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Vodafone Case: Bharat Sarkar Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai
Everything you wanted to ask about the Vodafone tax-case – and afraid to know.
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In each market Vodafone bring ‘cutting edge’ advertising and the latest in financial ‘engineering’ | Image source & courtesy – thisislondon.co.uk | Click for image.
Behind the mask
The Vodafone tax case opens many questions – legal issues apart. Starting with the nature of the corporation itself.
Vodafone is a recent multinational to come out of Britain. Vodafone has no technology, no manufacturing or innovation to its credit – except ‘marketing’. It has become the world’s largest mobile phone operator by financial ‘engineering’ and endless credit from British banks.
Buying the best legal services, at prices that even Governments will balk at, Vodafone has used all legal options available. In India the Vodafone roster included well-connected, legal eagles like Harish Salve (related to NKP Salve) and Abhishek Manu Singhvi (related to LM Singhvi).
With British multinationals slowly dropping out of the skies, it has become essential for HM’s Government to ‘create’ new multinationals.
Vodafone is one such entity.
Enter the mobile phone
The numbers of the Vodafone case | Image source & courtesy – hindustantimes.com | Click for image.
Before we go to the next leg of the story, it may be useful to recap the development of mobile telephony technology. Invented by Motorola, USA, initially mobile phone technology was expensive and slow to catch on. Till late 80’s it was easy to tap into mobile phone conversations with very little equipment and technology.
What changed in the ’80s was the GSM platform.
GSM platform was built by an European consortium which decided to define the next level in mobile telephony. Based on ‘open’ digital platform, GSM allowed multiple vendors to create technology using common interfaces. In the earlier Advanced Mobile Phone System AMPS & Digital-AMPs (DAMPS) analogue systems, roaming, data usage, were all major issues.
GSM settled that. This allowed operators to mix-and-match equipment based on market conditions and innovations. GSM created competition at two levels. At one level it was GSM vs AMPS/DAMPS and later GSM vs CDMA. At another level it was competition between various GSM players – Ericsson AB; Nokia, Alcatel, Motorola, Lucent – and now Chinese players like Huawei, etc. Most importantly it created global platform which allowed global roaming.
One number, nearly anywhere in the world – which Motorola tried to do alone with its failed Iridium project.
The Indian tax-payer will pay for the privilege of doing business with a British multinational | Graphic source & courtesy – epaper.timesofindia.com | Click for image
Although Europeans had a head-start, not a single British company attained any significant position in the GSM business. Sweden boasted of the leader Ericsson LM. Germany had Siemens (now sold to Nokia, Finland and Benq, Taiwan); France had Alcatel.
Even lowly Finland had Nokia. Motorola, US remained a strong player in GSM till recently. Canada had Lucent and RIM. Korea, Taiwan came out trumps in the terminal market with brands like Samsung, LG, Benq, HTC, Acer, etc. China, a late entrant, came up with a Huawei, Haier, Lenovo, China Mobile, ZTE, TCL.
But no British name in a US$200 billion industry (airtime, equipment, terminals).
In the last few years, ARM Holdings a British chip designer, with little more US$500 billion in revenues and operating margins of US$200 billion has acquired a significant position in chip design. Operating on a licensing business model, ARM Holdings has no manufacturing operations of its own. Other manufacturers license chip designs from ARM Holdings.
Voda porridge
Vodafone has been there – and done that. Ably supported by the British govt. | graphic source & courtesy – hindustantimes.com | Click for image
Is this the first time that Vodafone done this tax-jugglery ?
Backroom deals that can only be guessed at, allowed a British company to morph into the world’s largest operator.
Paying top-dollar prices, buying into troubled and indebted operators in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Spain, US, Vodafone consolidated all these operators under one brand.
After spending billions, over a period of less than 10 years, Vodafone was supported by the British Government with tax breaks – some of which have raised many eyebrows in Britain itself.
Urban myth?
Back home an unspecified claim by UK tax authorities running into billions (departmental leaks suggest GBP6.0 billion) was settled for GBP1.2 billion.
Britain’s most senior taxman has admitted making “governance errors” when agreeing multibillion-pound settlements with large companies.
Dave Hartnett, HMRC‘s head of tax, has conceded that Revenue officials did not follow correct procedures in two high-profile cases that could have left taxpayers millions of pounds out of pocket.
The errors are understood to relate to claims that Vodafone faced a £6bn tax bill – a figure HMRC has described as “urban myth” – but paid only £1.25bn to settle the dispute. There are also suggestions US investment bank Goldman Sachs avoided £10.8m of tax payments last year.
Hartnett told a Treasury select committee that HMRC settled a tax dispute without informing all members of its oversight board.
The high risk corporate board’s supervision is meant to ensure tax officials do not agree settlements in private deals.Hartnett refused to explain exactly what went wrong, how much tax may have been lost or confirm which companies may have escaped their full tax commitments.”Yet Mr Hartnett has refused even to indicate whether interest was paid by Vodafone on the tax due, despite confirming that it is an offence not to pay interest on tax owing.”Vodafone’s settlement, which led to widespread protests, saw HMRC collect £1.25bn to draw a line under a long-running investigation into its 2000 takeover of German rival Mannesmann. Leaks from the department suggested HMRC had wanted to collect up to £6bn from Vodafone. (via HMRC admits corporate tax deal errors | Business | The Guardian).
