Karo ya Maro (do or die)

"Thy eagle pinion is chained down at last" said a poet in reference to the British colonial rule over India. I remember reading the poem in school with my teacher explaining the background and the imagery. For us, India was always a land of milk and riches, our impregnable borders guarded by the mighty Himalayas and the vast oceans to the south. The borders were once violated by the British who chained the golden bird, plundered of its wealth and claimed that the land which had been the cradle of civilization could not stand before the wealth of single European bookshelf. We forgave them of their ignorance and when the entire Western world was busy killing each other in the great wars we gave them the mantra of passive resistance.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, said the saint Gandhi. Maybe you will remark why do I bring forward the example of Gandhi in these tiring times. Today, we who are baying for the blood of the forces behind the dastardly act that the nation had to bear in the last few days.
We tend to think of Gandhi as someone weak, passive who would offer his other cheek to be slapped again. Should we wait for another such heinous crime against as nation? No, definitely no. For one should realize that Gandhi carried within his persona an immense force that none British officer dared to slap. Gandhi said, "Karo ya Maro" (Do or Die). Thats not a pacifist speaking but a reactionary, only the words were of a diplomat.
Its time yet again, the eagle pinion is chained down at last. Yet again, the invaders violated our sea borders. They have again and again violated our mighty Himalayas. Its time that we react. The eagle is groveling in the shame of the recent attacks against Bombay. The eagle slapped again and again, beaten to death. The eyes clouded by the mud slinging our politicians engage in. The claws blunted (corruption in our governing agencies which let lathi wielding constable face the ak-47), the feather disarrayed (noch khaya, the politicians have divided it into different shades and despoiled it of its vitality). Only a quivering voice emanates "Enough is enough".

Enough of killing.
Enough of maiming.
Enough of crying
Enough of vote-bank politics
Enough of shutting our eyes to terror
Enough of turning deaf the bullets
Enough of crying in silence
Enough.

Gandhi gave the imagery of the three monkeys with the message "Do no evil, hear no evil, see no evil". Gandhi never shut off the evil of the colonial subjugation rather he reacted. Its time now to follow his precept "Karo ya maro" (Do or die). We have died, its time to make the other pay.

I am really sad to say this but I believe the terrorist must be having the most difficult time in choosing their target. We have permitted ourselves to be slapped again and again.

They came for the Kashmiri Pandits, I did nothing.
They came for the poor commuters (Bombay/Mumbai train blast) , I did nothing.
They came for the politicians (indian parliament attack), I did nothing.
They came for the feast makers (Diwali bomb blast), I did nothing.
They came for the freedom lovers, I did nothing.
Then they came after me.

Nobody did anything.

Its time that I have to act. I have to inculcate such strength that the enemy thinks before raising their hand. I who has the economic might, the military strength, the conviction of 1 billion plus has to act and not be an impotent.

I don't even mention the politicians. We don't need them.
They are not expected to do anything except providing entertainment on the television, insulting our martyr's parents "dogs" and peppering our banal lives with samosas and rabri.

I am angry the way Taj has been attacked. The Taj Mahal hotel is unlike any other 5 star hotel because its a symbol of the Indian spirit rising against the colonial which said "Dogs and Indians not allowed" at the Hotel Watson. It a symbol of the every proud Indian who says to the West that "yes we out-best you and defeat you at your game". I am not a Mumbaikar, my only association with Bombay was two holidays with my parents to the dream city I made more than 12 years ago. I remember clicking my first ever photograph of my mother sitting in a cafe in the Taj Mahal hotel, with a rose on the table. Its memories like these of ordinary Indians which have been hurt. Bombay is a city of dreams, dreams of a break in glamourous Bollywood to owning a chawl in Dharawi. A dream lived by millions, a dream which has been shattered before. A dream which we Indians have learnt to rewove each time it was broken.

But this time we have woken up. The dream was ripped apart and not only dreams but memories were scarred. And Indians have woken up. Mr. Terrorist, mumbai ka kumbhakaran jag gaya hain. Bhagjao (Run away).

So what should we do?
1. Wake up, rub your eyes. Hear and see the evil. Visit the sites of events and demand action. Shout in public places. Be it a bus, a cafe, a road or school. Demand action, not from the politicians, not from the police but from the sleeping public. Engage

2. The media should stop reporting on the politicians. Forget them, they have the z plus security, they are not dying. We are.

3. Engage the poor. We have to be united. It was sad that the media forgot the carnage at Victoria terminus, CST in favour of the rich blood spilled at the dens of riches. It was shameless that even after Shyam Benegal(Rajya Sabha member) highlighted the error to Barkha Dutt, nobody listened.

4. Vote for "no confidence in our politician".

5. File RTIs regarding every public exercise. Make them accountable.

6. Demand a tax refund from the IT department for failing to use our money well.

7. Follow the law. Its true we have utter disregard for law in our country. Small things like following traffic lights go a long way in inculcating discipline.

8. Become a role model to your children. Don't throw garbage on roads. Don't steal public services.

9. Refuse to bribe and publicly shame the perpetrator.

10. Make the "rules and regulation" visible. Put placards on each and every public property, the rights of the public to use that property and is associated duties. And the punishment on misuse.

