To Israel, From India with love

Otto Preminger filmed the Leon Uris novel

The greatest level of sympathy towards Israel can be found in India, according to international study on behalf of the Foreign Ministry, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Friday.

According to the study, which was unprecedented in scope and was undertaken by an international market research company, 58% of Indian respondents showed sympathy to the Jewish State. The United States came in second, with 56% of American respondents sympathizing with Israel.

A total of 5,215 people took part in the study. Other countries that showed significant sympathy to Israel included Russia (52%) Mexico (52%) and China (50%). At the bottom of the list, the study ranked Britain (34%) France (27%) and Spain (23%) as the least sympathetic countries towards Israel. (via From India with love – Israel News, Ynetnews).

Leopards don’t change

This study was mighty interesting. On three counts.

Western Europe continues with its sterling record of intolerance, xenophobia, the push for ‘assimilation and integration’. In Western Europe (Britain, France, Spain, et al), prejudice against Jews is marked. Whether it was Shakespeare in the Merchant of Venice or Hitler in Europe, Antisemitism is alive, well and kicking in Europe.

Of course, the proxy for Antisemitism in today’s Europe is Israel.

Classic propaganda

Desert Bloc remains the prime exponent of propaganda – maya. Illusion. Something that tricks people.

For this maya, Israel has to thank people like Leon Uris writer of Exodus, (hired by Edward Gottlieb for ‘improving Israel’s image), The Raid at Entebbe, ( the rescue of Israeli hostages from Idi Amin’s Uganda) or the hunt for Eichmann movies.

The propaganda overdrive on the Holocaust won the State of Israel many sympathizers. The propaganda on how the kibbutzim made the desert bloom, covered  the open wounds of the Palestinians expulsions.

Propaganda practitioners and PR gurus like Edward Gottlieb and Howard Dietz embraced the Zionist cause and promoted the idea of the State of Israel. Edward Gottlieb, a PR pioneer, author of a PR primer book, worked on the cause of Israel. Edward Gottlieb’s masterstroke was to send Leon Uris to Israel to ‘research’ the story of the Exodus. Howard Dietz, the publicist of Sam Goldwyn, (reputedly behind many of Goldwyn’s malapropisms)was another.

from Fifty years of Israel By Donald Neff, page 19

The fall guys

The third part of the story is the story of the ‘fall guys’. The classic ‘fall guys’ for this propaganda operation were the distant bystanders. The ’sympathy’ shown to Israel, comes from typically countries with a small or negligible Jewish populations – like China, Mexico – and India. People who saw these events from far – very far. The Indians, Chinese, Mexicans, et al.

Indians know of the Israeli story through the movies, fiction and ‘war’ stories. In school, the size of the Exodus, made me shirk from the starting the book. But the many ‘rave’ reviews from classmates steeled me to pick up the book – and 1 week later. I was a ‘convert’ to the Jewish cause.

A few years later, it was a different story. My neighbours, some Jordanian-Palestinian students dropped in to see me, in Poona, one night. Over some music and soda, they introduced me to the ‘other’ side of the problem. (I wonder where these Iranian and Palestinian students have disappeared?)

Indians (suckers for propaganda) have been taken in by the maya of Israel.

‘English titles chalta hai!’

Bollywood has rediscovered the KISS (Keep It Short and Simple) rule, at least where film titles are concerned. Having had its fill of long names — Bollywood’s now high on short words, and most of them straight off the English vocabulary rack. (via ‘English titles chalta hai!’ – The Times of India).

Bollywood, Tollywood, Kollywood

This is an interesting (though superficial) article on how Hindi film industry, out of Mumbai, uses English.  As far back as my memory goes, Hindi film industry (out of Mumbai) used English in all their print material. Whether it was Mother India or Mera Naam Joker, all text was in English. If the film was based on an Indian-English novel like RK Narayan’s  Guide or a Bengali classic like Devdas, the language was English.

Hindi film posters always used English. In the age of LP records, LP sleeves of Hindi film music were in English. Later cassette covers were also in English – and now CDs, DVDs also come in English jackets. Even though a vast majority of the Hindi-film audience had no knowledge of English, Hindi film industry persisted with English.

Interesting! Just why did Hindi cinema end up using English so extensively! I could think of three reasons.

The law of the land

Was it because the Censor Board certification happened in English? The Censor Board bench for South India is different – and standards and norms followed by them are different. Did the South India Censor Board accept South Indian languages – which may have allowed South Indian film industry to use local languages.

Censor legislation was introduced in India at a time (1918) when her British rulers were determined that cinema should serve, unflinchingly, their colonial interests. There was no indigenous film industry at that time and the canons of censorship targeted films imported from the west, especially the US. The British wanted these films to create a rosy picture about the west and the western people’s intentions in the colonies. The Regional Censor Boards, were constituted in 1920 and each one technically autonomous … (from From Coercion to Power Relations: Film Censorship in Post-Colonial India by Someswar Bhowmik).

Ours is not to reason why …

Was it because the scripts had to be typed in English. Remember, no Hindi type writers, till the 1960s and Hindi typists were rare and far in between. Or was it because multinationals controlled the Indian music scene till the late 80s – and the gora bosses did not know Hindi.

Kodambakkam (home of Tamil and for some time Telugu cinema) used Tamil and Telugu mostly on their cassette covers. Tamil and Telugu posters were also in Tamil and Telugu respectively.

That ‘insecure’ feeling

The Mumbai film industry always had a complex about not being ‘good enough’ in comparison to Hollywood. Bollywood (Bombay based film industry), Kollywood (Kodambakkam based Tamil/Telugu industry) and Tollywood (for Telugu film industry) were deprecating names used by the gossip journalists – which stuck.

The Tamil and Telugu film industry had no such insecurities – and were always clear about their audience. The look and feel of the Tamil /Telugu films is also different from Mumbai-Hindi film industry.

Between 1967 upto nearly 1973, Chennai invaded the Hindi turf. Using actors like Jeetendra and Mumtaz, they worked on lower costs films, raunchier choreography of the songs and invited the description of ‘spaghetti’ Bollywood. Curiously, it coincided with the spaghetti wave in Hollywood. The second invasion of Chennai into the Hindi turf happened during the 1980-1990 decade. This time with major stars like Amitabh Bachchan in tow.

