estimated that the parking space taken up by private vehicles in the city of Delhi is greater than the area of all the slum settlements of the poor, which house around half of Delhi’s population.

The extra-legal treatment of street vending means that there is no consideration of the working conditions of hawkers and their own personal safety as well as the security of their goods, and no attempt at public improvement of their conditions of work such as adequate sanitation facilities. It also denies hawkers (along with many other small and tiny producers of goods and services) access to institutional credit, which dramatically increases the cost of their working capital and constrains their ability to expand operations.

So here is a strategy that makes both the retailers and the consumers worse off. Why do we put up with it?

Stigma of the question mark haunts and hurts

Asian Age — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:24:08 GMT

Shiv Visvanathan

Nov.16 : I do not know Mahesh Bhatt. I bumped into him once in a seminar and he seemed a curious, intelligent and a forthright man committed to ideas as experiments. One realised that here was a likeable man, someone you could enjoy a drink and a quarrel with.

Recently I saw him and his daughter Pooja Bhatt on TV answering questions about Rahul Bhatt. They were quieter, not quite their spontaneous selves, trying to reason, being careful with words. A quieter silence substituted for their visual spontaneity or their candidness.

What one watched was a kind of experience that was saddening. The two of them were defending Rahul Bhatt whose name occurred frequently in messages recorded by the terrorist David Headley. Rahul appears to have met Headley and has been mentioned frequently in email exchanges recorded by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The logic of these events worries me. When a person is connected even inadvertently with a terrorist, a pall of suspicion envelopes the individual and his friends. A barrage of accusations and questions hammer the family. It turns defensive explaining events, ideas and conversations, one would have not thought of. Freedom after all is the Freedom from suspicion. But as you watch a family run a gauntlet of question marks, you begin to reflect on certain things.

Terror at a collective level is anonymous. You do not know who it is going to hit. But terror creates an ambience of suspicion around people. Many innocent people get marked as suspects. They are haunted by the stigma of question marks. It is a symbolic branding which can destroy friendships or even the taken for granted world you have lived so happily in.

Terror dissolves the everydayness of the world. It destroys it twice: once for the suspect and also more poignantly for his family and friends. Let me explain through an analogy. Many people talk of the suffering of patients but few deal with the suffering and burden of those who take care of the patient. I think, sometimes, the heroism of a patient palls before the efforts of those who take care of him. The everydayness of caring for someone close can eat into you. It corrodes deeply.

Scandal and suspicion have a similar impact. Suspicion creates a tacit ostracism. When scandal combines with the shadow of terrorism, the word turns grey. You become the other varna, marked for questioning. The courage a family needs to show is demanding. Not only does one have to stand up for the person’s innocence, one needs to stand up for oneself, one’s values, a way of life. One has to do this all patiently and unapologetically. The questions which people ask make you want to scream. Instead you have to answer patiently and with dignity.

Watching Mahesh Bhatt on TV reminded me of all this. Father and daughter performed with enormous dignity. No question was too demeaning to answer. What impressed one was the honesty, the readiness to confront one’s vulnerability in public.

Here are two people who are quite bindaas as the slang word goes. They often flaunt their freedom, the way others flaunt their BMWs. They are proud of the way they live, open about their mistakes, loyal to their worlds. Suddenly, the world turns murky and questions hurt.

The minute Mahesh Bhatt learns that Headley is a suspect. He reports to the police himself. His daughter explains they have been upfront prompt about the Headley intervention into their lives. But the press watches them with different eyes. The pauses are uneasy, even silence creates a fresh ripple of doubts.

Suddenly, it is not only Rahul who is in question, but also Mahesh Bhatt who has stood up for rights, fought against censorship and been open about his mistakes. His earlier admissions about his search for meaning or freedom now acquire a new burden in this obsession with patriotism. Terror or suspicions of terrorism challenge a way of life.

The question of Rahul Bhatt will follow its own long and tedious career. The law takes its time and justice is absent minded about clearing the innocent. I realise the process of investigation is important. I respect the need for it. But what I wish to ask in my bumbling way is who protects families, friends and associates of someone who falls under suspicion. The blanket of suspicion becomes like a Delhi fog; it dirties you, chokes your sense of freedom.

I want to end with two reflections. I want to ask first whether the public or the press can treat such people as easy game. Is there a right to interrogate in public? Does transparency demand the inquisition? Often when I watch TV and I wonder if I could stand such humiliating rituals. TV has a long memory. It makes you account for previous mistakes and apologise for earlier arrogances.

As the media casts its hungry eyes at the scandal, it ironically humanises Rahul Bhatt in a pathetic way by talking of his attempts at fitness. It is almost as if gaining weight is greater problem than terror. It becomes the everyday terror of the six pack anorexic world. Scandal and humiliation almost seem negligible in his universe. Courage and dignity become ephemeral languages before the grit and determinism of the weight loss obsessive.

The second thought was about friendship. There is something about middle-class India which makes friendship an ephemeral affair in these moments. People you have known and cared for, students, neighbours and fans suddenly turn iffy and hostile. Investigation exploits these moments to pin you. The trauma of ephemeral friendship haunts you.

But this much I must say, openly and quietly.