A few crores on a lawyer – and a few crores here and there are still a lot less than 11,200 cr tax demand. | Graphic source & courtesy – http://forbesindia.com | Click for image.
Of course, the British tax authorities are enlightened bureaucrats – not corrupt.
But Indian tax authorities pursuing this case to extract bribes from Vodafone – and not on the ‘merits’ of the case.
Referring to the misuse of corporate structure, the White Paper by the Indian Government on Black Money said, “The Vodafone tax case provides an instance of the misuse of corporate structure for avoiding the payment of taxes.”
In this case, it said, the Hutchison Group had made investments in India from 1992 to 2006 through a number of subsidiaries having ‘separate corporate personality’ but which were essentially post box companies based in the Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, and Mauritius.
The Hutchison Group sold its entire business operation in India in February 2007 to the Vodafone Group for a total consideration of USD 11.2 billion and the same was effected through transfer of a solitary share of a Cayman Islands company.
When the tax authorities requested the accounts of the said company, it said, “The answer given was that as per Cayman Islands law, the company was not required to prepare its accounts.”
With increasing realisation about the harmful effect of ownership being concealed behind complicated corporate ownership structure, such structure is coming under scrutiny.
“…it is expected that efforts taken by India in this regard as also global pressure will provide a check on these tendencies,” it said. (via Pranab Mukherjee tables white paper on black money in LS – India – DNA).
Related Articles
- 10 Companies Decide What We Eat (behind2ndlook.wordpress.com)
- Bilderberg: Silly stories …? (quicktake.wordpress.com)
- Vodafone to buy Cable & Wireless for £1.04 bn (itv.com)
- Vodafone writes down Euro businesses by £4bn (telegraph.co.uk)
More False Data on Global Warming Withdrawn
Cartoon by Patrick Corrigan of Toronto Star; source and courtesy - scottthong.wordpress.com. Click for larger picture.
The new The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World that had glaciologists in a rage for incorrectly showing Greenland as having lost 15% of its ice since 1999 is about to get a retroactive makeover thanks to some very persistent scientists.Nervous glaciologists, eager to avoid a kerfuffle that climate skeptics might christen “Atlasgate,” barraged both The Times Atlas’ publisher, HarperCollins, and the media with complaints.
Researchers at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, which provided the data used by HarperCollins cartographers, quickly distanced themselves from the new atlas, alleging that they weren’t consulted before the publisher made its bold statement. On Tuesday, HarperCollins apologized for the 15% number in the news release, as well as for not consulting scientists. But they stood by their map. (via Publisher Issues Apology and Promises Corrections – ScienceInsider).
The story so far …
The global warming and the climate control story has been a long story about propaganda, false data, twisted statistics, unethical researchers. Mostly supported by Governments of Britain, Norway, Denmark and Australia. This is one more incident in that global warming myth.
But … yes!
There is a global pollution reality, originating in the West. That the West does not want to address.
Related articles
- Greenland ice: Are the Times a-changing? (bbc.co.uk)
- Times Atlas accused of ‘absurd’ climate change ice error (telegraph.co.uk)
- Times Atlas publishers apologise for ‘incorrect’ Greenland ice statement (guardian.co.uk)
- Times Atlas ice error was a lesson in how scientists should mobilise (guardian.co.uk)
Hindu Muslim Bhai-Bhai – End of an Era
Urbane, educated, certain local and foreign elements served the British, Pakistani leaders, Indian princes, appealed to Hindus, Muslims using religion – and gained everywhere. But in each case, India lost.
Bhishma on the Bed of Arrows (image source and courtesy - http://www.harekrsna.com). Click for larger image.
My grateful acknowledgments are due to His Highness the Nizam and His Highness the ruler of Mysore for their princely donations. The Nizam is a Mahomedan prince. Any contribution coming from him in aid of a work like the Mahabharata could not but indicate His Highness’s enlightened sympathy for literature in general, irrespective of the nation or the creed which that literature represents. As an administrator, Sir Asman Jah promises to rival the fame of Sir Salar Jung. So long also as an officer like Nawab Sayyed Ali Bilgrami is about the person of His Highness … (from the foreword of The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa (Anusasana Parva) Translated into English prose Published and distributed by Pratapa Chandra Ray Published 1893 by Bharata Press in Calcutta . Written in English).
What’s religion got to do with this?
Soon after the 1857 Anglo-Indian War of 1857, we had the remarkable instance of the Baroda Gaikwad commissioning a ‘Basra’ pearl carpet for the prophet’s tomb at Medina, which was recently auctioned for US$5.5 million.
And here we have the case of a Muslim king, the Nizam of Hyderabad, who partly funded the translation and publication of the Mahabharata in English.
Coming storm
But, this was soon to change.
In 1905, Bengal was partitioned along religious lines, by Lord Curzon. West Bengal, Orissa, and Bihar on one side and the erstwhile East Bengal and Assam were divided into the other part. All India Muslim League and All India Hindu Mahasabha followed. The official logic was that Bengal was too large a province to be administered by a single governor.
An India that seemed possible and probable was broken in to two pieces - and a Kashmir legacy left.
This explanation did not account for communal boundaries – and did not explain Curzon’s tour of East Bengal in February 1904, where he promised a separate zone for Muslim Bengalis.