The glory of the English

There is the usual argument trotted out that English serves as the ‘link language in the Mumbai film industry. As can be seen from some simple data, this argument is fallacious.

The South Indian film industry is significantly insular – catering to its specific clientele, attracting artistes from its home ground. But the Mumbai film industry attracts people from all over India. Is it that they found it easier to deal with each other in English – than in Hindi? Doubtful.

90% of the movers and shakers in Mumbai film industry are either Muslim or Punjabis. There is a token presence from the rest of the communities. It would have been easy for the Punjabis and Muslims to work in Urdu or Hindi. Till about the 60s, Indian actors had to change their name – from Yusufbhai to Dilip Kumar for instance.

All this raises more questions in my mind – and maybe some readers will have answers.

Nicolas Sarkozy ‘helped’ Roman Polanski get bail

The Glitter Dome by Joseph Wambaugh

The director’s sister-in-law Mathilde Seigner hinted that the leader has been instrumental to the recent development.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it is thanks to the President that Roman has been freed, but he has been super. The President has been very effective,” Times Online quoted her as telling Le Parisien newspaper.

Sarkozy had earlier expressed his views on the director being held on a US warrant for having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. (via Nicolas Sarkozy ‘helped’ Roman Polanski get bail).

Joseph Wambaugh on Hollywood

For years now, I have been avid reader of Joseph Wambaugh – a policeman turned writer. His comedies, wrapped in (mostly) LA or (sometimes) New York milieu, are in the style of Raymond Chandler under halogen lamp. The darker areas get better light. The chrome glints more. Glamour quotient gets mixed with large doses of warmth and understanding. Unlike Chandler, Wambaugh’s is never judgmental – which make his characters very real.

I read Wambaugh’s Glitter Dome, and twenty years later I remember one of his interesting observations on Hollywood,

Parking, not pussy, is at a premium around these parts, they said.

Wambaugh captures the politics of Hollywood in The Glitter Dome By Joseph Wambaugh, page 46

Sex, Cinema and Fashion

Hollywood, Bollywood (a patronizing name by which Indian film industry calls itself), haute couture businesses have a rather blase attitude about sex. Hence, to hold Hollywood to ordinary behavioural norms, has a puritanical air about it. In the Polanski affaire, the alleged victim, Samantha Geimer, wants the case closed.

But anyway, coming to why this story gets me curious, is why did Anand Jon, a haute couture designer get such a harsh sentence. Unwilling /semi-willing /actively willing sex in Hollywood /Bollywood /haute couture businesses is what (I have been given to believe is) normal. I mean these days, stars /starlets ‘leak’ sex tapes on the internet.

And no one has ever been seriously prosecuted, convicted and sentenced – as Anand Jon has been!

Where is the balance

I am assuming that Anand Jon is guilty. Is it the first time that models have tried advancing their career by sleeping with designers? Has it not happened before? I wonder what is it that Anand Jon did, which brought down the entire American judicial establishment onto him like ton of bricks. The case of the Sri Lankan Rajarathnam has similar smell to it.

The US prosecuting authority, Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, alleges that the Galleon Fund made some US$20 million out of this insider trading. I am sure that Galleon Fund (more than US$5 billion in assets under management) spent more than US$20 million on tea, coffee, espresso, soda, Evian and paper napkins. Rajrathnam’s own net worth was estimated by “Forbes” to be US$ 1.3 billion.

Is there any sense, any balance to these cases. Is Preet Bharara, indulging in reverse ‘affirmative action’ by prosecuting Rajarathnam? Is Preet Bharara trying to prove that he is colour blind?

“If you’re a wealthy trader, you aren’t special,” Bloomberg quoted Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara as saying at a press conference. “Knock on our door before we come knocking on yours.”

If you ask me, he should investigate Hank Paulson, the Former Treasury Secretary, under whose watch many bankruptcies happened conveniently in favour of JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.

Big Brother is watching you

There are more, where these women came from

China’s Golden Shield Project has several US corporations such as IBM, General Electric, and Honeywell working closely with the Chinese government to install millions of surveillance cameras throughout the country, along with advanced video analysis and facial recognition software, which will identify and track individuals everywhere they go. They will be connected to a centralised database and monitoring station, which will, upon completion of the project, contain a picture of the face of every person in China – over 1.3 billion people.

Law enforcement and intelligence services in the UK and the US possess technology to remotely activate the microphones in cellphones, by accessing the phone’s diagnostic/maintenance features, in order to listen to conversations that take place nearby the person who holds the phone. Mobile phones are also commonly used to collect location data.

In the US, for instance, under the Communications Assistance For Law Enforcement Act, all phone calls, VoIP and broadband internet traffic (emails, web traffic, instant messaging, etc) are required to be available for unimpeded real-time monitoring by federal law enforcement agencies. Computers are also a surveillance target because of the personal data stored on them. If someone is able to install software (either physically or remotely), such as the FBI’s “Magic Lantern” and Computer and IP verification (CIPAV), on a computer system, they can easily gain unauthorised access to this data. Another form of computer surveillance, known as TEMPEST, involves reading electromagnetic emanations from computing devices in order to extract data from them at distances of hundreds of meters.

Surveillance cameras are often connected to a recording device, IP network, and/or watched by a security guard/law enforcement officer. In the UK, for instance, there are about 4.2 million surveillance cameras — one camera for every 14 people. (via How other countries fare).

The Red Rage

There is a increasing chorus in India that such a ‘surveillance’ regime is needed in India also. A undermanned police managed a low crime society in India till now. The excuse of terrorism is being used to advance the case for a police state in India also – like the UK, USA, China etc.

Lalgarh has proved one thing – purusharth in India is still alive and well. Moksh मोक्ष is the ultimate aim of all humans – and the meaning of moksh is freedom, emancipation, deliverance. Moksh is one of the four objectives (धर्म अर्थ, काम, मोक्ष)in the Indian ethical code of पुरुषार्थ.

Santhals and the British

In Lalgarh, middle aged Santhal women, armed with spears, axes and knives came out to battle a repressive state which sold out to Big Business. For nearly a 100 years, a 100 years ago, the same Santhals had fought the British Raj earlier. When so many women come out in the open, with bows and arrows, one thing is clear.