Mahesh and Pooja Bhatt showed courage and composure. They talked reasonably and showed reasonableness about the law. It was courage of quiet kind. One must salute that because I sometimes, put myself in their place and wonder how I will perform. Doubt sneaks in like a deadly fog.

Shiv Visvanathan is a social scientist

Turning towards ‘list journalism’

Asian Age — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:22:25 GMT

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

Nov.16 : It is said that whenever newspapers run out of good ideas to sell weekend editions of their publications, their editors or proprietors fall back on one of two hoary alternatives. Either they commission a survey about sexual habits or they start drawing up lists — "ten best", "ten worst", "five most beautiful", "six worst-dressed" and so on. A survey (not about sex, but about economic and political ideology) and a list (by a venerable magazine about the powerful) are noted in this column that may surprise some.

We all know by now that two decades have passed since the Berlin Wall collapsed, just before the erstwhile Soviet Union broke up to triumphant cheers about the victory of free market capitalism, the demise of state-controlled Communism and the beginning of a unipolar world led by the United States. It now transpires that dissatisfaction with capitalism is rather widespread across the globe.

If a recent opinion poll conducted by the BBC World Service is to be believed, only 11 per cent of more than 29,000 adults spread across 27 countries, whose opinions were ascertained, were of the view that capitalism works well and that greater regulation was not a good idea.

The poll was conducted by international firm GlobeScan together with the Programme on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, US. The former coordinated the field work between June 19 and October 13 this year.

What is interesting is that in only two out of the 27 countries did more than one out of five persons whose opinions were solicited express a view that capitalism was working well as it stands. One of these two countries was the US (where 25 per cent said capitalism was working well) which is not much of a surprise. The second country was (surprisingly) Pakistan where 21 per cent of the respondents polled said capitalism was working well.

Whereas just over half (51 per cent) those surveyed said the problems of free market capitalism could be addressed through regulation and reform, an average of 23 per cent of the respondents felt that capitalism is fatally flawed and that a new economic system was necessary. Countries where this opinion was significant included France (43 per cent), Mexico (38 per cent), Brazil (35 per cent) and Ukraine (31 per cent).

In 15 out of the 27 countries in which the opinion poll was conducted, a majority of those whose views was solicited said their respective governments should be more active in owning or directly controlling major industries. The proportion was 77 per cent in Russia, 75 per cent in Ukraine, 64 per cent in Brazil, 65 per cent in Indonesia and 57 per cent in France.

In 22 out of the 27 countries, majorities supported governments distributing wealth more evenly — on an average two out of three (67 per cent) respondents across all countries. In 17 out of the 27 countries, most wanted their governments to do more to regulate business — an average of 56 per cent across the sample polled.

Latin Americans were particularly enthusiastic about the government playing a more active role in the economy, with nine in 10 supporting more redistribution of wealth: 92 per cent in Mexico, 91 per cent in Chile and 89 per cent in Brazil.

The opinion poll asked a question as to whether the break-up of the Soviet Union was good or not. An average of 54 per cent said it was a good thing. However, this majority view held in only 15 out of the 27 countries. An average of 22 per cent said the USSR falling apart was mainly a bad thing, while 24 per cent did not know either way.

Outside the West, the consensus on this issue was not strong. Seven out of 10 (69 per cent) Egyptians said the disintegration of the Soviet Union was bad, while views were divided in India, Kenya and Indonesia with many also saying they did not know.

GlobeScan chairman Doug Miller has been quoted as saying: "It appears that the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 may not have been the crushing victory for free-market capitalism that it seemed at the time — particularly after the events of the last 12 months".

From the survey, we now come to the list, this one prepared by Forbes magazine that loves calculating the wealth of the world’s richest individuals and is generally a torch-bearer for capitalism. For the first time, the magazine has compiled a list of the most powerful individuals on the planet.

The editors of the publication said they used four parameters to define "power". These were whether the person concerned had influence over many, whether they controlled substantial financial resources, whether they were powerful in multiple spheres and whether they actively used their power.

Predictably, US President Barack Obama tops the list followed by Chinese Premier Hu Jintao and Vladimir Putin of Russia. George Bush does not make it to the list while Bill Clinton does (at position number 31) and the Pope is pipped to the raced by Bill Gates (number 10).

The list of Indians on the list would raise a few eyebrows. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is at number 36 (just one notch above Osama bin Laden). Industrialists who are listed include Mukesh Ambani (44), Lakshmi Mittal (55) and Ratan Tata (55). But wait.

Your favourite mafia don Dawood Ibrahim is said to be the 50th most powerful individual on the planet. And yes, Sonia Gandhi is nowhere in the list! The editors of Forbes need to get their heads checked. Or is list journalism just lazy journalism?

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta is an educator and commentator

A dining table drought

Asian Age — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:52:33 GMT

Patralekha Chatterjee

Nov.15 : The drought hit home when I found no butter in my neighbourhood grocery store a few weeks ago. The shop attendant said the delayed monsoons had affected milk production and butter stocks. Amul, which accounts for a large chunk of the country’s butter supply, could not produce enough, and therefore the crisis.