Protests against this partition in the form of Arandhan (no food was cooked across Bengal), boycott of British goods, and Tagore suggested that Raksha Bandhan would be observed in a spirit of brotherhood between Muslims and Hindus. Lord Minto’s ‘reforms’ in 1909, was the next major step in division of India along religious lines.
Simultaneously, soon after the publication of Tarana-e-Hind (Song of India) in 1905, of the sare-jahaan-se-achcha hai-hindustan-hamaraa fame, Iqbal was sponsored by British authorities for ‘modern’ studies in Europe in 1906. In England Allama Iqbal joined with Major Syed Hassan Bilgrami, ex-Indian Medical Service, to form and promote the Muslim League in England, in 1908.
The mechanics of divide et impera
Major Syed Ali Bilgrami wrote the text for Simla deputation, headed by the Sir Sultan Muhammad (the Aga Khan), who with seventy ‘representatives’ of the Muslim community, asked the Viceroy for elections along communal lines.
The immediate cause for the Simla deputation was the matter of language. Soon after 1857, at Benares in 1867, with the expanding role of the State, a case for using Devnagari script was made. This issue simmered and in 1900, the Urdu-Nagri Resolution was notified by Sir Anthony Macdonald, Lieutenant-Governor, United Provinces, in April 1900 giving parity to Hindi as a official-language along with Urdu in UP. Muslim paranoia was watered and nurtured by the British.
By creating claims and supporting counter-claims, responding to alternate parties, the British administration created frenzy around a simple administrative issue. Pakistani historians to this day see this as “the machination of Dr. Feelan, District Inspector of Schools and Anthony Mac Donald, then Collector of Muzaffarpur, the two bitterest antagonists of Urdu”.
Major Syed Ali Bilgrami wrote the Simla address - presented to the Viceroy on October 1st, 1906, calling for communal electorates. (Image source and courtesy - storyofpakistan.com).
The rest of the story, most of us know.
Behind the man
Major Syed Hassan Bilgrami, an academic from Lucknow, was also from the same family as Sayyed Ali Bilgrami. Sayyed Ali Bilgrami was selected for employment by Salar Jung, one of the nobles in Nizam’s kingdom.
Syed Ali Bilgrami (Image source and courtesy - themuslims.in).
Designated as Imud ul-Mulk Bahadur, he presided over the setting up of Dairatul-Maarifil-Osmania, Hyderabad (or the Osmania Oriental Publications Bureau) in 1888. For some time, he was the tutor to the future Nizam of Hyderabad,
Connections everywhere
Sayyed Ali Bilgrami donated his own collection of books, manuscripts and texts to form a core for the Asafia State Library (1891). Of the initial nearly 24,000 volumes, nearly 16,000 were Persian, Arabic or Urdu. Some 7600 were in English and other European languages. There was, of course, no place for any books in Hindi, Telugu, Sanskrit, Marathi, Kannada – which was the languages used by more than 95% of the Nizam Kingdom’s population.
Sayyed Ali Bilgrami studied at Kolkatta where he also learned Sanskrit – and later translated the Atharva Veda. That possibly explains Sayyed Ali Bilgrami links to Kisari Mohan Ganguli and the publication of Mahabharata by Pratapa Chandra Ray – and funding through the Nizam Government.
Soon after 1905, Sayyed Ali Bilgrami became an activist in affairs of Urdu and Muslim affairs. Another member of the family, active academically, was Syed Asghar Ali Bilgrami who published Ma ‘athir-i-Dakan (Hyderabad, 1925) in Urdu and another study in English, called Landmarks of the Deccan (Hyderabad, 1927).
Collaboration Chronicles
Urbane, educated, the Bilgramis served the British, Pakistan, Indian princes, appealed to Hindus, Muslims – and gained everywhere. Post-independence, some of the Bilgramis moved to Pakistan. A few members of the family chose to remain in Hyderabad, and other parts of India. Today, they can be found in the UK, Germany, UAE – and many emigrated to the US.
This translation of the Mahabharata, by Kisari Mohan Ganguli and publication by Pratapa Chandra Ray, for which one of the Bilgramis arranged funding, remains the most popular and accessible work of the last 100 years.
Below are book extracts from a rather revealing and well-researched work on British colonialism in India.
Chronicles of Collaboration. Excerpts from Jinnah, Pakistan and Islāmic identity: the search for Saladin By Akbar S. Ahmed, pages 56 and 64). Click to go source at books.google.com
MF Husain was Hindu
M. F. Hussain gets Qatar nationality announces the editor of Hindu - N. Ram (Image courtesy - hindu.com). Click for larger image
Says Pritish Nandy
Maqbool Fida Hussain never said ‘I am a ‘Hindu”. Yet, Pritish Nandy insists on claiming Hussain for ‘Hinduism’. But then, Pritish Nandy for one is not a ‘Hindu’ – in mind, spirit or thought.
Not, if he cannot understand, that what Pritish Nandy calls ‘Hinduism’ does not require everyone to go by One book, belong to One Faith, worship One god or believe in any One thing. ‘Hinduism’ would have been absolutely comfortable with MF Hussain being a Muslim. And everyone includes Maqbool Fida Hussain also.
‘Hinduism’ does not believe or accept that it is ‘superior’ or ‘inferior’ to any other body of belief. The only one thing that ‘Hinduism’ does not accept is अधर्म adharma. Injustice to any man.