There are more where they come from.

The excuse for extending power

So, whether it is Red Rage or Green Jihad, the State just needs an excuse to extend its power – and this ‘surveillance’ raj is one part of it.

More than three-quarters of young black men aged between 18 and 35 are on the system, the report said. Set up in 1995, the database contains the DNA profiles of five million citizens, eight percent of the population, making it the world’s biggest in proportion to population size. “Parliament has never formally debated the establishment of the National DNA Database and safeguards around it,” commission chairman Professor Jonathan Montgomery said in a statement.

“It has developed through amendments to laws designed to regulate the taking of fingerprints and physical evidence before DNA profiling was developed.

“It is not clear how far holding DNA profiles on a central database improves police investigations.” (via U.K. cops arrest people ‘just for the DNA’ – Europe- msnbc.com).

Big brother is definitely here

As post-WW2 European society was taking shape, one man warned the world – Big Brother Is Watching You! George Orwell’s 1984, a simple, dark and melancholic book warned the world of the spectre of a police state looming over the world.

The book was portrayed as warning against the ‘impending’ threat of Communism. George Orwell himself joined the British Government in its propaganda effort during WW2.

Would George Orwell have imagined that Britain, the ‘citadel of freedom’, itself would becoming the Mother Of Big Brother societies – with the largest number surveillance cameras and DNA data bank and a back-breaking prison population.

I wonder!

In the land of the free

The US prison population at more than 20 lakhs (2 million) is travesty of justice and humanity. The US competes with China and the erstwhile USSR, (the largest totalitarian regimes) in the world, with its rate of incarceration.

USA, with a population of 30 crores (300 million), has a criminal population of 70 lakhs (7 million) – behind bars, on probation or on parole. US Government estimates a figure of 20 lakhs (2 million) people serving prison sentences.

A concerned editorial in New York Times newspaper summed up the situation.

More than 1 in 100 American adults are behind bars. One in nine black men, ages 20 to 34, are serving time, as are 1 in 36 adult Hispanic men. Nationwide, the prison population … (of the US) surpasses all other countries for which there are reliable figures. The 50 states last year spent about $44 billion in tax dollars on corrections, up from nearly $11 billion in 1987. Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan and Oregon devote as much money or more to corrections as they do to higher education.

Persuading public officials to adopt a more rational, cost-effective approach to prison policy is a daunting prospect, however, not least because building and running jailhouses has become a major industry.

… the relationship between imprisonment and crime control is murky. States that lagged behind the national average in rising incarceration rates during the 1990’s actually experienced a steeper decline in crime rates than states above the national average … (ellipsis and bracketed text mine).

Across the pond

Some time back there was another report, on the state of prisons in UK.

There are almost 10,000 Muslims in Britain’s jails— with 90 of them serving time for terror offences … they fear more and more young lags are being converted and radicalised in prison. A … source said: “You are talking about rootless young men at the bottom of society. They’re in jail and someone gives them some purpose. ”

In top-security jails such as Whitemoor, Cambs, 35 per cent of inmates are Muslim—and they have converted numerous other prisoners to Islam. (via MI5 spy chiefs are putting undercover officers into Britain’s jails | News Of The World).

Slice and dice …

Britain has an estimated 1.6 million Muslims – a 2.8% of the British population. Of this a 10,000 are in prison – which means about 0.6% of the British Muslim population is in prison. India has 16 crore Muslims – which a 100 times higher Islamic population than Britain.

What if …

If India were to follow the British policy of imprisonment, Indian Muslims inside prisons would number 10 lakhs (or 1 million). India’s total prison population ranges between 2.5 lakhs to 3.5 lakhs – of all peoples, of all religions, races, crimes etc.

Traditionally, Indian society handles crime vastly differently. Technically, India could create a legal system which would ease the ability of the police to imprison people, or better still hang them – and hide its social problems.

Freedom, imprisonment, racism, development, genocide

What is the difference between a ‘banana republic’ where people disappear – and in the Anglo-Saxon Bloc which has the world largest prison population? Maybe, my being from a backward country, stops me from understanding this great ‘progress’ that these countries seemed to have made!

The sight of the West, strutting as a protector of freedom on the global stage is a hoax. How can the West have a problem with Native American tribes (aka Red Indians) and the Aborigines – if there are none left. The West which has the highest levels of prison populations in the world – raucously reminds the world of lessons in freedom.

What is assimilation and integration

The West speaks of protecting individual freedom, whereas the calls for ‘assimilation’ integration are nothing but refurbished implementation of the ‘settled’ principle in the Desert Bloc of ‘cuius regio, eius religio’ (meaning whose land, his religion; CRER) – the ruler decided his people’s religion.

The West can speak from both sides of the mouth. Nicholas Sarkozy can tell Indians (i.e.Manmohan Singh) to respect foreign missionaries, who want to convert Indians to their religion – while the West can continue with this demonization of Islam. Would Sarkozy like to mention any other country where such a large minority Muslim population, has greater freedom and opportunity, than in India? Would you, Mr.Sarkozy, like to suggest France instead?

This is freedom – from both sides. For the West.

The idea of Pakistan!

हंस के लिए हैं पाकिस्तान, लड़ के लेंगे हिंदुस्तान

With a contemptuous smile, we robbed them off Pakistan;

Now we will battle, to conquer Hindustan

Synthesis of Pakistan

For many years, the above slogan (popular in pre-partition India amongst Muslims) summed up the idea of Pakistan. Pakistan was more about taking away from Hindustan than making and building a Pakistan. And that is no surprise.

Consider what Jinnah later boasted “I will tell you who made Pakistan: Myself, my secretary and his typewriter”. Many versions of the boast exist – though no one disputes the boast itself. Another writer narrates how Jinnah won “Pakistan merely with the assistance of “one Secretary and a typewriter machine”.

Yet another researcher writes how “Jinnah once claimed that “I have won Pakistan with the help of my Secretary and his typewriter”. One memoir of Khurshid, Jinnah’s Secretary, pretty much says the same thing, “I’ll tell you who made Pakistan. Myself, my secretary and his typewriter”. At yet another occasion he seems to have said, ” My dear man, I got you Pakistan with a typist and a typewriter.”