As I mulled over my options in a butter-less world, suggestions streamed in. "Try home-made butter", advised one friend. "Try Nutralite", said another. A third pointed out that the disappearance of butter could actually be a blessing in disguise as butter blunts the taste in food. I weathered the crisis but one thing was clear. The drought had come to the dining table.

Urban, middle class India rarely discusses drought unless it is at a seminar or the subject of a best-selling book or a film. It is typically something that happens to other people whose paths one is unlikely to cross. But with scarcity and galloping prices of day-to-day food items like sugar and pulses, drought is no longer the far-away story about folks living in rural backwaters.

As leaders gather in Rome for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation’s World Summit on Food Security this week (November 16-18), hunger and the devastation caused by drought are slated to make headlines. The view from India is far from rosy.

India shook but never tumbled as the economic crisis convulsed much of the world over the past year. But this nugget of good fortune has been counterbalanced by a severe summer drought that has singed almost half of India’s 600-odd districts. In thousands of villages decimated by drought, men, women and children are grappling with acute hunger. Many are being forced to eat seeds, wild herbs, roots, leading to disease and sometimes death. In September this year, the non-governmental organisation (NGO) ActionAid reported that children in almost all 3,500 villages of Jharkhand’s Palamau district had not got mid-day meals at their schools. A friend from Hyderabad called to say the other day that for the child inmates in a NGO-run orphanage in his city, daal (pulses) has become the big treat — served sparingly and twice a week.

Montek Singh Ahulwalia, the government’s deputy planner-in-chief, says food prices will even out by March. It is tempting to take comfort in his soothing words.

But the government’s own data and statements by other key decision-makers do not make it easy for the optimists. Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar publicly admits to being worried about the shortfall in paddy (kharif) production (now pegged at 21 million tonnes) and the general food price inflation. On top of Mr Pawar’s wish list is, no doubt, a good rabi (winter) crop that will stabilise prices. But in the meanwhile, India, the world’s second-biggest rice producer, has floated three tenders to import a total of 30,000 tonnes of rice, through state-owned companies, sending a frisson in the global markets.

Official figures merely confirm what we know from experience: Food prices in the last week of October 2009 rose by 13.68 per cent from what it was a year ago. Over the past year, the price of potatoes has doubled. So have onions. Pulses are dearer by almost 30 per cent. Rice is dearer by 15.95 per cent, wheat by 5.19 per cent, fruits by 7.05 per cent and milk by 7.99 per cent.

The one consolation is that we are not alone in battling soaring food prices. In this inter-connected world, we are linked in our miseries.

Rain in Brazil, for example, can impact our lives and diet.

"India is the world’s second-largest producer of sugar after Brazil, and the world’s largest consumer. With low domestic output, India is importing sugar in a situation when global supply is expected to be tight, thanks to heavy rains in Brazil, the world’s largest sugar exporter. The price of sugar, already on a multi-year high, is expected to rise even further over the winter. This drives home the point that it’s not just the domestic monsoon that is a concern. Weather conditions in countries far from us can have a strong impact on what we shell out when putting food on the table", points out Sumita Kale, chief economist, Indicus Analytics Pvt. Ltd., a leading, independent economics research firm.

Rain or the lack of it is one part of the story of surging food prices. Speculators and agro-futures have also played a role in the current turmoil, argue many analysts. Last year, in a far-reaching report on global food prices, the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) cautioned that speculators outside of the food industry pouring money into financial mechanisms in the commodity markets could be cause for concern.

Food industry players are increasingly turning to tools of the derivative markets, such as futures and options, to help manage risks linked to the volatility of commodity prices, noted the UN body.

A third issue underlying the rising food prices is the widening gap between demand and supply. The growing middle class in India, as in other emerging economies, is eating more, pushing up demand, while agricultural yield trails.

"Rising aspirations of the new middle classes in Bric countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China); changing food habits towards the Western diet of carbohydrates and sugar-added ready-to-eat foods etc as well as hedging positions by the farming community in agro futures... have all contributed to rising agro prices based purely on real demand", said an analyst of commodity futures markets.

The drought and its legacy — food insecurity — are here. Everybody is affected. The forecast in the immediate term is bleak but some long-term good may come out of the crisis if we use it to focus public and policy attention on long-neglected issues relating to farmers and farming.

Despite our economic success, we still lead the world in hunger. India has the highest number of stunted children below the age of five in the world. We can dismiss the drought as a temporary problem. We can argue that agriculture contributes less than 18 per cent to our gross domestic product and we have enough foreign exchange reserves to import food. Or we can trigger discussions and actions on rejuvenating agriculture and focus on new farm management techniques such as planting short-duration crops and crop mixing and new technologies which can help enhance crop yields right now.

The bottomline: this is in our self-interest. Stagnating or declining food production will not only affect middle class diets. It will impact the country’s social stability adversely.

Patralekha Chatterjee writes on contemporary development issues. She can be contacted at patralekha.chatterjee@gmail.com.

A cyclone’s naamkaran

Asian Age — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:50:57 GMT

Cyrus Broacha

Nov.15 : I’d like to set the record straight. I don’t speak Burmese sorry, correction, Myanamarese. In fact, I’ve never really known any Burmese people. The only connection that I have with Burma is a hat. My dear father’s only proof that hats actually existed in the 19th century.