Everything else goes.
‘Hinduism’ is public property
At this point here, Farrukh Dhondy joins the debate. Dhondy implies ‘Hinduism’ is public property. MF Hussain has a perfect right to do whatever he wants with ‘Hinduism’ – believes our Mr.Dhondy.
When Mother Teresa became an object of media-adulation, Hussain turned to Moter Teresa. (Image courtesy - indiatimes.com.) Click for larger image.
The Hindus don’t have a single book and certainly not one that sanctions attacks for depicting one or the other goddess and using an imaginary or live model’s form and features to do it. Those who hounded MF were barking up the wrong walking stick.
It has happened before. Raja Ravi Verma was castigated, mobbed and prosecuted for using his mistress as a model for paintings of Hindu goddesses and heroines from the epics. Ketan Mehta’s film may shed some light on how and why a notion of heresy invaded the beliefs of Hinduism. Hinduism, should be free from such an idea.
The demolition of the temple of Somnath may be seen as insults and affronts to the communities that built them and worshipped there but not in any sense is it heresy. Breaking icons is certainly insulting. But surely MF Husain was making them? (via Indian idol maker – Hindustan Times; parts excised for brevity).
Logically, Dhondy must understand that all idol-breaking or form-distortion can happen only at ‘Hindu’ sufferance – or tolerance, if you wish. ‘Hindu’ intellectual capital is available – at no cost.
To subscribers only.
23-May After Mamata Banerjee’s victory in West Bengal assembly elections, MF Hussain sent a sketch to Hindustan Times. (Image courtesy - hindustantimes.com). Click for larger image.
No ‘free’ lunch at ‘Hindu’ expense
I don’t subscribe to FT.com. I don’t talk-up, talk-down, talk-about FT.com. FT.com does not want me. Separate ways. Good for both of us.
Same thing with ‘Hinduism’, I thought.
Without being a subscriber to ‘Hinduism’, others can use, accept ‘Hindu’ ideas, concepts, standards, clearly at ‘Hindu’ sufferance. Especially if an ‘artist’ wishes to make commercial profit by using ‘Hindu’ capital. Maqbool Fida Hussain wants to combine ‘Hindu’ sufferance, (or tolerance, maybe broad-mindedness), with Islāmic sensitivity (blasphemy, no idols and portraits), for his personal gain.
Hussain painted freely and frankly – nude goddesses, dark monks, rib-lined horses, elephants playing veenas, nations in distress – in canvases executed with style and showmanship, spreading artistic excitement across society.
But never an Islāmic theme – unless you want to count Meenaxi as an Islāmic theme! Why?
Now, Maqbool Fida Hussain used and adopted Islāmic standards, when it came to Islām. He should have stayed with Islāmic standards. Don’t portray any gods and goddesses.
MF Hussain sketches Madhuri Dixit from the film - Dil to Pagal Hai.
Even Maqbool Fida Hussain cannot be chalk and cheese.
Everything to everyone
Maqbool Fida Hussain rode on the coat tails of every media-star to gain publicity for himself. Vijay Tendulkar to Madhuri Dixit, Anushka Sharma to Mother Teresa. From Prabhu Deva to MS Subbalakshmi. He quickly made out a silly painting of Mamta Banerji’s election victory in Bengal – to keep himself in media-focus.
Maqbool Fida Hussain has always blown in whichever direction, the wind blows. He tried to be an admirer of playwright Tendulkar (and Sakharam Binder) when Vijay Tendulkar was bigger than Sachin Tendulkar – and supported Indira Gandhi’s Emergency when she was in power. Nandyभाई, Maqbool Fida Hussain cannot be ‘Hindu’ in spirit – and admire Mother Teresa’s blatant superior ‘Christian conversion’ therapy for inferior ‘Hindus’.
Year - 2006; Bharatmata (Mother India) as a nude woman displayed at an exhibition by Nafisa Ali - an actress-turned-social-worker. (Image courtesy - indiatimes.com). Click for larger image.
Did I miss MF Hussain standing up for artistic freedom of the Prophet Mohammed cartoonist – or oppose Sarkozy’s hijab ban? Not a word in support of Salman Rushdie? Or why his ‘voluntary’ restraint from subjects that Islam forbids – which was Maqbool Fida Hussain’s own religion?
Did I see a single painting by Maqbool Fida Hussain on Muslim themes – maybe a Battle of Karbala, or Prophet Mohammed’s return to Mecca? Why is it that he wanted all his ‘freedom’ to caricature भारत माता Bharat-mata (Mother India) and ‘teen-deviyaan’?
In India, against ‘Hindus’?
In Qatar he found freedom
Maqbool Fida Hussain, in the same breath, cannot admire भारत माता Bharat-mata, take Qatari citizenship, and in death prefer to be buried in London (actually just outside London). By these actions, Maqbool Fida Hussain proved that all his claims of ‘artistic’ integrity and ‘artistic’ freedom were that much hot air. India lost nothing. It was for Maqbool Fida Hussian to decide if he was losing anything, by going away from भारत माता Bharat-mata.