Apocryphal (as Jaswant Singh seems to suggest) or verbatim, this boast was repeated so many times and in the many versions, does capture the Pakistani mindset. The State of Pakistan was an artificial creation – and popular leaders like Sheikh Abdullah refused to even meet up with Jinnah and was deemed irrelevant.

Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn …

What partition era Indians remember most about the slogan above, was the indifference, to the fate of Pakistan by the soon-to-be Pakistanis – and their total India-centric focus. It is their reading, that the Pakistanis may not mourn away the passing away of Pakistan much – which is something that most Indians do not factor. Having got Pakistan for a song, they may soon be found snickering at its break up.

Is it this indifference which has allowed Pakistan to become a client state of the West?

Resident Non Indians

Some part of the Indian bureaucracy and English speaking media is possibly made up of RNIs (Resident Non-Indians), whose children and future, they have ’secured’ in the West – much like the indifferent Pakistanis.

And this may be the one quality, that possibly is the one thing, that the RNIs and Pakistanis share – indifference to the fate of the country.

Indian born Sikh to become BNP’s first non-white member

Rajinder Singh, 78, who emigrated from the Punjab region of India in 1967, said yesterday that he would be honoured to become a member of the BNP because it is the “only party who has the guts to say the word Muslim” … a Sikh who claims that Islam is based on “deception, fraud and surprise attack” is set to become the first non-white member of the British National Party.

“It’s a natural process in the Muslim psyche, to take over. The fear of Islam is well founded, well justified,” he told The Times. “I don’t hate Muslims. By definition a Sikh is supposed to love all — even the enemy.” (via Sikh Rajinder Singh set to become BNP’s first non-white member – Times Online).

Senility … Alzheimer’s … or just poor grades in history

Which of the three is it? Mr.Singh, I don’t know what to make out of you!

The demonisation of the Jews (from the time Shakespeare joined in with his anti-Semitic Merchant Of Venice) has now been replaced by demonisation of Islam. Since, the “Jewish Problem” was solved by Hitler (there are hardly 1 million Jews left in Europe and 5 million in USA), the West and USA has no problems, anymore with the Jews.

Minimal diversity … maximum talk

The West today has the lowest levels of ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity – and persecutes whatever little is left, like the Roma Gypsies for example. The West has the lowest levels of religious diversity – and the way they have dealt with it is simple. Genocide. Native Americans in Canada, USA, Native Aborigines in Australia are excellent examples. No one quite talks about what happened to the millions of African slaves imported into Europe.

After the genocide, Australia, Canada and France have tendered their ritualistic apologies – and start demonizing someone else. The forgotten lot is that that of the Romani Gypsies. This one segment based in Europe and USA continues to remain on the fringes and discriminated. The Romani Gypsies, Sinti have been a favored European target for the last 500 years – by the Vatican, by the Protestant Church, by monarchies and by Republican Governments. In war and and in peace.

Their crime. They civilized (?) Europe. No less.

Popular Islamic stereotypes

Why does Europe continue to demonize and persecute the Roma

Despite the immense contribution by the Roma Gypsies to European culture and life. Is it because: -

1. They have a different lifestyle – which is migratory and frugal. They do not wish to have permanent homes, too many possessions or jobs. They prefer living in wagons, with skills and trade that they possess.
2. They have not ‘integrated’ into the White, Christian, European social system. They wish to remain ‘different’.
3. They stick out like sore thumbs – in a Europe where the Jews have been annihilated, where the descendants of Black slave populations have been exterminated and the Islamic population (past and present) is not tolerated. In such a situation, the Gypsies have not only survived, but have regrown (after Hitler’s concentration camps killed them by millions).

Since when, are these qualities a crime.

The root of it all

For centuries, the settled principle in the Desert Bloc was ‘Cuius regio, eius religio’ (meaning whose land, his religion; CRER) – the ruler decided his people’s religion.

After the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204), Vatican invoked the CRER principle (‘Cuius regio, eius religio’) during its brief rule over the Byzantine Empire to reject religious objections by the Byzantine subjects. Post Hussite Wars and the ‘Reformation’, establishing the CRER principle to settle Germany, giving rise to the logic of ‘ubi unus dominus, ibi una sit religio’ (One ruler, one religion). Just in case someone had religious disagreement, the logic was they could well emigrate – (ius emigrandi).

Haiti – and after

The CRER policy guideline was finally abandoned in post-bellum America and Europe after The Haiti Fright. With Haiti breaking loose, when slaves defeated all the major Euro-colonial powers, in battle after battle, slavery was doomed. More than 200 slave rebellions, revolts and conspiracies made slavery in the West impractical. Cuban slaves were the last to win their freedom – which sounded the slavery’s death knell.

Western propaganda has made slavery, an invisible factor in their ‘success.’ And they are on the half way mark, on the erasure in popular memory, about the use of colonies for Western enrichment.

The “enlightened” West, has made “nationalism” as a varied form of “religion”, where “assimilation” is expected! Historically, around the world, emigrant Indians have maintained a healthy balance of “assimilation” and an Indian “identity.” However, as a large group, Indians are relatively new immigrants to the US. So far, Indians have been left reasonably alone – the question is if the economic situation in the US gets worse – will the Indians be left alone even then?

Native Americans in Canada, USA, Native Aborigines in Australia are excellent examples.

Hitler … Aryan .. Pagan …

Some few years ago, the Vatican came out with a much awaited ‘apology’ for its involvement in the Holocaust. Since Hitler, though technically a Catholic, was a staunch believer in his Aryan lineage. This the Vatican uses as an escape hatch to pin the blame on ‘neo-pagan’ beliefs. Combine Hitler’s Aryan supremacy theory, India as the citadel of ‘pagans’ and non-believers, makes Vatican’s language a short hand for Hinduism and India.

Just how did the Church think, it could palm off Hitler’s genocide onto Hinduism – and India which is the citadel of ‘paganism’. Are they forgetting the Abbott of Citeaux?

Another red-wash

“Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius” (Kill them all, God will know his own) instructed the Abbot of Citeaux to followers at the start of the Albigensian Crusade.