So imagine my surprise, when I learnt that the devastating cyclone that was supposed to destroy all of South Asia had been christened Phyan which, by the way, is Burmese for Peter or Paul or the man with the golden arm or something a policeman in Burma gives for speeding traffic.

This begs the question: What ever happened to India? Aren’t we supposed to be the major superpower in the area? Why weren’t we allowed to name the cyclone? I mean it’s not like we don’t have cyclonic names — Mayawati and Mamata, for example, immediately spring to mind, i.e. if you dare use the words spring and Mayawati in the same sentence.

As is my wont, being both a student of social phenomenon and more importantly an out of work actor, I decided to investigate the matter. Reach the core, go where no earth being has gone before, dig into the entrails, raid the fossils so to speak.

So why didn’t we get to name the cyclone? There are 72 reasons. However, space constraints mean we may only be able to examine 71. Let’s start with reason No. 11: language. India has 4,000 languages as you know. Sadly, vanity leads to indecision. Most of the languages wanted the cyclone to be named in their... tongue. For e.g. a famous Hindi poet Ustad Abu-bin-Azmi wanted a Hindi name to be installed. Noted Marathi historian Shri Raj Thackeray insisted Marathi be given preference as the cyclone would be staying as a guest in Maharashtra for a couple of days at least. Exalted philosopher and philanthropist Manu Sharma promoted the cause of Haryanvi which, truth be told, is a language that is still to get its due. Financial wizard and economics guru ex-chief minister of Jharkhand Shri Koda shouted from the hospital rooftops that the cyclone will have a Bihari and only a Bihari name. The list went on. Soniaji leaned towards Italian. Manmohan Singh for Punjabi, Advani fell for Sindhi and Jaswant Singh for Pakistani.

Left with so much indecision, India’s chances of naming the cyclone were disappearing faster than the Bengal tiger. Reason 14 didn’t help matters either. Even if a name and language had been agreed, there was this smaller matter of who would be the chief guest to inaugurate the name. Again the hat kept being passed around, but each party, each group, each lobby wanted one of their own. Some pushed for Sachin Tendulkar, some for A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, others for Saina Grewal, and Himesh Reshammiya went for Himesh Reshammiya.

Reason No. 46 is even more substantial. Who would accompany the cyclone? It is not everyday that such a prominent personality like a cyclone visits India. So who could accompany the cyclone through its sojourn through India. Ashok Chavan felt Maharashtra’s pride would be hurt if it wasn’t him. He even offered a compromise candidate from his state, Shri R.R. Patil, but, off the record, the cyclone apparently declined.

Narendra Modi’s supporters felt as Gujarat would have the longest stay, the honour should fall to him. Sheila Dixit, when she got some time off her main extra curricular activity of granting paroles, said she’d be more than miffed if this honour didn’t fall on her as the foremost citizen of the Capital of India. Mayawati cried: Which self-respecting storm would come all the way to India and not visit the Taj Mahal in Agra? Hence she really should be the prominent companion.

Having effectively examined all these 72 excuses, it’s pretty clear that we don’t deserve the naming right, as we can’t decide on anything. It’s a blow for democracy and a victory for fascisim as, quite rightly, an old despotic fascist regime with a so-called military junta and with amongst the highest rate of civilian casualties and atrocities, is far better placed to entertain the cyclone. Firstly, when you lose 200 a day to the military, an extra 100 to the cyclone won’t be a burden on the conscience. Secondly, language and other decisions will never be a problem as debates and referendums have never been heard of, and thirdly and most importantly, there is no such thing as an Abu Azmi or Maharashtra Navnirman Sena or a Manu Sharma or even a Koda in Burma. So congratulations to Burma and Phyan it is.

Babus return to school

Asian Age — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:48:26 GMT

Dilip Cherian

Nov.15 : After repeatedly trying to tell babus in the rank of joint secretaries to improve the quality of notes received by the Union Cabinet and its various committees, Cabinet Secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar has finally decided to give them lessons in preparing error-free and unambiguous notes.

According to sources, the Cabinet Secretary is peeved that even after providing joint secretaries and other senior babus with a handbook of instructions, which contains gyan on how to prepare the perfect Cabinet note among other things, his secretariat still receives a lot of extraneous information and background in the notes. According to sources, many Cabinet notes are sloppily prepared, with their authors getting even basics like the name of the ministry, page and file numbers, ordering of paragraphs, double space typing etc wrong. So long as the notes were for babus’ eyes only, no one seemed to mind. But now with the citizenry, armed with Right to Information, is at the gates demanding access to sarkari files and documents, the senior babus understandably will need to exercise more caution.

So now, after the censure from the Cabinet Secretary, babus will have to seek approval of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) before finalising the Cabinet note, and also avoid reference to the views of the PMO or the Cabinet Secretariat. Will Mr Chandrasekhar’s tutorials make an impact? Only time will tell!

***

Lucky games

The controversies surrounding the preparations for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, interestingly, have been a boon for many babus. Now that the government has made it clear that the Games take precedence over everything else in the capital, some babus associated with the preparations have used this opportunity to stick to their posts. Apparently, Aruna Sharma, Director-General of Doordarshan, according to sources, has managed a one-year extension on the plea that she heads the official state broadcaster of the Games.