11. Think of a national spirit. Not religious, not regional, not lingual, not cultural but something else. Our nation lacks a saga of national birth out a common cause. The freedom struggle was checkered by many forces pulling the country apart. The nation is yet to be imagined as one. We wrote in the Preamble, "We the people of India" and not "We the Hindus(Brahmin, Kshatriya,...), Muslim, Christians, ..., ". It time it becomes "We, India". Maybe the bombay massacre is a wake up call to stand united as one. One whom no one can dare slap.


Karo ya Maro (Do or die). In terms of what the nation can do immediately.
1. Present evidence in a international open forum and take action to any extent against any foreign power. US did it against an imagined enemy, with false evidence. We should have mounts of evidence and have a real enemy before us. It time to make it pay.
2. Strengthen the country's intelligence agencies. We are good dreamers, we write grand reformatory reports but are bad managers. Its time we implement some of the reports.
3. Strengthen the police. Make the police visible on the street. The India police has an aura of fear around it. We have been taught to avoid the police at all levels. The feeling is perpetuated by inaction and widespread corruption in our forces. The police has to become approachable, has to have a public face which a small child can trust.
4. Shut up. Stop talking. Act. Do or Die.

Thy eagle pinion is chained down at last

To India - My Native land

My country! In thy day of glory past

A beauteous halo circled round thy brow,

And worshipped as a deity thou wast.

Where is that glory, where that reverence now?

Thy eagle pinion is chained down at last,

And groveling in the lowly dust art thou:

Thy minstrel hath no wreath to weave for thee

Save the sad story of thy misery!

Well let me dive into the depths of time,

And bring from out the ages that have rolled

A few small fragments of those wrecks sublime,

Which human eyes may never more behold;

And let the guerdon of my labour be

My fallen country! One kind wish from thee!

- Henry Louis Vivian Derozio

"Driving in India"

"Ahmedabad: street scene" this was a day when the market was closed.

Today came across an interesting article "Check it out, JUG SURAIYA" (Times Of India Delhi, 16/11/2008, Section: All that Matters, page no. 20) which made me laugh. Ahh its good.

"It has been estimated that at any given time on any given Indian road there can be as many as 34 different examples of locomotion in operation: cars, trucks, two-wheelers, three-wheelers, bullock-carts, donkey-carts, humancarts, tractors, bulldozers, camels, elephants, stray dogs, strayer children. Not only are all of these, and more, on the same road at the same time but they all also seem imbued with the singular purpose of occupying the same segment of space at the same time as each other, thereby giving practical proof of the hypothesis advanced by Stephen Hawking and other string theorists that our world is not three-dimensional, as our everyday senses suggest, but eight-, ten-, or twelve-dimensional, enabling matter and energy to slip in and out of secret nooks and crannies of the cosmos and WATCH THAT EFFING CYCLIST WHERE THE BLOODY HELL DID HE COME FROM!!? "

for the complete article
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=Q0FQLzIwMDgvMTEvMTYjQXIwMjAwNQ==&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom

I have made the journey several times and its quite a fun. The "STOP! POLICE CHECKING" has been there for quite a while and I can swear that in last 23 years of my existence I never spotted one policeman near those. And I am little confused about the training school the government bus drivers attend, maybe the government packs them off to France and so they end up driving on the left side of the road instead the normal right side where the rest of us hapless drivers drive. Actually we care for the environment so instead of driving a km to make the u-turn to catch on the paranthas at the road-side dhabha (who pays a commission to the bus-drivers) we just drive on the wrong side. The optimist in us looks at the fact that we can drive on any side of the road, bring on the traffic rule book we will drive right through it.
Happy motoring.

Roti / Chapati / Indian Bread / Pain de L'Inde

Thats what we crave for. Simply 'roti'.

Photograph courtesy: Sethu Nandkumar Menon
Made by: Ajeet Kumar

Liberte pour Tibet

so chanted the crowd assembled at Stade Charlety.



Although the events that passed today makes me start the story right from the middle, when I stood chanting "Freedom for Tibet", "Liberte pour Tibet", "China Go Home" (even the French shouted in english). While snow fell from the sky, and the policemen watched.
Let me rewind a little. Yesterday spent a beautiful evening at Sacre Coeur (Montmarte), enjoying the snow flakes fall and woke up at a white morning, the roads, the roofs, the trees were all decked in snow. Went through the motions of an usual day, lecture from 9 to 4. As I walked from Catholic University towards Rue de Rennes, I could sense a tension in air, of an event waiting to happen. Well, first there was the police. And not just police, there were lots and lots of policemen, on foot, on roller blades, on bikes and riot police stood guard as the road was blocked. And I waited, not knowing what to expect. And then I heard "booooo" and then a flag was raised. A stood flag, flag of Tibet, quivering in air of hope which this country offered, the ability to protest. To raise itself, unlike in its home which recently it was cruelly crushed yet again.



And as the cavalcade of the Chinese athletes and the ambassador passed the boos grew. And several people displayed their dismay by the thumb down signal. And it was followed by performers sponsored by Samsung, wearing some weird suits. Anyways they passed and the roads opened. I took the metro towards Denfert Rochereau, to be greeted by excited Chinese waving their Samsung balloons and the Chinese flag. And finally got off at Cite Universitaire. And it was a sight, the T3 stood blocked in the middle of track and a crowd gathered near the southern exit of Cite (entrance towards Maison de L'Inde). Walked towards the sight and was stopped by police checking people and their stuff. He saw and my sac and asked what was in it and I said "Livres" and he joked "Pas de propaganda". I affirmed.