Maqbool Fida Hussain choice of Qatar as his new country of residence, would not have given him more freedom. Qatar (pop. 3,00,000 lakhs approx.) is slightly larger than Maqbool Fida Hussain’s hometown of Pandharpur (pop. 1,00,000 approx.) but has a GDP which is 10% of India’s GDP – anchored to oil earnings. Did he raise his voice against Qatar’s support to Saudi Arabian troops sent to crush dissent in Bahrain? Or against the forced deportation by Qatar, of Libyan dissident, Eman al-Obeidi – back to Benghazi, Libya?
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Picasso’s Art & Practices Picasso’s (1881-1973) greatest skill was in his self publicity and the way the prices for his paintings were managed. This publicity and price manipulation operation was initially managed by promoters like André Level of the La Peau de l’Ours Art Club (Skin of the Bear group) – for a 20% cut to the artist. Picasso dealt with a number of agents initially – but mainly, Clovis Sagot, Ambroise Vollard, Wilhelm Uhde and Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Later this promotions were managed by Picasso himself and Paul Rosenberg, his chief agent and a close cabal of people who used media effectively. First among 20th century artists, ‘Picasso was a gifted self-publicist who knew the rules of media manipulation. He openly encouraged a few hand-picked photographers to inhabit the house and studio.’  Family of Saltimbanques | Pablo Picasso | 1905 | Chester Dale Collection 1963.10.190 | Image courtesy - Copyright © 2011 National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC | Click for larger image. He fairly flattened journalists by the display of his wealth and connections. Nearly forty years later, Christian Zervos, an art historian and writer, recalls Picasso’s wealth, kept in the vaults of Banque de France. After the Great Depression, when many great fortunes in Europe and USA, had been wiped out, Picassos wealth was in ‘packages, piled one atop another to the height, say, of Picasso . . . And do you know what there was inside? Banknotes! Yes, sir, banknotes, the largest denomination that existed in France then, which was enormous.’ Picasso was an ‘extremely rich and famous man who came pretty near to doing whatever he wanted. The Picasso of the 1920s could charm the king of Spain, mesmerise Proust, shrug off Hemingway. He was news wherever he appeared.’ He could switch between various styles – and painted in ‘Neoclassical styles’ to attract “the patronage of aristocratic circles he encountered through his friendships with two impresarios, the poet Jean Cocteau and Eugenia Errazuriz, a woman of great taste and social prestige.’ Not above making compromises between cubism and surrealism, as his buyers and patrons wanted, he rarely gave press conferences. Instead he plied impresarios, journalists with his socializing, and with his ‘uncanny party trick of drawing a portrait upside-down while sitting opposite its subject so that, as the drawing unfolded, it would appear right-side-up to his inevitably amused subject.’ Hundreds of these Picasso drawings and sketches are scattered across Europe and USA, which he gave way for free.  Femme aux cheveux jaunes, December 1931 | From the Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society, New York/Gagosian Gallery | Image courtesy - online.wsj.com | Click for larger image. In this he was ably assisted by the presence of his ballerina wife, Olga Khokhlova, a pretty ballerina from St Petersburg, with Diaghlieff’s ballet company, and his agent Paul Rosenberg. Paul Rosenburg (also an agent of Georges Braque and Henri Matisse) left behind a huge fortune in paintings. Even after losing a vast number of these paintings to the Nazis. Through his son, Alexandre, Paul Rosenberg is the grandfather-in-law of one-time IMF chief, Dominique Strauss Kahn. Picasso’s other significant agents were Ambroise Vollard, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Leonce Rosenberg, and Georges Wildenstein. Picasso’s mistress of eight years, Marie-Thérèse Walter (who he met at a Paris Metro station) and his wife were also the subject of his many paintings. In recent times, Picasso has even been compared to Princess Diana for his self-publicity. The many women in Picasso’s life added a patina of glamour that many of his competitors lacked.
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Leave alone Prophet Mohammed’s portrait, could he have done a Battle of Karbala painting in Qatar?
Money made him contemptuous of India – and Indians
Maqbool Fida Hussain’s disregard of Indian judicial norms antagonized the courts. His refusal to acknowledge his ‘unwarranted’ liberties with ‘Hinduism’, precipitated matters. A simple statement that he will ‘explore’ ‘Hindu’ themes within norms would have been enough. His arrogant and rough shod dismissal of ‘Hindu’ sentiment, gave an opening to right-wing ‘Hindu’ sentiment.
No double-standards. The simple point that the ‘Hindu’ Brigade wanted. Usually this hunting with hounds and running with hares is called hypocrisy.
Though no one ever accused MF Hussain of being a hypocrite.
Gobbling publicity like Pac-man
Maqbool Fida Hussain never evolved from being a hoardings painter. Except when it came to publicity. His dual standards, his blatant contradictions would have easily made him an object of ridicule. Instead he managed respect and consideration. To manage this amount of media attention, Government attention – even international attention, surely, is some evolution. For one single man.
Maqbool Fida Hussain was finally a gargantuan machine that consumed huge amounts of media attention. His ‘artistic’ talents were surely hugely surpassed by his media management. This publicity and MF Hussain strutting his commercial exploitation of ‘Hindu’ constructs provoked the ‘Hindu’ Brigade’s backlash. His cars, or the striptease that he organized on his birthday (some 25 years ago), reeked of ostentation. Private displays of wealth in India will not arouse reaction. But such ceaseless publicity-seeking …
No wonder people called him India’s Picasso.