Meanwhile, more babus are being inducted into the Games organising committee. After the rather public spat between Suresh Kalmadi, chairman of the committee, and Mike Fennel, president of the Commonwealth Games Federation, the government has appointed Jarnail Singh, a Manipur-Tripura cadre officer of the 1974 batch, as CEO of the organising committee. Moreover, sports minister M.S. Gill has signed off on the organising committee’s request to induct three more senior Indian Administrative Service babus to strengthen the preparation efforts. While such actions may not assuage the worries of Fennel and Co, at least the babus are not complaining!

Doomsday is nigh

Asian Age — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 06:55:24 GMT

Farrukh Dhondy

"I always want to sit on the fence

—I’m not stoopid, just kinda dense —

Yesterday is the very past tense

I wish I had more money than sense."

From Bachchoo the Bimbo,

an opera

Nov.14 : To Bee or not to Bee. Sorry! I’ll start again. Perhaps it ought to be Bees or not to Bees. I get my quotations from Hamlet constantly muddled but I do remember that "there’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow" which, as Miss Katy Shroff explained to us in our Pre-Degree Science English lectures in Pune, means that God knows about the movement and death of everything and intends it to be so. But I started with bees and not sparrows because I now hear from the alarmists of the liberal newspapers that providence has decreed that the bees of the world are dying out.

If one believes Shakespeare, or the character who speaks those lines, or even Ms Shroff’s particular interpretation, one would conclude that God intends the bees to be wiped off the face of this earth. Dead as Dodos.

But before you shed a tear for the extinction of the buzzies consider the simple truth that 95 per cent of all the species that ever existed on earth are now extinct. The Darwinian process is ruthless and whether or not God intervenes, evolution lays down the law. And the natural law is not kind, but as our own Rudyard noted, red in tooth and claw.

I grew up with a certainly rational fear of bees. At the end of our road in Pune cantonment was a compound with a red brick synagogue brooding in it. The synagogue had long sad windows and a tower with square hollows through which the wind blew and which I always avoided looking at when dusk was falling, lest I see the ghosts that inhabited it. Far more dangerous and certainly more evident than these ghosts were the huge bee-hives that would develop and grow in a particular season under the eaves of the laal deval as the synagogue was locally known. The hives would grow to gigantic proportions. I had seen hives elsewhere, but the synagogue ones were special as at that great height they developed rapidly and unmolested.

This unmolestation wasn’t, alas, reciprocated. Children would be taken by their ayahs to play in the laal deval compound and the younger brother of a friend of mine, when only an infant, was surrounded by a swooping swarm of bees who stung him and caused him to faint. His life had been saved by the action of the ayah and the availability of medical help, but he remained a simple lad and it was always said that the stings had affected the speed of his thought processes. Dumbed-down by bee-sting.

I used to see him very many days of the week, inarticulate, blowing bubbles with his spit, always attended by a servant and this slowness of mind was a constant warning as to the danger of bees.

So it was with no great alarm that I read that GM Research Pharmaceutical Services were killing off the bee population. Let the vicious little stingers go the way of all dinosaurs, I thought, until a little further in the article I was told that bees are responsible for 80 per cent of the pollination of the world’s food crops and if the bees died out then so would we as there would be no food to eat.

I think readers all round the world have become used to the Doomsdaywallahs (No, it is NOT a Parsi surname!). There are still cranks parading around Oxford Street and Hyde Park with signs on sandwich boards saying "The End of the World is Nigh" but today everyone who laughs at them goes home and is confronted with a programme on the BBC, a Guardian article or a film by Al Gore saying the same thing, but this time with, purportedly, science on their side.

Politicians have taken up the bee-causes in absolute earnestness. The European Union and the British Parliament are to debate the crisis. A British MP has the following quote from Einstein on his website: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left".

Einstein only said B=(mc)x(c) or something similar, nothing about Bees, but then a doomster made up the quote. Now on reliable information from the New Scientist, evidence of which has been featured on these very pages, a couple of world experts in pollination studies declare that the bee population of the world has actually increased in the last five years.

The extinction of bees is not the only doom scenario with which the world is threatened. Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) has become the ethic-lyric of every government in the world. India, China and the fast-industrialising nations argue that they ought to be allowed their share of development and the political world and the ubiquitous ecology lobby have come up with off-setting schemes whereby one country, more developed and virtuous than the rest, can sell its quota of pollution to one less developed or fortunate.

In the corridors of the AGW empire, the doom-sayers grow more vociferous. By 2012, every polar bear will be standing on a cube of ice small enough to fit into a Punjabi whisky tumbler etc. And yet the scientists who contradict AGW, admittedly a minority of the weighty names in pursuit of these truths, either deny that global warming is taking place at all (the minority within the minority) or attribute the changes in temperature on the earth to conditions other than the rise of carbon emissions.

In a demonstration of AGW denial, an Australian professor of geology has proved that the mean temperatures of the ocean, while rising in the late ’90s and early noughties have actually fallen from 2006 on till the present. At the same time the graph of the growth of carbon emissions has continued in its upward slope.