Did the Church look at its own history? The Ustashe killings, the Albigensian Crusades, at the Hussite Wars, at its blood soaked history, at the numerous humans who were burnt at the stake, torn apart – all in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

Blame the victims

And after 1500 years of bloodshed, blame pagans for it. Pagans, if the popery forgets, were the victims of the Church’s expansionary zeal – and Hitler’s. Maybe the ghosts of the Native Americans will whisper the truth in Vatican’s ears – who were also annihilated by brave Christian soldiers!

Hitler was never alone

Hitler’s biggest mistake – he lost the war.

'Free speech' anyone?

The genocide with which Hitler’s regime was charged with was also carried out against the Native Americans in the USA, the Australian aborigines, in Congo by the Belgians. Post colonial Governments in Malaysia, Kenya and India have ignored the cover-up of the millions killed by the colonial rulers – in the Malayan operations, Mau Mau War in Kenya or the 1857 War in India.

Religious freedom in the West

When Acharya Rajneesh ‘converted’ a few thousand Christians to his brand of beliefs (in Oregon, USA), he was picked up, packed out and sent back to India – on charges of ‘chemical warfare.’

India has 2.5 crore Christians – out of 110 crores. I would like to see how the EU would react if Indian missionaries went about converting 12.5 million Christians to Hinduism – or 7.5 million Christians to Hindus in the US! Russia has long persecuted the Hare Krishna devotees (spontaneous White Hindus converting White Christians).

The West can speak from both sides of the mouth. Nicholas Sarkozy can tell Indians (i.e.Manmohan Singh) to respect foreign missionaries, who want to convert Indians to their religion – while the West can continue with this demonization of Islam. Would Sarkozy like to mention any other country where such a large minority Muslim population, has greater freedom and opportunity, than in India? Would you like to suggest France instead?

This is freedom – from both sides. For the West.

The sight of the West, strutting as a protector of freedom on the global stage is a hoax. How can the West have a problem with Native American tribes (aka Red Indians) and the Aborigines – if there are none left. The West which has the highest levels of prison populations in the world – raucously reminds the world of lessons in freedom.

Bush helped us forget …

Bill Clinton, arguably, would have become the US President for the 3rd time – but for the bar by the US Constitution. And he is the one who facilitated the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia – and the Islamic demonization, which George Bush so successfully carried forward.

After the Iraq War and the Afghanistan quagmire, George Bush has become a favorite whipping boy – and people have forgotten Bill Clinton’s legacy – Monica Lewinsky apart.

Western pre-occupation

The belief in One God, One Book, One Holy Day, One Prophet (Messiah), One Race, One People, One Country, One Authority, One Law, One Currency, One Set of Festival is the root of most problems in the world.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all a part of the monotheistic ‘One’ Desert Bloc – and their infighting is the fighting for spoils and loot. One section just does not want to share the loot with the other. That is all. There is no moral, philosophical or ethical difference or disagreement between them. If you imagine that there is a DIFFERENCE, you have become a victim of their propaganda.

The West calls itself as West – but not as Christian West!

Westernization and Jihad - brothers in arms!

Why? Why do they refer to the Middle East /West Asia as Islamic? It is a subtle propaganda war – where they are playing on the fears of people. Islam is as much deliverance or a threat as Christianity is! Roll da dice and make your choice. The Right Wing parties (like the BNP) in the West are never called Christian Fundamentalists – but the BJP is called an ‘extremist, Hindu Fundamentalist’ party!

Islam in India

Now this one place where the West plays on our fears. Factually speaking, Islam was not quite as successful in India as the West would like to make out!

Sample this – When Babur succeeds against Lodis, he is a foreign invader – and India has ‘once more’ fallen to invaders. Before that when the Tughlaks fell to the Lodis, ‘India had once again fallen’. After Bahadur Shah Zafar fell to the British, India was once more defeated. In victory the Tughlaks, Lodis and Mughals were successful invaders – in defeat they were Indian losers!

A study of the three ancient battles that changed history reveals that the so-called Islamic Conquest of India is red herring and India’s military paradigm successfully ensured that India could protects its culture and structures for more than 5000 years now. Over the centuries, the Desert Bloc has succeeded in making India lower its guard.

The West treads on the path of Islamic demonization today, without any hindrance. Without taking responsibility for the destabilisation of the Islamic World by the liquidation of the Ottoman Empire after WW1 – perpetrated by Anglo Saxon countries and the French.

UK Call Centre employees caught peddling stolen data

T-Mobile has been no stranger to screw-ups, but we’d always just figured that their UK counterparts were stand-up guys. After all, they’re British – as we all know, every one from that side of the pond is charming, affable, and rocks a bloody good accent. Unfortunately, it looks like not everyone employed there is as scrupulous as their customers would hope – a story by the BBC has confirmed that T-Mobile UK employees sold private subscriber data to a third-party broker.

T-Mobile UK and the British authorities have been taking steps to handle the incident, with the Information Commissioner’s Office going as far as trying to stick offenders with a prison sentence instead of the ordinary £5,000 fine that comes with a violation of Britain’s Data Protection Act. (via T-Mobile UK employees caught peddling personal data).

Prejudiced media

Sometime back a similar incident in India, created a furore. The Indian media, with highly sensitized accounts, predicted that the Indian software industry will get a ‘bad name due to the actions of a few’, the Indian software industry’s negligence and casual approach was blamed for these incidents. In one case, good ole’ industrial espionage was classified as data theft (not surprisingly by IANS) – similar to the Oracle-SAP row. Another case, which received some level of publicity was when a ‘database’ vendor’ alleged that their data was stolen by their Indian contractors.

So much so The Sun and the Channel 4 mounted elaborate sting operations on Indian call centres, carrots were dangled, Indian call centre employees were tempted – and when the penny dropped, there was gleeful celebrations about the lack of security in India. ‘We told you so’ was the popular, smug, self-satisfied smirks in British media.

Intelligent media

Not to overlook responsible British media which clearly spelt out that

“fraud is a bigger problem in UK institutions, a fact largely overlooked by the media. It is also more likely to occur in any other developed market we choose to do business with.” The same article went ahead and pointed out how “Accountants Ernst & Young found in a survey of Western corporate managers that almost two thirds expected to encounter more fraud in emerging markets than at home. Yet 75 per cent of fraud occurred in developed markets, the firm said. Forrester Research found in 2005 that the UK and US suffered more computer security breaches than India.”