The slogan shouting started with the Chinese, "Hai Chinois", they raised there their flag, joy reflecting on their face while Lenovo guys went around collecting info. And then the Tibetans raised their flag and soon the area was filled with cries of "Hai Chinois" and "Libretez Tibet". A helicopter hovered overhead, the police stood guard, two guys had raised the banner for freedom of press with handcuffs instead of the olympic rings.



Then I walked towards Stade Charlety where the torch was to assembled after the run. The war cries went loud and clear between the Chinese and the till now subdued Tibeteans. The Chinese athletes went in the stadium and the Tibetans then roared. The flags crashed, the protest seemed to be turning ugly. All around all you could see were flags. The best part was there were more French people protesting then the Tibetans (only very few). And the French know how to protest, a lady in front of me, kept on whistling loud, again and again.


Another cried "stop the massacre", with the Tibetan flag painted on her face. I never loved the french more than this day. And it felt like home, they were ordinary people, they didn't assemble here for the protest, most of the people were ordinary people stuck in the position because the road was blocked. And they sensed that something was wrong, something terribly wrong with the way the the sport is being conducted. They are questions about Tibet which have not been addressed. And they took on themselves to ask the questions. To see the Tibetan prayer flags tied atop the French tricolour was something.





And then the snow started to fall. The people stayed put. The Chinese flag holder tried to barge in towards the Stadium only to be stopped by the French holding the Tibetan flag. A scuffle broke up and the Chinese were driven away. The police tried to move in to check on the disturbance only to be told by people near the barrier that everything was all right. After that no Chinese flag was in sight.




A cyclist accompanying the relay was diverted off the road, in not so polite manner by the police. Another guy from other side of the road was mauled and then frisked away in an ambulance. The chanting continued as the snow changed to rain and then the sun came out. Then the Chinese dragon moved out of the Stadium and had a hard time flying over the flags of Tibetan supporter. The Chinese official party moved out from the backside, away from the sight of the crowd. The roads were opened and the people disappeared. As the cry for "Libertez Tibet" raised high and high.

Free Tibet

This one was published in "International Herald Tribune", April 2, 2008, page 9. If I am violating any copyrights, please let me know I will remove it. I just wanted to share the message.

Spring in Paris

("First day of spring in the Bercy garden")

Spring is here in Paris. Actually the day it officially arrived 20th March, I went to Bercy Village, its to the eastern side, north of La Seine. Although its called a village, its actually a set of 10 odd shops (aimed at tourists, fooled by label of a village in Paris) which sell wine, coffee, small handicrafts, cheese, clothes. Very commercial but in a village like setting. Ages ago a railway line passed there, the track can still be seen there. So if your pockets are bulging, or you have a girl to please do go there for a glass of wine and cuisine francaise.
Also there is a pet shop over there. Which sadly for one of my friends didn't have any cats, thought they stock cat carriers and food. They have the cutest pups, you know "Milou", the dog Tintin has, it was so cute and playful, then there were pink poodles, British Bull dogs. The sad part is they are in an enclosure, but they at-least had a playful attendant to play with, compared to the wailful cries of St. Bernard pups I heard in a similar pet shop in Val D'Europe. Also there were rabbits (lapin and not la pain which means bread). Anyways both are considered delicacies in France. Then there were mice, red mice, green mice (just 'joking', I mean they had different kinds of mice) and hideous rats (about 20 euros), then couchons de L'Inde (which means small Indian pigs). They were the unlikeliest Indian pigs ever (the one you see savaging through muck or making the most of the fruit from which the famed 'petha', a sweetmeat of Agra is made. A friend of mine told me she had one (not petha, but cochon de L'Inde). She had not idea either what it has to do with a Indian pig. They were priced about 50 euros. Wow, Indian pigs rocks. Maybe the municipality departments in our cities (like Agra) can start exporting them here, its 3000 bucks. The candy lies for the pups, they start at 1000 euros, with the price of poodles undisclosed.
Parisians love their dogs, they lead a better life then most people, they eat the best caviar, sip the most mature wine, snub their noses at conte and cantal ('le fromage i.e. cheese') and shit all of that on Champs Elysees (the hippest street, worshipped by fashionistas of the world). It even boasts a song to its fame. The tour de france, the cycle marathon ends here. The pocket dogs are the most wanted, so much so that one of the issues with the East Europeans countries joining the EU has been smuggling of ill bred pocket dogs to France and like.


http://youtube.com/watch?v=iDaCFk3Da1M



("Bercy Village")

Anyways the village was just incidental, there is a beautiful garden just outside and here I was on the first day of spring. And I saw small tulips breathing in the almost crispy air, shows signing of warming, trying to share the warmth they held within and it definitely made me feel warm. Come on, after seeing grey and 'encore' grey skies for last 6 months, a little red and pink goes a long way to warm your heart. Also there was a young boy carrying a young belle fille (girl) in his arms, I wish my camera was quick enough to capture the moment. The girls legs were curled around his waist, his arms around her neck. And he carried her through the garden. So this is spring in Paris, I thought. Good times ahead.

Next day it started raining. Oh its raining yet again. Then the sky became bright, the sunlight poured through the window warming my lecture room, filling it with light. And then the hailstorm started and suddenly the street was covered white. And then the sun came out again, and it rained again whole day long. For next two weeks it rained.