The other fact that the AGW-wallahs don’t account for is the flatulence of cattle. Tying plastic bags to both ends of a cows alimentary canal, scientists in Britain proved that their digestive systems give out methane gas which is 26 times more harmful to the Ozone layer than CO2 emissions from cars. So what about Bovine Global Warming (BGW)? Are the governments of the world going to slaughter the herds? Are we all to turn vegetarian?

Hijab: Rebellion, choice or diktat?

Asian Age — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 06:54:08 GMT

Kishwar Desai

Nov.14 : Ever since prominent Labour minister Jack Straw made his controversial statement in 2006 that he preferred Muslim women in Britain not to wear the veil, there has been a recurring debate on whether anyone really has the right to dictate who wears what. And at the heart of it is the Muslim woman’s right to decide whether she wants to cover herself from head to toe — look like a "fundamentalist post box", as a new controversial play running in London puts it rather succinctly. The situation becomes more complex because you have, all over Europe, a similar heated discussion. In fact, France, Germany and the Netherlands have been trying to ban any form of head covering in public institutions for years. In Britain there is no such ban, but some people confess to an acute sense of discomfort on spotting someone with a hijab or burqa because not only does it evoke a memory of 9/11, there are also religious stereotypes of medievalist behaviour associated with this form of head and body covering.

Every now and then the issue explodes as a clash between religion and a more progressive secular culture, but since women are always the first to be affected by any form of social control, the debate carries on. Of course many Muslim women, when they are able to live in a more liberal environment, do try to embrace the new values that a country like Britain can provide.

But there are many still who are still caught up in the dominance of a more patriarchal society, which decides that the very sight of a woman’s hair can lead to lewd thoughts, and that women have to be neither seen nor heard. Men can, of course, avail of all the freedoms — and dress as they wish, because naturally women can never be excited at the sight of a luscious male body! No, it is only the men who have to be protected from the temptation of seeing a woman’s form. And so all forms of headgear, face veils and long robes are designed so that women can move around in disguise — no alien male will be ever able to guess the colour of their hair, and thereby be aroused. And thus the social balance will be maintained — and woman’s sexuality (that dangerous concept which destroys the male intellect) can be kept under wraps.

To most non-Muslim women, watching another fellow woman soaked in sweat on a hot day struggling under a layer of black cloth evokes a sense of pity. But remarkably, in recent years, more and more young Muslim women in the UK are wearing some form of the veil. It is not just due to religious fervour or a family diktat, but also their own statement against racial stereotyping. These are modern women who have studied in co-educational schools who perhaps want to demonstrate to the world that wearing a veil does not make them into terrorists. It could almost be a form of protest. And for these women, it is "white old men" like Jack Straw who are the real enemy, because like everyone else he wants to decide what they should wear.

A new play by 21-year-old Atiha Sen Gupta pushes the debate further. This is not a play that minces words — it is every bit as loud, angry and abusive as any London kid has the right to be. It warns that if people in the play are annoyed with a girl who wants to wear a hijab, it is understandable! But they better watch out — because she has her own reasons which they have to respect.

The dilemma arises because before she opted for the headscarf, the girl was a liberal Muslim who used to drink and disco, has a progressive non-burqa-clad mother, a supportive twin brother as well as a white boyfriend. So her sudden decision to wear a conservative headscarf shocks her high school buddies. Far from being a passing fad, it seems she is serious about it.

This is Ms Sen Gupta’s first full-length play, and going by the reviews and the full house on the day I saw it, she obviously has made a deep impact. It was interesting to see in the audience a large number of young girls with headscarves and burqas who had come to experience a representation of a debate they no doubt endure every day. The fact that the audience sat silently through the play, despite the often provocative language about religion and religious figures, is yet again an indication of how open this society can be.

Ms Sen Gupta’s most interesting device was to keep the controversial "girl-with-the-headscarf" offstage, and so despite all the debate and furore over her headscarf, we never actually see her! This at times appears a bit contrived as she seems to rather incongruously hide behind various doors. But in a larger sense, it also gave the play more meaning because even if she had appeared we would not have been able to "see" her. And by keeping her offstage, each one of us were able to imbue the absent girl with our own imagined rebellion. And that indeed becomes the crux of the play.

Obviously her family and friends would have preferred her to remain part of the indistinguishable mass of students in the class. By adorning the headscarf she has now given herself a firm identity. And that creates a real problem: because with the identity is a set of expected behaviour — that she will no longer drink, and will pray five times a day. Her white boyfriend is confused and angry, and decides to cover his own head with a cross. He is accused of racism when he rips off her scarf and is suspended from class. And the rest of the class has to be sensitised as well.

As the gulf grows between her and her friends, the chasm widens between her and her mother as well. Her mother had earlier fought against her family’s decision that she should wear the veil, and so cannot understand why her daughter is now throwing away such hard-won freedom. Similarly, her other Muslim school friend and her class teacher recall the long and tortured history of women all over the world who have protested and died because they refused the veil. But the girl is adamant, and her brother is supportive as he has unfairly suffered racial abuse, particularly after the 7/7 attack on London.

It is a thought-provoking play which makes you increasingly uncomfortable as you watch it. It has deep contemporary resonance with events, which makes it completely engrossing. And it is also reassuring to see a play by a young woman playwright who is not worried about tackling volatile issues head on.