Well … what goes around, comes around. Only difference, there was no sting operation in this case. These British call centre employees, perpetrated this entire fraud all by themselves – without the help of Indian media.

Indian education – Stirrings at the margin

“Over 2 million children in 2,200 private schools across the country use his ‘Smartclass’ every day; 4 lakh kids so far are registered with online tutorial site WiZiQ; 4 lakh teachers have been trained just this year in skills they would have learnt if they had done a basic BEd; 14,000 computer labs have been built in government schools …

As for whether the distance education model is flagging, Prakash points to how its share in his revenues (65 per cent at the moment) is rising — just 2,200 of the 75,000 private schools have his Smartclasses and just 14,000 of the 925,000 government schools are covered by his computer labs, an indication of how much more scope there is.

According to a CLSA brokerage report, Prakash says, Indians spend $25 billion (Rs 112,500 crore) a year on education till Class 12 and another $5.5 billion on tutoring — needless to say, he wants to be part of this great business where, to quote him, demand outstrips supply by a huge margin and the business is cash-flow negative.

Much is known about 15-year old Educomp and its success — Revenues are up from Rs 112 crore in 2006-07 to Rs 517 crore in 2008-09; Return on Investment (RoI) from 12.92 to 16.04 per cent in the same period; Return on Capital Employed (RoCE) from 28.5 to 27.8 per cent; Return on Net Worth (RoNW) from 24.1 to 35.6 per cent … today, with 400 people just developing education content, in ten Indian languages, Prakash says, he has the largest team doing such work in the world.” (via Lunch with BS: Shantanu Prakash).

After 60 years …

More than 60 years after the departure of the British, Indian media at least seems to adore ‘phoren’ educated politicians as the following news extract shows. Another journalist was effusive in praise when a DMK minister, Azhagiri took oath of office in ‘faultless’ English.

Indian-English language media today finds merit just because these Central ministers are ‘phoren’ returned. While, Indian Universities have become recruiting grounds and supply centres to the West for trained and qualified manpower, Indian media thinks that only ‘phoren’ educated and returned are good enough.

Team Manmohan crammed with A-listers

Manmohan Inc’s team would be any multinational corporation’s dream. Resume for resume, its key members are in a league of their own.

The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) council of ministers, led by the 78-year-old Cambridge-educated economist, has at least 14 ministers who have graduated from Ivy League universities like Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, and of course, Oxbridge. There are also Cabinet members who have degrees from US universities. (via Team Manmohan crammed with A-listers- Politics/Nation-News-The Economic Times).

English language media in India is still in its colonial haze – and to see such decadent, colonial ideas, 60 years after the British were thrown out, boggles my imagination. To approve of a politician, because he has English-language skills, or their ‘phoren’ education seems so important to these journalists, who seem to be wagging their ‘colonial’ tail with such approval – and vigor.

These journalists instead should have been worried that 60 years on, Indian Universities don’t seem to be meeting standards. And looking at the (seeming) failure of these Universities.

Higher education in India

This (mixed record) of Indian Universities can largely be laid at the doorsteps of the faulty educational policies that Indian Governments have been following. For one, why is the State increasing its role in education. For another, why is the Indian State supporting English language education with thousands of crores of subsidies – while Indian language education languishes.

80% of India’s population is excluded from higher education as Indian higher system is predominantly in English. Hence, this puts a premium on English – and discounts Indian languages in the educational sweepstakes. The negative effect this on Indian self esteem is not even a point of discussion here.

The principle of exclusion (a colonial idea) is a dominant marker of the entire Indian education system – rather than inclusion. British (and before that Islamic rulers’) colonial practices supported foreign languages on the backs of the Indian taxpayers’ contribution – and actively worked on destruction of local cultures.

For instance, in the erstwhile State Of Hyderabad (equal to about 10%-12% of modern India), ruled by the Nizam, a large non-British kingdom, 2000 year old local languages like Telugu and Marathi were considered uncouth and barbaric languages – compared to a 700 year old language like Urdu, which was supported by the State. Thus anyone without the knowledge of Urdu was excluded from the system. So it is now in India, with English.

This restricts 80% of India’s population from contribution and access to opportunity. Without looking at it from an ethical point, but purely as an economic question means we should look at the cost of this policy.

English In Higher Education Institutions

The problem is actually higher education. What is the future of Marathi medium students once they reach higher education institutions? The Indian state is penalizing the Indian tax payer by granting a monopoly to English in higher education.

Cost to the Indian economy

How does this hinder India? India loses every year about 200,000 highly educated people to the West. These 200,000 people have been educated at subsidized Indian Universities at a considerable cost to the poor Indian taxpayer. What return does the tax payer get from this? Negative returns.

What happens when English stops being an important language in the global sphere? What use will India’s investment in English be at that time? And this will happen sooner than we imagine – at a greater cost than we believe.

The Indian tax payer is creating a large body of English trained graduates, who are finally picked up by Western economies at zero cost. If these Indian graduates were trained in Indian languages, the West may find it difficult to absorb them at zero cost.

English education is now clearly a liability.

What is the cost of switching from English?

Assuming that a 100,000 essential books need to translated into local languages, at a cost of say Rs.100,000 per book, it still amounts to Rs.1000 crores. Is that a large sum of money for modern India. Hardly.

What is the loss to India? How much does this reduce India’s growth rate by? Hard numbers – but definitely big numbers.

So why is India persisting with this policy. Because all the high and mighty, finally want their children to ‘escape to the West’, with a good education from India – at the cost of India’s poor. This vested interest makes this policy go around.

And a lot of propaganda.

Backdoor privatization

The Vedanta industrial group is setting up a University in Orissa. From a campus at the new Lavassa township, Oxford is going to start offering courses. These and other represent the quiet backdoor ‘privatization’ of Indian higher education.

Hidden subsidies

Large tracts of lands are being acquired by the Government, and handed over for a pittance to the private sector. Soon, we will have competition between State Sector subsidized English education – and private sector subsidized education.

Who will help Indian languages get back on their feet

While Indian language Universities are struggling – for funding, respect, status, support, foreign Universities, using paper money, backed by the Bretton Woods fraud, will impose their ideas, culture, etc in India.