Reaction on Ground Zero
Indian Muslims have ignored this issue of ‘artistic freedom’ for ‘Muslims’ at ‘Hindu’ expense. But Indian liberal-progressives, steeped in Western polity, see confrontation and conflict as the answer to such ‘artistic’ restrictions.
Negotiated ‘freedom’ as in भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra, is seen as a cop-out.
Related articles
- Modernist Muse: Eugenia Errazuriz Retrospect (apartmenttherapy.com)
- Jesse Hamlin writes about Picasso show at de Young (sfgate.com)
- Exhibition Shows Fierce Art Patronage of the Fierce Steins (nytimes.com)
- U of Sydney’s Picasso sells at auction for US$22M (ctv.ca)
- Picasso painting goes on display in Ramallah (jta.org)
- Indian Painter MF Hussain Dies at 95 (time.com)
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War on drugs – Call it off say leaders
The War on Drugs has now been on for 50 years. No success. (Cartoon by Barry Deutsch; Courtesy - leftycartoons.com). Click for larger image.
A high-level international panel slammed the war on drugs as a failure. Compiled by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, the report concludes that criminalization and repressive measures have failed with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. It called on governments to undertake experiments to decriminalize the use of drugs, especially marijuana, to undermine the power of organized crime.
The 19-member commission includes former presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, Greece’s prime minister, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, former U.S. officials George P. Schultz and Paul Volcker, the writers Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa, and British billionaire Richard Branson.
At a news conference launching the report, former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who chairs the commission, said ending the war on drugs does not imply complete liberalization.
Instead of punishing drug users, the commission argues that governments should “end the criminalization, marginalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs but who do no harm to others.”
Cardoso said the commission called for regulation rather than legalization “because we don’t think that’s the moment’s come for legalization.” Even regulation and decriminalization are not a solution, he said, unless they are accompanied by information, publicity campaigns, and improved health care and treatment. (via High-level commission calls drug war a failure, recommends legal regulation of marijuana – The Washington Post).
Options, anyone?
With 2 crore (20 million) drug users in the USA, prisons overflowing with more than 20 lakh (2 million) prisoners, the American policy establishment is stuck for answers. The 2 crore (20 million) figure is more than 16% of the working-age, labour population of the USA – which stands at 16 crores (160 million). Similarly, when drugs became cheap and abundant in China, thanks to the British, China became the largest consumer of opium in the world.
But …
Interesting case
Why has drugs never become a big problem in India? Even, as Indians are significant producers, Indians themselves are not high on consumption lists – or have significantly profited from it.
2 million prisoners - and another 5 million on trial, parole etc. Does this war make sense? (cartoon courtesy - hightowerlowdown.org). Click for larger image.
The police actions against drug cartels have given little benefit. The heavy-handed legal approach of criminalizing possession of drugs too has yielded no results either.
in the past 40 years, the U.S. government has spent over $2.5 trillion dollars fighting the War on Drugs. Despite the ad campaigns, increased incarceration rates and a crackdown on smuggling, the number of illicit drug users in America has risen over the years and now sits at 19.9 million Americans.
Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair declare(d) last week that the Mexican government had lost control of its own territory. President Felipe Calderón responded by pointing out that his nation shared a border with “the biggest consumer of drugs in the world and the largest supplier of weapons in the world.” (via The War on Drugs).
Touché!
Related articles
- The War on Drugs – A 2ndlook (2ndlook.wordpress.com)
- Stamper delivers critical drug report to Kerlikowske’s office (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- Was Nixon a Drug Warrior or a Reformer? (reason.com)
- The war on drugs’ bitter blowback | Amy Goodman (guardian.co.uk)
Guns & Crime
Crime Stats - Top 18 countries (Source - http://www.nationmaster.com). Click for source interactive graph.
Anglo-Saxon systems
Interestingly, UK and USA, two countries with Anglo-Saxon system of jurisprudence, have the highest crime incidence.
But the surprise element is India.
India – with the largest number of poor people. More than in sub-Saharan Africa. With also the largest arsenal of firearms outside the US. Most of these guns are unlicensed – and logically, a number of these guns are with the poor. Another newspaper reported that the cost of these illegal firearms is less than US$100 or Rs.4500.
India had the world’s second-largest civilian gun arsenal, with an estimated 46 million firearms outside law enforcement and the military, though this represented just four guns per 100 people there. China, ranked third with 40 million privately held guns, had 3 firearms per 100 people.
Germany, France, Pakistan, Mexico, Brazil and Russia were next in the ranking of country’s overall civilian gun arsenals. (via U.S. most armed country with 90 guns per 100 people | Reuters).
Iceberg ahoy
India with the lowest police-to-population ratio and the highest police-to-illegal-guns ratio. Either crime levels must be high, or imprisonment levels have to be stratospheric.
Strangely, none of these ‘logical’ things are happening. Crime is at low-to-average levels, imprisonment is at a global low, police force is seriously undermanned – and firearms are common.
What gives?
Related articles
- Listing Gun Owners Might Help Criminals (economix.blogs.nytimes.com)
- The headache that is Pakistan (quicktake.wordpress.com)
- Soldiers find 88 guns in former Mexican mayor’s home (guardian.co.uk)
- Mexico wants to sue U.S. gun makers (cbsnews.com)
Karl Marx on the opium trade
Faced with a labour crisis after slave revolts, Europe (specially England) needed alternatives for a new 'slavery' model. A fugitive theorist - Karl Marx gave a model for 'slavery'. Capitalists and capitalist nations of Europe loved – especially the USA.. Click for bigger image.