The writer can be contacted at kishwardesai@yahoo.com

A song and a fatwa

Asian Age — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:07:13 GMT

By Javed Anand

Nov 13 : Maulana Mehmood Madni, Rajya Sabha member and the driving force behind the more relevant faction of the Jamiatul-ulema-e-Hind (JUH), is my hero, part-time. Self-assured but unassuming, gracious, intelligent, a twinkle in the eyes suggestive of playfulness, nice face, nice beard, nice sound, nice smile. I liked him the very first time we met in mid-April last year.

Two months prior to that, in February 2008, a few of us had met at the residence of ad guru Alyque Padamsee: A maulana, a mufti, a woman professor of Islamic Studies and yours truly. We were there to talk about Islam and terrorism.

"I don’t get it. Every Muslim I meet tells me Islam is against terrorism, every non-Muslim I meet believes Islam teaches terrorism", said Alyque. The maulana, the mufti and the professor cited verses from the Quran to show how Islam denounces any targeting of innocents.

"So it’s not a question of faith but a problem of communication and maybe that’s where I come in", said Alyque with the air of someone who knew exactly how to fix the problem. "We need drama to catch the media’s eyeballs so we’ll give them that. What we need is a fatwa and a hundred maulanas, each holding a mike, to spell it out loud and clear. Then the media will listen!"

How to get a hundred maulanas? That was when we found our hero in Maulana Madni. "You are talking of a hundred, I’m thinking of a million Muslims", he told me when I met him in Delhi in mid-April 2008. I nearly fell off my chair! Already on February 29, 2008, he had brought together thousands of maulanas at Darul Uloom, Deoband, for the same purpose. As part of his year-long campaign against terrorism in Islam’s name, he now planned to assemble a million Muslims at the Ramlila Ground in Delhi on May 31, 2008.

"Sau salaams to all of you, Maulana Sahib. But, with due respect, it was a mixed message that went out of Deoband", I ventured tentatively. "There is this ad guru friend who says he has an idea or two on how to make your message really travel". "Let’s meet in Mumbai then", was Maulana Madni’s ready response.

"It has to be a fatwa, nothing less", Alyque kept insisting. It was Maulana Madni who got an unequivocal, no nonsense fatwa out of Deoband. "How about an oath to make it more dramatic?" suggested Alyque. Yes, we can, came the response. At the Ramlila ground on May 31, 2008, over 3,00,000 maulanas, maulvis and madrasa students raised their hands and took an "Oath of Allegiance" to fight terrorism in India or wherever… whenever.

The self-absorbed media didn’t get it. Recall the Muslim state of denial until then, recall the familiar why-don’t-even-moderate-Muslims-speak-up grouse? Yet, when, in a clean break from the prevailing denial-ism, 3,00,000 teachers and students from madrasas — alleged dens of global jihad — spoke out in one voice, the national media failed to give it the rousing reception it well deserved. How else does one explain that international commentators, experts and scholars of "Islamic terrorism" are still unaware of a clerics-led anti-terrorism campaign without any parallel in the world?

Give it to Maulana Mehmood Madni. Not to be deterred by the myopic media, a trainload of maulanas travelled from Deoband to Hyderabad in November last year to reiterate their "Terrorists-are-enemies-of-Islam", "Islam-means-peace" message. That the message was finally getting home was clear from what special invitee Sri Sri Ravi Shankar of Art of Living fame said at the Hyderabad rally: "An atmosphere has been created the world over linking terrorism with Islam. We have to join hands to remove this misconception". Now, a week ago, it was yoga guru Baba Ramdev, in a beard-to-beard with the maulanas at Deoband.

For his unrelenting, unmatched campaign against terror, Maulana Madni and the Jamiat do deserve the grateful thanks of a nation plagued by the terror scourge in recent years. So, it’s a real good thing that on November 3, 2009, Union home minister P. Chidambaram, minister of state for communications Sachin Pilot and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechury travelled to Deoband to do just that.

But many in the media still didn’t get it. For them, the "breaking news", the panel discussions that evening and the next, was the Deoband fatwa declaring the singing of Vande Mataram as un-Islamic. Why was there no news flash, no panel discussion on "Ayatollah" Bal Thackeray’s adesh that followed directing his Sainiks to cut off the tongue of any Muslim who refuses to chant the national song? Forget the Deoband fatwa, my limited refusal to sing Vande Mataram is simple: It’s the Hindu Taliban’s patriotism test for Indian Muslims.

All good things, alas, must come to an end. And here sadly is the end of the good news from Deoband and the Jamiat: The Indian state need have no security concern from these quarters, but Indian Muslims, and Muslim women particularly, have much to worry about.

True, the bulk of the Deoband establishment had staunchly opposed Partition. Since Independence it has consistently opposed the idea of a separate Muslim political party. But, beyond that, all that the orthodox Deoband and the Jamiat have to offer is an obscurantist, insular, outdated Islam.

Have photographs at home, other than a passport? Burn them, NOW, for that’s a grave sin. Celebrating a birthday, New Year or Valentine’s Day is seriously un-Islamic. Visiting the dargah of a saint: Isn’t it part family outing, part faith rejuvenation, part social intermingling with people of other faiths. No way, that’s pure shirk! Teaching science and maths in the madrasas? Out of the question. A knowledge of the world and knowledge of Islam don’t go together.