While the English speaking economic bloc is struggling, India is not focussing on the French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese Blocs which are large, excellent opportunities.

This can be a way out …

This actually is a good way out. There is a significant demand for English language education – at least currently. This demand can be met by the private sector. In the meantime, misdirected State subsidies can be gainfully used to help Indian language education get back on its feet.

In the not very long run, the state must get out of business of making up the minds of its citizens.

India starts investing in Indian languages?

On the ground, classical language status has meant substantial funds and awards. The solution to such vexed claims and counterclaims may rest in the central government giving up its partisan patronage of Sanskrit and Hindi, and providing the wherewithal for all languages. What languages are classical or not is best left to the scholars. (via Is classical language status meaningless?- Et Debate-Opinion-The Economic Times).

It has taken India 60 years to start with some small investments in Indian languages.

The Indian education system excludes a vast majority of Indians from the higher education system – which is predominantly in English. This puts a premium on English – and discounts Indian languages in the educational sweepstakes. The disadvantaged students who have studied in Indian languages ensure that their children get the ‘advantage’ of English education.

The negative effect this on Indian self esteem is not even a point of discussion here.

End of the road … the bankrupt model

This Indian education model was, till about a 150 years ago, unique in the world. With the highest literacy ratio in the world, and completely privately funded, it set global and historic benchmarks. This model has been buried under a mound of silence – and once in a while you get a glimpse of this.

My first glimpse of this model was through the draft of Parag Tope’s forthcoming book – Operation Red Lotus.

I say without fear of my figures being challenged successfully, that today India is more illiterate than it was fifty or a hundred years ago, and so is Burma, because the British administrators, when they came to India, instead of taking hold of things as they were, began to root them out. They scratched the soil and began to look at the root, and left the root like that, and the beautiful tree perished. (Gandhiji, at Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, Oct 1931 - extracted from Indian Models Of Economy Business And Management By Kanagasabapathi; Page 60).

Gandhiji, in correspondence with Sir Philip Hartog, (chairman of the Auxiliary Committee on Education), laid out the the pre-colonial scenario, which has now been buttressed by research by Dharampal, a Gandhian, in his book, Beautiful Tree, Indian Education in the 18th century.

Sreelatha Menon, seemingly, depends on Tooley’s own PR handouts to write this up. In the entire post in Business Standard, she never makes a mention of Dharampal, whose work is the most authoritative today. Tooley, a (for sometime) IFC-World Bank employee, this research resulted, (funded by the Templeton Foundation) in a book - of course called, The Beautiful Tree.

Between a rock and a hard place

Dharampal’s pioneering work, in 1983, has, not surprisingly, been ignored by the Amartya Sens and The Jean Drezes of the world – all their avid followers in India. Kapil Sibal has been trying to further the colonial British efforts by laying out a red carpet for foreign universities – while tying up Indian institutions into-knots-into-knots-into-knots. The ‘modern’ theory about Indian education goes that all credit for Indian education should go either to the British Colonial Raj or the Christian Missionary Benevolence.

The health care (USA), social welfare (USA), employment benefits (UK), showcase countries (Japan), are running countries into the ground. India has, as yet, not gone down that path. Though, the Indian State has been trying – quite hard.

NASSCOM wakes up after 15 months

A team of researchers including professors of University of Brighton published a report in July 2009 titled “Crime online — Cybercrime and illegal innovation”. It was picked up by online news channels and quoted in news items to propagate lies about so-called cybercrimes in the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry of India. The report tries to present data from the annual reports of the Indian Computer Emergency Team, and Symantec in a way that suits its story, of India being a centre of cybercrimes and in general being a weak state. (via Phishing study: Bunch of lies).

Plodders – all of you!

I got bad news for you, Mr. Kamlesh Bajaj!

Nasscom, your team and maybe you should include yourself. Plodders! All! The report you quote came out in July – and you are responding to it it after 3 months. What more, if you had dug deeper, you would have come out with more – dirt, that is.

The ‘prequel’

Nearly 15 months ago, a Scottish newspaper, The Sunday Herald ‘revealed’ that an Indian hacker had broken into the credit card database and stolen some 8 million records. The supposed ‘victim’, Best Western Hotel immediately rejected this claim, and revealed that 10 (ten only) records had been stolen. If you check this story today, The Sunday Herald has (of course), removed the Best Western rebuttal of this story. How did the newspaper identify the nationality of the hacker? A journalist’s ‘secret’ sources!

Indian Media

The serious part of the story was that only a few (all from the largest media house in India, in fact) Indian newspapers picked up this story. No other significant newspaper in the world picked it up. India’s premier business newspaper The Economic Times featured this story prominently in their print edition. The Times of India, which says it the largest English newspaper, dutifully carried this IANS report. The challenger to Times Of India, DNA also carried this report. Looking at these reports just a little deeper, and the source of all these reports is a IANS (India Abroad News Service) report.

So, it was evidently planted and created for the Indian media. The story was dated August 23rd, 2008, Saturday, and carried the next day, on a Sunday for maximum impact – and for the business press to pick up and run the story on Monday morning. The story was planted through IANS, a supposed ‘pro-Indian’ news agency. Did anyone come back and retract this story? Of course, not!

Every aspect of this hoax was planned in great detail.

Within the next 3 days, on August 27, 2008 the 2ndlook blog uncovered this hoax ‘Indian hacker’ story. The prequel to the report that you are rebutting after 3 months. The secret – the ‘provincial’ mind’ (aka मोटी, देसी और मंद बुद्धि) of 2ndlook knows …

What they don’t know …

What these English speaking, Westernized journos, dont know and cant care about are some inconvenient facts. How can India have a low prison population, with a poor police-to-population ratio and a crime rate which is not above the average – in spite of a large civilian gun population.

All the 5 indices (below) create a bias for a lawless Indian society and rampant crime. With these five indices, going against a stable social system, how does current day India manage low-to-average crime rates.

1. India has the lowest per capita prison population in the world. (‘put more criminals behind bars’)
2. India also has the lowest police-to-population ratio in the world. (‘increase police force’)
3. India has the second highest national gun stock in the world. (‘more guns means more crime’)
4. India has the largest number of poor in the world. (‘it is poverty which the root of all crime’)
5. Capital punishment in India is again at low levels. (‘kill enough criminals to instill fear’)

Western thinking and systems of law and order predict that India should have the highest crime rate in the world – which is not true. India has low-to-average crime rate compared to the Rest of the World.