Today, the weather has turned warm. Its on the upper side of 10'C. And I basked in the warmth of 14'C air, along La Seine, looking at the building reflecting the sun as the bells of Notre Dame rang at 7 pm. It was a bright sunny evening and I saw these beautiful flowers, brightening up the city with colours and I finally took off my jacket. Its spring in Paris. Its time to walk along La Seine.

("Le Printemps (Spring) in front of Notre Dame")

A place to live

For those of us who have moved out of home (read India) the first thing which hits you is a place to live. The second is food (or maybe its the first). And I am not Joey (I love 'Friends' so I am sticking with sandwiches and not ...). Life in colleges back home is so simple, you have a hostel 100m away and 6 food courts (serving delicacies), now I call Brajwashi food a delicacy. God forgive me for all the cribbing I did while gulping down pao bhaji and idli every other day. Believe me I have not tasted 'paneer' in last six months. Thats coming round the circle, after 4 years of paneer makhani, shahi paneer, karahi paneer, tangdi paneer, paneer tikha, panaeer tawa, paneer this, paneer that (God I would love to pay my ablutions in front of the menu board of Brajwashi, today). God forgive me when I cribbed drinking hot tea for Rs. 2 only, spiced with cardamom, claiming it was too sweet while walking in the lush 50 acres of Daiict. Its retribution day now.

So a place to live its is, before coming here I didn't bother much and left it to the whims and fancies at a certain Mrs. Florence Haynin who booked me at Maison De L'Inde, Cité Universaitaire. I managed to reach here, thanks to a mexican driver. Boy, I
would have been in a soup because I didn't even have the address in print when I landed at Charles De Gaulles (aeroport, Paris), thankfully he had. And in the half hour he took to drive me here, he managed to show me pictures of his wife, his paintings and his dog. The mexicans are so similar to Indians in this regard. The first strange we meet we pass around the photos of our loved ones. It happens with me all the time on bus stands and trains in India. We just love flaunting that yeah 'I am doing her'.
Jokes apart, here I was standing at the entrance of CIUP (short for Cité Internationale Universaitaire de Paris Cité) and the first thing I noticed. Everybody around me is jogging. Ipods plugged me, tight pants and they are puffing.
I move in and am handed over the keys at the Maison de L'Inde (wait a minute, whats L'Inde). I see you are new to French, an explanation is required here. Its like do you remember from your geography lesson where is Mistr (read in hindi) ? No, silly its where the pyramids are. Its Egypt. Or where is amerikaaa ? In technology we talk of learning, and then unlearning to keep ahead in the rat race. So I received my first lessons in geography, Inde (pronouced 'and') is India. Guess what is U.S.A. Its 'Etats Unis'. Britain is 'Angleterre'. Secondly I am told that I speak 'Hindoo' (pronouce Oondoo). I have tried futility to explain that I am Oondoo and I speak Oondii to no avail.("Back view from Cite Internationale")
And then it dawns on me the whole tale of colonization. The world was colonized by largely two forces the English and the French, and the Spanish, Portuguesse. And so now I learn there are so many different version of history, geography as there were the colonizing powers. I particularly was caught in the prism of seeing the world through my very pseudo 'English' eyes and here was my initiation to the Francophone world.
In college back at home, I took courses on culture and the notion of Indianness proclaim the multilingual nature of our existence. We have 22 official languages and Hindi (devanagri) english as the official languages at the Centre. I stayed in a Gujarati dominated area for 4 years, have spent considerable time in Tamilian and Kannada area and yet never faced the inability to express myself and to be understood as I do here. Maybe it because the Indian languages have evolved from IndoAryan and Dravidian groups and somehow the notion of a nation imposes a common worldview over here. And we have the history of English as a uniting force. Am glad I came here and am learning to transact in a different language.

("Maison De L'Inde")
So Maison De L'Inde it is. You can check out the website if you are searching for residence here, although they have never updated their website since the day it was made (just a guess). They won't ever reply to your email, don't even try
It's an Indian establishment and definitely feels one, they just love your money. And don't believe them if they say they don't have a room available. I believe an Indian can only understand how to get one when there is none available.
Foreigners (I realize, I am foreigner here though) are first of all hit my the intense smell (the spices) and the noise (the music). I would say I find it a very quiet place, unlike hostel life in India where every room plays loud music and heated discussion go way past graveyard hours. Other place in Cite offer much better deals (cost wise) and better rooms (definitely much better), but chances are you won't see anyone around. As an experiment I once knocked all rooms on a floor of Maison de Provence de France (approx. 20) and no one answered. People living at other houses have told me they don't know their neighbours. But they have good welcome parties, India is a poor country, we just have chips and cola while at MPF you have a selection of French bread, cheese, wine and beer. So you know where to head for.

Another quibble I have here is why is the building designed like a home for the homeless. At Cite Universaitaire there are more than 40 houses according to the nationalities and each house building is representative of their architecture, so we have Grecian columns, Moroccan tiles and zen garden at Japanese house but we have rectangular structure to represent India, the abode of cultures.