Marx on the Opium trade
Some 150 years later, Karl Marx’s commentary on the opium trade remains relevant.
Much loved by the capitalists of his time, Karl Marx analyzed opium trade well.
Nurtured by the East India Company, vainly combated by the Central Government at Pekin, the opium trade gradually assumed larger proportions, until it absorbed about $2,500,000 in 1816. The throwing open in that year of the Indian commerce gave a new and powerful stimulus to the operations of the English contrabandists.
In 1820, the number of chests smuggled into China increased to 5,147; in 1821 to 7,000, and in 1824 to 12,639. Meanwhile, the Chinese Government, at the same time addressed threatening remonstrances to the foreign merchants, punished the Hong Kong merchants, (with) more stringent measures. The final result, like that in 1794, was to drive the opium depots from a precarious to a more convenient basis of operations.
The trade shifted hands, and passed to a lower class of men, prepared to carry it on at all hazards and by whatever means. Thanks to the greater facilities thus afforded, the opium trade increased during the ten years from 1824 to 1834 from 12,639 to 21,785 chests.
The year 1834 marks an epoch in opium trade. The East India Company lost its privilege of trading (and) had to discontinue and abstain from all commercial business whatever. It being thus transformed from a mercantile into a merely government establishment, the trade to China became completely thrown open to English private enterprise which pushed on with such vigour that, in 1837, 39,000 chests of opium, valued at $25,000,000, were successfully smuggled into China, despite the desperate resistance of the Celestial Government.
We cannot leave without singling one flagrant self-contradiction of the Christianity-canting and civilization-mongering British Government. In its imperial capacity it affects to be a thorough stranger to the contraband opium trade, and even to enter into treaties proscribing it.
Yet, in its Indian capacity, it forces the opium cultivation upon Bengal, to the great damage of the productive resources of that country; compels one part of the Indian ryots to engage in the poppy culture; entices another part into the same by dint of money advances; keeps the wholesale manufacture of the deleterious drug a close monopoly in its hands; watches by a whole army of official spies its growth, its delivery at appointed places, its inspissation and preparation for the taste of the Chinese consumers, its formation into packages especially adapted to the conveniency of smuggling, and finally its conveyance to Calcutta, where it is put up at auction at the Government sales, and made over by the State officers to the speculators, thence to pass into the hands of the contrabandists who land it in China.
The chest costing the British Government about 250 rupees is sold at the Calcutta auction mart at a price ranging from 1,210 to 1,600 rupees. But, not yet satisfied with this matter-of-fact complicity, the same Government, to this hour, enters into express profit and loss accounts with the merchants and shippers, who embark in the hazardous operation of poisoning an empire.
The Indian finances of the British Government have, in fact, been made to depend not only on the opium trade with China, but on the contraband character of that trade. Were the Chinese Government to legalize the opium trade simultaneously with tolerating the cultivation of the poppy in China, the Anglo-Indian exchequer would experience a serious catastrophe. While openly preaching free trade in poison. it secretly defends the monopoly of its manufacture. Whenever we look closely into the nature of British free trade, monopoly is pretty generally found to lie at the bottom of its “freedom.” (via Karl Marx in New York Daily Tribune Articles On China, 1853-1860 Free Trade and Monopoly; linking text in parentheses supplied; parts excised for brevity and relevance).
Related articles
- ‘Opium financed British rule in India’ (quicktake.wordpress.com)
- Raw Opium: documentary trailer (boingboing.net)
- Karl Marx, part 4: ‘Workers of the world, unite!’ | Peter Thompson (guardian.co.uk)
- Karl Marx, part 1: Religion, the wrong answer to the right question (guardian.co.uk)
‘Opium financed British rule in India’
Elephants in the room. (from the Non Sequitur series of cartoons by Wiley Miller). Click for larger image.
Under the British Raj, an enormous amount of opium was being exported out of India until the 1920s.
Before the British came, India was one of the world’s great economies. For 200 years India dwindled and dwindled into almost nothing.
Once I started researching into it, it was kind of inescapable – all the roads led back to opium.
I was looking into it as I began writing the book about five years ago. Like most Indians, I had very little idea about opium.
It is not a coincidence that 20 years after the opium trade stopped, the Raj more or less packed up its bags and left. India was not a paying proposition any longer. (via BBC NEWS | South Asia | ‘Opium financed British rule in India’).
Poor Indy Joe
Amitav Ghosh, a trained anthropologist and historian with a doctorate from Oxford University, did not know about the opium trade by the British Raj. The West has done a great job of hiding elephants in the room.
Does the average Indy Joe have a chance?
Birth of a new religion
But there is any layer to this problem. A new religion. It is called Westernization. ‘Modern’ Indians can be satisfied with perception and propaganda. Easier to digest, I presume.
At this rate, India will become another case of ‘forget-nothing-learn-nothing’. So enamored with the new religion of ‘Westernization’ are we, that no criticism will be accepted or tolerated.
Many ‘educated’ Indians have come to believe that the West is a friend of India – or has answers or solutions for India. Forget about India.
Does West have an answer to their own problems.