What if you are a woman? First thing, remember, Allah has made men "rulers", "sovereign" over women. The ideal Muslim woman is not heard or seen, except in a head-to-toe burqa. Higher education to become a doctor, engineer, lawyer, journalist, corporate executive, pilot, astronaut? Banish the thought. Co-education is haraam in Islam. Triple talaaq (instant divorce)? Yes, it’s a socially repugnant practice but what to do, its Sharia law. If a man rapes his daughter-in-law, she becomes haraam to her husband for he is now her son: that too is one interpretation in Islamic law.

See what I mean? For what it’s worth, here’s my advice to all Indians, Muslims particularly: join Deoband and the JUH for they are invaluable allies in the fight against terrorism; but challenge them too for they are a huge, big drag on the community and the country’s quest for a better tomorrow.

Javed Anand is co-editor of Communalism Combat and general secretary, Muslims for Secular Democracy

A ghost who stalks

Asian Age — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:06:31 GMT

By Shekhar Bhatia

Nov 13 : Some years ago I was fortunate to see a tiger in Ranthambore, and believe me it’s an awesome sight. We were on a jeep as the tiger appeared from the undergrowth and walked alongside for a good 10 minutes — though it seemed a lot longer. There was an arrogance with which it ignored us as it walked with majestic grace towards a pond on the other side of the path. Seen at close quarters, it was a hair-raising experience.

Tigers are now refugees in shrinking reserves. But there was a time when they hunted with impunity. By the time Jim Corbett, the hunter turned conservationist, killed the dreaded man-eater of Champawat in 1911, that single tigress had devoured 436 humans — 200 in Nepal and 236 in the Kumaon region of India where she hunted unchallenged for four years.

In his Man-eaters of Kumaon, Corbett gives a riveting account of how the Champawat tigress carried its victims ("I have not seen anything as pitiful as that young comely leg —bitten off a little below the knee as clean as though severed by the stroke of an axe"), and how he hunted her.

I looked up Corbett’s tale when I came across a new study about the legendary man-eaters of Tsavo, the two lions who are believed to have killed 135 people in just nine months.

In 1898, the British East Africa Company hired a military engineer, Lt. Col. John H. Patterson, to build a bridge over the Tsavo River in Kenya. When Patterson reached the remote outpost he saw hundreds of Indian and Kenyan workers living in fear of lions who attacked the camp at night and dragged people from their tents. He may not have believed their stories had a lion not entered the camp on the night of his arrival.

The British Company hired an American big-game hunter, a man named Charles Remington, who brought with him some seasoned Masai warriors. But the Masai believe the lions have supernatural powers, and deserted the hunt; soon the workers fled the camp, leaving the engineer, the hunter and another officer to tackle the two male beasts that the natives had nicknamed "the Ghost" and "the Darkness".

When Remington killed one of the two lions, the three decided to celebrate and got drunk. As if in revenge, the other lion dragged Remington out of his tent at night. His mauled body was found nearby. In the end Patterson managed to kill the remaining beast and sold the skins to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

I have not read Patterson’s account, The Man-eaters of Tsavo, but I have seen a gripping movie based on it, The Ghost and the Darkness, with Val Kilmer playing the role of Patterson and Michael Douglas acting as the American hunter.

I saw the movie late at night some years ago in a remote bungalow in a forest in Dehra Dun. I didn’t know what I was in for. Trust me when I say, it was scary. The scenes are bloody and graphic, and the suspense nail-biting.

Patterson claimed that the two lions had killed 135 people; the Ugandans, however, put the number at 28. Now scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, say the number could be 35: one lion possibly ate 11 humans and the other 24. At most the number was 75, but no more. They have analysed the hair and bone samples from the pair of lions in the Chicago Museum, picked up human samples from that region in Kenya dating back to those days, and say they are certain about the number.

What amazes me is how, after more than a hundred years, scientists can come to such a definite conclusion: they calculated not just the number of humans devoured by the beasts but also figured out the lions’ hunting strategy.

According to published reports of their research, both lions were male. One "was getting nearly one-third of its diet from human meat, while the other about half that much". The rest came from grazing animals. Extrapolating this to how much a lion needs to eat to survive they arrived at the figure 35 human kills.

There’s another bit that I found fascinating: the Tsavo lions hunted together in a phenomenon known as "cooperative hunting", but did not share their kills. Their tastes differed, and yet they hunted together.

There’s a similarity between the man-eaters of Tsavo and Champawat: one of the lions, according to the scientists, had a fractured jaw which inhibited its ability to hunt; in the case of the Champawat tigress a gunshot wound on the teeth "had prevented her from killing her natural prey", writes Corbett. "Human beings are not the natural prey of tigers", he says in the preface to his book. Lions and tigers, say wildlife experts, are more likely to attack humans if they have an injury or are too old to hunt other wildlife. And humans are easy prey.

Today, it’s the other way around. We are encroaching into their territory, pushing them into a corner. They have nowhere to go.

Shekhar Bhatia can be contacted at shekhar.bhatia@gmail.com