("Maison De Japon")

Life at Maison De L'Inde revolves around food. We have the smallest kitchen compared to other houses but we use it to its limits. No dull, bland French cuisine for us. I never believed it until I had a plate of mashed potatoes here (didn't even add salt). And this sentiment was shared by my American and African friends. So here we celebrate festivals and birthdays by cooking together, we experiment with vegetables in extreme conditions, concentrate our gravies with the strongest spices sourced from Gare du Nord. Sometimes our experiment fail, the dish goes down the dustbin after blackening the kitchen with smoke, an occasional fire or two, but we persevere till we emerge out of Maison De L'Inde as trained chefs. Oops, I forgot for a moment I am doing my Masters in Science in Electronics for Systems (System on Chip design). The smell from the kitchen can be disconcerting sometimes.


I had an interview at my induction in the house with the director of the house, Mr. Bikas Sanyal. And we talked about how to use a microwave so as not to burn the building down. End of interview.
Most people learn their primary French here. The receptionist greets you with a Bonjour Monsieur with a smile every-time. And you learn to say 'Oui', 'D'accord' ('yes, 'ok') when you are unable to understand anything what the cleaning lady is saying. Although there is no male-female segregation here, but the first floor is exclusively for girls. This is just to pacify the horrified parents of innocent girls that no Indian boy is getting anywhere near them, they are left for the French.

A last comment, people in France love jogging. All the tales about French stuffing themselves with cheese and wine are true and remaining health, because they jog. At 4 pm is afternoon, they will jog, at 9 pm they will be out jogging, at 2 am they will jogging. Yes, so at 3 am also, I have seen people jog here. Hail or storm they are jogging all the way. After all no one wants to miss the next dejeuner.

Saint Augustin

Paris, is the city of churches. Sadly most of them are defunct, rather objects of touristic curiosities.

Paris

("facing the Eiffel Tower")

First of all its pronouced "Pari", not the hindi 'paree' (fairy) but 'paaree'. Its one of many nuances (exceptions come later) than you learn when you get associated with the French world. Like here they like to eat the last letters (well almost always, you see exceptions don't wait for long) along with the sumptuous doses of pain (french bread) and vin (wine).
You must have guessed I love words.
So here I am talking about Paris, the city I call home for the last 6 months, and thought it was high time I write something about it. Living in a world where your hands speak for you (you will learn more about that later) instead of your tongue you tend to appreciate things told lucidly to you. I came across a wonderfully guide to living (read surviving Paris) for an American.

http://www.muvy.org/firmitas/frugal-paris.php

Anyways I cannot be so exhaustive. I intend it more as a way to showcase my photos and not my survival skills.
Lonely Planet guide starts off on Paris as follows "Paris has almost exhausted the superlatives that can be reasonably applied to a city". Yeah superlatives is a nice word, its the highest, exaggerated degree you can ascribe. Comparatives don't have a space here, be its the comparisons with the city of amour or the city where you gotta watch your pockets (all the time).

("eiffel tower at night, seen across La Seine")

My relation with Paris, has been a love-hate kind of so far. Love because its a beautiful city to walk around (if you don't mind dog shit strewn all across the roads), has some of the classiest cafes (terrible cafe au lait, or coffee with milk which tastes as if 1% coffee diluted with milk and water, don't get me started on prices) facing La Seine (the river) or the boulevards where you can simply watch the world walk across for hours( they close at 8 pm though). The city offers wonderful architecture to view if you are a walker( when you cross the zone 2 limits it feels like you are entering a ghetto though). I don't qualify to comment on the French cuisine as I am vegetarian. I would like to make my sensibilities clear, I don't even meat, i.e. no cows, no pigs, no chicken, no rabbit, no snails, no fish, no horse, no eggs (oh mon Dieu, c'est possible) and consume legumes, milk and cereal. O.k. you must be wondering why do I have to go into the details of my dietary regime



1. Food means meat in French. I have been told that I am abnormal because I don't eat meat. Its rare to find a single vegan dish in restaurant here and I am tired of explaining so I learnt cooking here (I love Paris for this).

2. Fish, 'poisson' is vegetarian is French, its is called "fruit de mer", the fruit of sea. Vegetarianism is slowly catching up here, and the belle filles here would relish their poisson and exclaim on the virtues of a vegan diet in maintaining weight.

3. Also I have nothing against non vegetarians. But there was this ad recently splashed over the metro stations here that "cheval is ton ami or rotir" i.e. "is a horse your friend or roasted meat on your platter", tick the right one with the photo of a cute girl riding a horse with red meat juxtaposed. Hey, I hate this kind of discrimination, so you don't eat your friends, does it means you should eat your enemies. What makes a horse a friend but a cow (i am not a hindu cow lover though) just a four legged animal with a tail.


("making Crepes, near Concorde, they are made from dough and eggs filled with sugar, jam or chocolate, sell from 2 euros onwards")

Something I like here regarding food is that they wish you 'bon appetit', i.e. enjoy your meal, before or while you are eating. A stranger can wish you. No awkward searching for word when you see yours friends feasting and you move on. I don't have an equivalent for it in english or hindi.

So where were we. The love hate relation with Paris. I love that Paris is a city of lights, its roads and buildings lit at nights are a pleasure to walk and gaze. But excuse me to ask then I don't understand why do the living rooms are so dark (lit by just a 40W watt bulb). They are not even using tube lights or CFLS, just halogens and bulbs and living in the dark. The moment I enter my room I start yawning. Man, I miss the bright white light back at home in India.

I love winter in Paris ( I come from Agra where mercury touches 50'C), it gets freezing cold here, the lakes were frozen, a white blanket of ice covers the grass (no snow sadly), autumn was even better, with colorful leaves. But I don't understand the freak (rather normal here) changes in weather. In a 15 minutes period it rains, becomes sunny like the day sun was born and it rains hail) and the cycle continues quarter of an hour, again and again.