Related articles
- Raw Opium: documentary trailer (boingboing.net)
Global Health Survey – Ghost In The Machine
Map of international healthcare attitudes - LSE-BUPA 12 country study
Around 84 per cent of Britons are drinkers – way ahead of the lowest nation, India, where just 27 per cent ever have a tipple – compared with the international average of 71 per cent. (via Why we are the world’s booziest nation: Britons drink more regularly than any other country | Mail Online).
This report by Daily Mail was widely distributed in the Indian print and online media. The Daily Mail report was itself based on a survey of 12 countries, conducted by London School of Economics (LSE), for BUPA, an insurance corporation – with India coverage also.
What happens when more than 500 million have close to zero family life.
Data before doubt
Since this report came from IANS, further verification was required.
There are a few obvious areas where discrepancies can possibly come into in this survey. For instance, survey possibly measured consumption trends of Western alcoholic beverages.
After all traditional Indian alcoholic beverages are produced in every town and village. In Indian society, orthodox restrictions on consumption of alcoholic beverages apply to less than 30%-35% of the population (Brahmins, Vaishyas and Muslims).
For the balance 65%-70% of the population restrictions on consumption of alcoholic beverages don’t apply. Additionally, there are traditional home-brews that are not possibly reported, measured or estimated. Home brews made like tharra (from sugarcane juice), tadi, arakh (from palm tree sap), daaru (from mahua flowers, hadia, chuak, sonti, (rice-based), chhaang (grain based-barley, millet or rice) pheni (from kaju fruit), grapes, are common all over the country.
Substance use and addiction research in India by Pratima Murthy et al. Click to download PDF file.
But going by some independent studies, this figure seems to hold up. A study which uses a wide data-set, reports 21.4% alcohol usage across India.
Previous posts on tobacco consumption and narcotics have examined this issue from historical basis.
Apparently, the Indian family structure does a better job than the State – in crime control despite a huge illegal gun population and a small police force. Low tobacco consumption in spite of being a large tobacco producer.
Most narcotic drugs were discovered in India – yet drug abuse remains low in India. During the 1960-1990 period, when gold trade was severely affected, the drugs-transshipment-for-gold pipeline sparked a global crime wave. India became the conduit for drugs from the Golden Triangle and the Golden Crescent. Yet drug consumption remained a minor problem. Or the huge commercial sex and pornography industry in the West. But, then the Desert Bloc needs people to be ‘single – and far from home’.
Unlike भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra.
Related Articles
- A third of Britons spend £2,555 over their pay (independent.co.uk)
- Letter: A Public Health Pioneer (nytimes.com)
- Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra… – Pune, India (travelpod.com)
The Maya of Pandemics
The pattern. Blame Africa, Asia for such unprovable theories. Announce aid programme. Continue intervention, meddling, and neo-colonial hold over power. (Cartoon by Signe Wilkinson; Courtesy cartoonistgroup.com). Click for larger image.
Excuse to meddle
NDM-1 (New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase 1) superbug story is too much like ‘AIDS-started-in-Africa’ kind of hoax.
While Hong-Kong and China were being targeted for swine-flu, the real story lay, South of USA, in a US-owned slaughter house.
An 86-year-old Ontario man was found to be carrying bacteria resistant to most antibiotics because of NDM-1, or New Delhi metallo-1, an enzyme that alters the DNA of various types of bacteria. NDM-1 is endemic in India and Pakistan and has spread worldwide due to global travel.
But the patient, who was admitted to hospital and then a rehabilitation centre after suffering a stroke last October, had not travelled outside southwestern Ontario for the last decade. None of the man’s family members or other close contacts were carrying the superbug, nor had any been to parts of the world where NDM-1 is widespread.
“So it’s really unfortunately a mystery in terms of his source, and it certainly suggests that he acquired it here in the southwestern Ontario region,” said Dr. Susan Poutanen, an infectious disease physician at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto.
“So whether it was in Toronto, whether it was outside of Toronto, whether it was in hospital or whether it was in the community, at this point we really can’t say,” added Poutanen, principal investigator of a study describing the case. (via Case of NDM-1 superbug appears to be first acquired within Canada: researchers | 05/30/2011 | Sheryl Ubelacker, Health Reporter | The Canadian Press).
With a large commercial sex worker population in EU and USA, a flourishing pornographic industry, significant drug usage, the West is the ideal candidate for origin of AIDS. (Cartoonist - Signe Wilkinson; courtesy - cartoonistgroup.com). Click for larger image.
Another hot-air balloon
For the last two years, India was held responsible for this ‘creation’. First detected and peddled by British ‘scientists’, this super-bug ‘discovery’ is hogging media attention.
Western medical science trying to show certainty and assurance, where none can be possible (currently), uses these tools for propaganda purposes. Truth maybe real victim of methodology.
Maya it is.
Related articles
- How Did a Superbug Infect New Delhi’s Drinking Water Supply? (healthland.time.com)
- Superbug spreads in Delhi sewers (newscientist.com)
- The Truth About Flu Pandemics (everydayhealth.com)
- NDM 1-Indian Social Scientist(!?) questions Indian Objection. (ramanan50.wordpress.com)
- What Are Superbugs Doing In Antarctica? (huffingtonpost.com)
- Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Found in 37 U.S. States (usnews.com)
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