Historically, trade in India is governed by शुभ लाभ ‘shubh labh’ – and hence Indians have not been major players in drugs proliferation (unlike Japan, the West in which traded Opium in Korea and China) or in slave trade. In modern times, though India is a power in computing industry, India is not a big player in spamming or in software virus.

Indian ethical system

More than 2000 years ago, Megasthenes a Greek traveller to India wrote,

Theft is of very rare occurrence. Megasthenes says that those who were in the camp of Sandrakottos, wherein lay 400,000 men, found that the thefts reported on any one day did not exceed the value of two hundred drachmae, and this among a people who have no written laws

Interesting it is. Surprising it is not!

Khap panchayats seek legal claws – India – NEWS – The Times of India

A over-regulating state is also ineffective state ('Prohibitions' cartoon and ©by Meera Sapra)

Irked at being equated with the Taliban and kangaroo courts, khap panchayats in Haryana are now determined to get some legal sanction.

Soon, they will draw up a set of recommendations for making “suitable” amendments to the Hindu Marriage Act (1955) at the state level so that their rulings become valid under law.

Khaps are traditional area-based community organizations whose rulings have no legal sanction. In keeping with tradition, khap panchayats oppose marriages within the same ‘gotra’ (lineage) and are known to have meted out harsh punishments to “erring” young couples. (via Khap panchayats seek legal claws – India – NEWS – The Times of India).

‘Indian’ NGOs

A NGO /activist publication recently ran an article on Haryana’s khaps – equating the khaps to the Taliban. This was the famous ‘Tehelka’, whose main aim in life is to show how ‘backward’, ‘ignorant’, ‘uncivilized’ the India(ns) are.

Of course, being ‘English speaking ‘activistas’ of the ‘civil society’, nobody can doubt their intentions or message or their ‘intelleigence. Except some like 2ndlook – whose ‘provincial’ mind’ (aka मोटी, देसी और मंद बुद्धि) cannot reconcile the ‘de-regulation’ that these NGOs want and greater regulation that they propose – as they exhale and inhale.

Of course, since they are ‘educated’. ‘modern activistas’ without any axe to grind, they must be right. What is the data that they have? This story was linked to me by an 2ndlook reader (novaaristotle) and is worth reading for an excellent hatchet job.

In conversations with villagers over weeks and months, it became clear that murders decreed by Khap panchayats were common. However, in most cases, a twisted notion of tradition and the fear of social boycott ensure the murders are never reported to the police or the media. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) doesn’t classify or record honour killings and hence has no statistics on them. The lack of figures on murders ordered by Khap panchayats or ‘honour killings’ hinders research and legislation that might address the issue.

Maybe, they should look take a 2ndlook at Indian society – from a law and order point of view.

All quiet on the Indian front …

In more than 1000 Indic books, claiming to record more than 10,000 years of history, there is no instance of any dispute reaching the King. The longest ancient epic in the world, The Mahabharata has no incident where a private dispute reached Yudhisthir (though a mongoose could lecture the King about sacrifices and yagnas). There was never any case of private dispute, recorded in the Ramayana, that reached Ramachandra (though a dhobi could ‘inform’ the king about bazaar talk regarding the Queen Sita). Even a poor Brahman, Kautsa, could reach King Raghu for help in the disbursal of guru-dakshina गुरु-दक्षिणा.

Is it that Indians were ‘saints’ and did not have private disputes? Were they so civilized that they could solve all disputes by talking to each other? Is it that Indian kings were not bothered about delivery of justice!

It gets worse! No prisons …

Modern econometric modelling has an interesting perspective on Indian economy where research shows that for much of the last 1000 years, India has been a significant economic power till the 1900.

China and India, this analysis estimates, for the last 1000 years, accounted for 50% of the world economy. Statistical analyses showed India with a world trade share of 25% for much of the 500 years during 1400-1900. With this prosperity, the most interesting (historical) aspect of the criminal management story is the absence of any surviving mass jails in India prior to colonial India.

Without prisons, just how did pre-colonial India, one of the largest (and most prosperous) populations of the world, deal with crime and criminals?

But then crime rate in India must be really high …

Cut to modern India. With such an inheritance, India has the lowest prison population in the world. How can India have such a low prison population, with a poor police-to-population ratio and a crime rate which is not above the average – in spite of a large civilian gun population.

All the 5 indices (below) create a bias for a lawless Indian society and rampant crime. With these five indices, namely: -

1. Police to population ratio (‘increase police force’)
2. Prison population (‘put more criminals behind bars’)
3. Capital punishment (‘kill enough criminals to instill fear’)
4. Poverty (‘it is poverty which the root of all crime’)
5. Gun ownership (‘more guns means more crime’)

against a stable social system, how does current day India manage low-to-average crime rates. More than 2000 years ago, Megasthenes a Greek traveller to India wrote,

Theft is of very rare occurrence. Megasthenes says that those who were in the camp of Sandrakottos, wherein lay 400,000 men, found that the thefts reported on any one day did not exceed the value of two hundred drachmae, and this among a people who have no written laws

Historically, trade in India is governed by शुभ लाभ ‘shubh labh’ – and hence Indians have not been major players in drugs proliferation (unlike Japan, the West in which traded Opium in Korea and China) or in slave trade.

In modern times, India is not a big player in spamming or in software virus – though a power in computing industry. In August 2008, a hoax story alleged that an Indian hacker, had broken into a credit card database, and sold it to the European underworld. Some ‘experts’ feared that this would spark of a crime wave across Europe.

The Indic model of justice, crime and law

Evidence of a different Indic system goes far back in history – to Lipit Ishtar, Hittite laws, Hammurabi et al. As far back as 4000 years back in history. Indian kings did not deliver justice. It was done at the local level by panchayats पंचायत. Indian justice systems did not rely on imprisonment or executions or the police to control crime!

The answer – the world’s most stable marriage system and the extended family-social structures took care of the wayward. The khaps may have gone overboard in some cases (based on anecdotal evidence) – but the real tehelka is that khaps is the way forward – and not greater Government regulation.