I love the metro, the RER (don't ask to write it phonetically, Ok I will try rrrrrrrrrrrr ae rrrrrrrrrrrr, do that 100 times till your throat is sore, and then you will do it right, trust me. The Indian vocal chord is not equipped to pronouce the French 'r'. Anyways I realized the Chinese cannot pronounce my name, they go 'Praaa" "khaa" "kaa" "khaaa" "kaa" and they break into a cough. The metro is efficient, but boy the French love to strike. They love to strike. The French love strikes.


("RER B at Cite Universitaire")
The French love strikes.
The French love strikes.
The French love strikes.

I cannot stress it further. I heard that November is the month when an average French man/woman feels like going for a strike. Its a well documented fact. I lived through it, the metro strikes were due to the French train drivers wanting early retirement and benefits (around 52 years of age) because apparently, driving a train (one just has to pull a level to speed, and pull it down to brake) is an hazardous job and should be treated is same category as miners. I know a lot of people who supported this strike. The French know how to live, an 35 hrs work week, with over a month of paid holiday each year, an interminable job and boy the benefits keep adding.

("Autumn in Jardin Luxembourg, also featured on BBC News, European Autumn series")

And train is a nice word though, the French are very reticent people, its rare to find one who laughs. My solutions to the problem, when you are bored on a train ride, start practicing speaking 'train' (with a french 'r' and eating the last few letters, as many or few as the weather of that minute dictates) and boy they will break into a smile.

I will sign off this post for now. I have an exam to give on VLSI CMOS design in about 3 hrs from now. Au revoir i.e. good bye (any guesses of how you pronounce it).

The Day India got Independent

so said HT. Photographed at a cafe in Mussorie.

Knowledge is power

In what ways was the politics of swadeshi rooted in a wider politics of knowledge between colonial administrations and Indian nationalists?

In today’s world knowledge is widely recognized as the de-facto criteria for power. We today talk in terms of a ‘knowledge state’ or maybe even a network economy where pools of knowledge exist interconnected producing and consuming knowledge. Specialist is a person more respected, more in control than a generalist due to his sole ability to possess knowledge. It thus becomes clear that knowledge constitutes power, the ability to control, to politically maneuver, to manipulate thoughts and exercise domination over the ignorant. These concepts become clear to us as today we are thriving in knowledge based society, but historically also the same has been applicable. Michel Foucault terms pouvoir-savoir, or “power-knowledge” as the set of complex and dynamical equations which are valid throughout history in accordance to that specific time. It remains dynamical as the way in which knowledge is gathered through application of various technologies and the manner in which it is exercised, through acts of violence or consent keep on evolving.
Colonialism was in fact a massive thrust towards gaining native knowledge of the colonized and applying it to subjugating him. It was an act of violence supported by unseeingly small acts of knowledge gathering. For e.g. it involved for the British to study the plant life of India, carrying out botanical surveys. At a glance it might appear to just a scientific, purely objective study of nature but it was also an instrument of exercising economic control for it entailed them to grow cash crops. Indigo farming or tea plantations and the eventual exploitation were a direct result of such knowledge endeavors. What colonialism did to India was not only to replace the ruler from brown to a white man but to take control of the whole knowledge system in existence and destroy whatever pockets of local native knowledge existed.
The fight against the rule was also stemmed by ways of reacquiring the lost knowledge systems and an attempt was made to reset the balance. The Indian National Congress in 1885 consisted mainly of lawyers, journalists, businessman, landowners and professors and one of their initial demands was for equality in opportunity for Indians to enter into Indian Civil Service by introduction of simultaneous exams in India and England. What we see here are basically middle class intellectuals, who thrive on knowledge based occupations asking for their right of access to the knowledge the British had which they used to govern the country. The Indian freedom struggle was thus led not by peasants, not by armed sepoys but by learned men who understood the importance that knowledge had in their ability to get back the freedom of their nation. And thus started the game of politics of knowledge played between the Indian freedom fighters, be they be the moderates, extremists or even Gandhi and the Imperial authority and the concept of swadeshi i.e. self produced and its eventual metamorphism into demand for ‘self-rule’ emerged.
In 1905 Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India carried out the partition of Bengal despite nationalist opposition and Hindu Bengal’s indignation. The original plan for partition was based solely on geographical basis but later political considerations of ‘divide and rule’ were added in deciding the dividing line. The Hindu Bengali opposed the partition for it made them a minority, the fear of loss of trade as the new port would shift to Chittagong and saw it as a way to control the budding nationalist activity in Bengal. This fuelled the nationalist movement and fuelled the swadeshi movement. British manufactured goods were boycotted and huge bonfires of Lancashire goods and British cloth were lit arousing memories of Vedic sacrificial fires. The movement soon spread out to other parts of the country and efforts began in promoting indigenous industry. Hand spun cloth, khadi became the symbol of Indian struggle against the factory produced fine cloth. The swadeshi movement soon stimulated indigenous enterprise in many fields, from Indian cotton mills to match factories, glassblowing shops, and iron and steel foundries. Demands for national education followed and students boycotted the English schools and colleges. Bal Gangadar Tilak and Gokhale were pioneers in establishing Indian education institutes in Deccan. Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya founded the Banaras Hindu University in 1910. One of the last major demands to be added to the platform of the Congress in the wake of Bengal's first partition was swaraj. Swaraj was first articulated, in the presidential address of Dadabhai Naoroji, as the Congress' goal at its Calcutta session in 1906.
What emerges out is that it was the loss of economic dominance of Calcutta which was a major factor in developing of the opposition. The economic critique of colonialism has been the basis of the Indian national movement. India with its diverse culture and modes of life was united under the British rule under collective economic exploitation and so emerged the ideas of political economy of nationhood. Dadabhai Naoroji was at the forefront in formulating the theory of the “bleeding drain” of India. India was reduced to a dumping ground for the British manufactured goods. India was to be only the supplier of raw materials and a market of finished goods. The British rulers in a way destroyed the indigenous industry and made it pay for the upkeep of the Crown in England. The British argument that India was basically an agrarian economy was totally farce, it was only result of British induced deindustrialization, ruralization that had set the clock back and reduced India from being a major world exporter to now dependent on England for even basic consumption goods. The British pointed out that setting up of railways, telegraph networks, irrigation canal systems was a positive work of their towards the development of the nation. The nationalist counter argued the networks are merely instruments of controlling the flow of information and bounded the geographical space of India. The setting of railways in India only resulted in more impoverishment unlike America where it had generated employment and give rise to opportunities. The task of setting up of the Indian railways was the most expensive in the world and the risk were born by Indian taxpayers. The nationalist sought to modify it manner planning and implementation. The British portrayed there work as for ‘great public benefit’, but it really meant a more manageable nation, more productivity and more exploitation for the benefit of British trade. The British sought to downplay the industrial growth in India and sought to limit the research in science to be merely ‘pure’ in nature unlike the nationalist for whom the nation was to be visioned in a state actively promoting and applying science and technology.
What the British preached in England, the ideals of free trade, free land holdings were totally upturned in India and there’s became a socialist view. The Colonial figures for development always painted a rosier picture of a state of well being; Naoroji countered them with figures of his own and painted out a picture of famines, of indebted peasants and discontent. Thus emerged a parallel statistic body to gather knowledge in order to counter the British claims.
The nationalists rooted its demands for stake in the control of power for nation by contesting the knowledge base established by the British. They attempted in Gyan Prakash’s words to ‘rescripting the rationality of colonial governance as the logic of nation’. They tried their hands at controlling the technics of rule, they tried to adopt technology, science and indigenous knowledge as their counter weapon against the British hegemony and swadeshi was a by product of these efforts. Planning was the keyword here and for the nationalist to rework the knowledge systems the British had established by first gaining access to them and then modifying it to local needs was the stepping stone towards their demand of self rule.

Reference:

Gyan Prakash – Another reason, science and the imagination of Modern India
Manu Goswami – The political economy of nationhood
Britannica Encyclopedia 2003 reference Suite DVD

In what ways did the census operations emerge as one of the critical pillars of the colonial knowledge state?

How have the data generated form census categories informed our perceptions of community and caste in India?


Colonialism is a state of hegemony, of control of human and material resources by the colonizing force. It is state of dominance and generally speaking results in exploitation and repression of the colonized. To this effect one views the colonizing power through the lens of victimization and sees superiority in military powers, organization and technological prowess, economical wealth and political power. But behind this iron gloved exterior lays the certain soft expressions of control. These are what Dirks call the ‘investigative modalities’ which the British used to classify, categorize, order and fix the identity of ‘India’ from the landmass, population, culture and traditions it represented. ‘There was an extra festival on calendar, a new myth to celebrate, because a nation which had never previously existed was about to win its freedom, although it had 5000 years of history, had traded with Middle Kingdom Egypt, was nevertheless quite imaginary, into a mythical land.’(Salmaan Rushdie). This imaginary land was fixed into a nation. The idea of ‘India’ was created by the acts of fixing the nation in terms of the different modalities the British used to consolidate their rule. The nation was won by brutal wars but the control established by acts of documentation and categorizing the spatial and temporal space that India was. Colonialism was thus a project of cultural control which was executed in the form of several gazetteers, archaeological expeditions, surveys, the census and other government reports. Michel Foucault’s theory that knowledge is power is clearly visible with respect to the British colonial state; it was only the knowledge of the native, which was instrumental in their ability to govern effectively. The British seek to establish a kind of panopticon state where they had the know how of the all the activities around them.

It started with activity of learning administrative control and inheriting the political knowledge of Indian rulers and thus began attempts to know the land as under the revenue department. To know the land became an attempt to know the people tilling it, the people supported on that land and so started the full fledged accounts to understand the economic structures, socio-cultural differences, linguistics, religions, extensive narratives about the caste and domestic organizations. Thus it became what Cohn terms as the enumerative modality. And out of such attempt was born the great Indian Census as visioned by Risley. Similarly census found its application in army recruitment, policing and distribution of labour. Census in its original attempt was about concerns of economic issues. In Britain and other European countries it has largely been a very secular affair concerned entirely with efforts to enumeration on non ethnic and non racial grounds. In India it became an exercise deeply rooted in British ideas of racial theories and their attempt to prove the idea of racial superiority was given a very neat sample space in Indian population which was cleanly divided into different racial stocks due to restricted inter marriages.
After the 1857 mutiny of sepoys or the first Indian war of Independence it became imperative for the British rulers to understand their subjects. The sepoy revolt is largely attributed to the caste issue; the idea of pollution by using cow/pig greased cartridges inflamed the angst of economic exploitation by the British. This lead to serious rethinking in the British manner of ruling other than the visible change of power from Company to the Queen’s hands. The British understood that they couldn’t continue to disregard the native opinions and sensibilities. Thus the census of India also was an attempt to know the beliefs of people and not merely the count of people. This is what Dirks means by the anthropologization of colonial knowledge. Ethnographic knowledge could reasonably explain the grievances which caused the 1857 rebellion and help work around them to prevent any such future incidents. It also enabled to understand who was culturally more suited to be loyal. Thus the British state became a whole encompassing repository of Indian beliefs and traditional knowledge. Thus we see that the census became one of the critical pillars of the British colonial knowledge state.
Community and caste are the basic foundations on which the Indian society stands. They both give order to its diversity and disorder it like in riot situations. Indian is an overtly religious state, the spiritual capital of the world. So much so that pre colonial rulers were not required to monitor the political attitudes of people and police them but to detect any moral transgressions, upholding the ‘dharma’, morality of the society at large was the primarily duty. The first major implication of the British census was defining the term ‘Hindu’. Today the word has become to be understood as people practicing the faith of ‘Hinduism’. This particular definition is but a direct result of the census. Jawaharlal Nehru in ‘Discovery of India’ says that the term Hindu is the result of inability of the Persian people to pronounce ‘sindhu’. Its first usage is recorded in 7th century A.D. with reference to a particular group of people living in the Sindhu region. The association of the word Hindu with religion is due to the association the British provided to it. So far as the Hinduism goes, there is no common thread which joins the complete race, there is no unique identifier. Variations in practices, beliefs exist as far as belief in the supremacy of Brahmin to the consumption of beef. The British census confronted the people in defining them as belonging to a particular religion. India had before the British been a confluence of religion, various religions co-existed and influenced each other. An Indian Muslim also has a caste which is kind of anathema to the Islamic belief at large. Today we have dalit Christians fighting to get listed as scheduled caste. The British census failed to recognize such intricacies and sought to order them in different yet interlinked beliefs into sharp categories. So much so that certain population didn’t knew whether they were Hindu or not? This is what R.B. Bhagat calls as fuzzy communities being concretized. These ramifications are still felt today. Our honorable President K.R. Narayan in 2001 census couldn’t be declared ‘scheduled caste’, because according to definition of ‘scheduled caste’ he was one in Kerala but not so in Delhi. So the idea of caste or religion in India has always been unclear, it’s not all black and white. Lot of transitory states is there. The 1881 census was in self a little fuzzy as it listed about 11,645 categories and about 3000 main castes. This census represented the relative fluidity and complexity in pre colonial time before it could create a ‘freeze effect’ which was seen in later censuses.
Those who couldn’t be clubbed into the major religious categories, the nomads and tribal because they were outside the society at large got labeled as the ‘notified tribes’ or the criminal tribes. The census marked the people, the people got labeled and their identity got fixated. So the notified tribes got labeled criminals and till date, despite the free Indian government act to denotify them, they still are regarded as criminals, anti social and discriminated against. The census defined the various religions and castes as the British sought them to be and people’s opinion on the other got hardened. They understood themselves as what they were not. Fuzziness didn’t require defining the other but concreteness crystallized the other. So cropped up the ideas of majority and minority. The idea which has long since haunted the nation and caused deep birth pangs at partitioning and recurring reminders of the divide during several riots which followed. The census gave clear numbers; percentages of the strength, the fertility rate, the economical situation of particular community and so arose the zeal to protect one against the other. Also the distribution of the communities came to the forefront. The census highlighted clearly the skewness in population and brought in a sense of fear and so communalism was born. What was earlier a comfortable situation where people from different communities managed to co-exist became fear ridden and led to bad blood and growing animosity. The enumeration of fuzzy communities became an instrument in the hands of British for their policy of ‘divide and rule’.
This also lead to the partitioning of Bengal, the demand for separate electorates, the demand for Pakistan on ground of minority insecurity and after freedom the policy of minority appeasement and their reduction as mere vote banks. The problems that India faces today in forms of the Babri Masjid demolition or the Gujarat carnage are but fallouts of the results of the Indian census. Pakistan sees the Indian army in a predominantly Muslim Kashmir as anti to it’s formation theory and so we have four wars fought over it. What was the census result to the British for their policy of divide and rule is what they are to the political parties for their policies of vote banks. What Swami Shradhanand wrote in 1926 on the dying race of Hindu, the same RSS does on Islam bashing using census results of fertility today. And so we see the ramifications of the British census exist till date and continue to influence our perceptions about ourselves, they define our religion, our caste in terms of the numbers of the other. The British census created Knowledge about the people of India and they used the same Knowledge in a manner suited to their governance to exercise their power.







Reference:

K.P. Singh – Communities, Synonyms, Segments, Surnames and titles of India (pg. 1-12)
R.B. Bhagat – Census & the Construction of India
Nicholas B. Dirks – The Ethnographic State
Bernand S. Cohn – Colonialism & its forms of Knowledge
R. Champakalakshmi - Cultural technologies of colonial rule (Hindu newspaper online edition)
Salmaan Rushdie – Midnight’s Children
Mahasweta Devi - Year of Birth - 1871
http://roxygagdekar.blogspot.com/