A month after Mumbai, 4 years after Tsunami...differences in response

The news paper reports are today replete with people paying homage to Mumbai terror attack victims as well as  recollection and homage of those who died in the tsunami 2004.


One natural disaster that saw, in response, a resurgence of human compassion and voluntarism while the other disaster wrought by humans led astray is responded to with anger and animosity. As the year comes to an end, war on Pakistan is increasingly being spoken to as 'when' and not as 'if'. Pakistan itself seems to be under greater  belief that India will go on a war with them. 


The war is being already fought by the media.  The media in Pakistan seems to be working overtime now.  I am sure that makes better business sense, imagine Indians had terror attack and could get good TRP for a television for a week maybe, Pakistan is selling the response to terror and getting probably better TRP (or whatever is the equivalent there) for a month. 


Modern technology and economic organization that provided Kasav and his people with easy access to guns, grenades, global phones and positioning systems has also provided the media in both countries with information on weapon capabilities, about the N processes, about the preparedness for attack, minutes for response, about weapons and their uses...the amount of knowledge we possess on instruments of violence seems endless. 


Many Indians feel that we should show that we too, 'know' how to use these tools of violence, Pakistanis feel that they should show their superior 'knowledge' on the tools of violence, while fanatics on both sides tease each other about each others' ability to use such 'knowledge'.


If the sense of security of a nation comes out of its knowledge of violent tools and methods, it must be a extremely violent society to begin with. I don't think our knowledge (and possession)  of tools of violence provides us with the sense of security.  If the response to the Mumbai attack results in us getting increasingly aggressive in acquiring, possessing and exhibiting (using) tools of mass violence, then we only perpetuate the violence, not work against it. Response to human pain cannot be in causing more human pain, response to the sense of hurt in a nation's pride cannot be solved by hurting another nation's pride. We did not win our Independence by hurting the pride of the colonials. They did not become our 'enemies' despite causing greater damage to us and killing more people for longer duration. 


I don't think India is a violent nation, it does not come to us naturally to be violent. Violent people are not majority in this country, violence does not stay in power too long either. Our tendency is to gravitate towards peaceful existence, and what we tend to, is our true stable nature, our own character.  This is defined by the traditions we have built and the leaders we have come to revere. However, we don't seem to have created either pride in this character or suitable methods of applying it in all situations. Gandhi successfully applied it against the Colonials, and since then it has surfaced once in awhile in different policies almost inadvertently.



As the year draws to the end, the image of the Mumbai attack will overshadow all other images and moments for most of us. The response to this attack on the nation's pride could unite us as a nation. We could be united  as a mob, faceless, identity-less, lynching an unequal but protesting and fighting 'enemy' or we could be united with an understanding of our true character that bring in spontaneous bonding and could make us stronger. Such understanding was seen after the tsunami, in the way many Indians bonded and worked together with complete strangers, in an understanding of compassion and peaceful co-existence. Our responses then were highly innovative, they were spontaneous and made us stronger. Our response now? 

The last catalogue?

It is rare that the release of a catalogue of a book shop can be a reason for celebration. But, Other India Bookstore is not your ordinary book store. It is probably the best alternate book store in the country today. From alternate Education to Philosophy, Earthworms to Gandhi, every form of useful idea that has not caught the eye of the mainstream publisher, are published by the Other India Books, the publishing wing of the Other India Bookstore. The Bookstore itself, in Mapusa, Goa is a delight for activists and alternate thinkers alike. A small book shop tucked away in the corner of a shopping complex with a friendly attendant who leaves you to do your browsing at leisure and the most remarkable collection of books on topics that would interest every  book reader of serious kind. It is an experience worth trekking to Mapusa just for the pleasure of it. 


I have had the pleasure of interacting with team and am all excited just to hold and go through the list of books on the Catalogue. The Catalogue itself is written in the characteristic style of Claude Alvares, with generous dose of humour and much wisdom. It must be the only book shop catalogue that people may be willing to pay to read. It is produced in the format of a tabloid to complete the look of a newspaper. 


The current issue has for the first time a group photo of the OIB team and the story of the Bookstore too. For us at Samanvaya it is an important milestone too as three of our publications have been stocked up at the Other India Bookstore and we have made our entry into the Catalogue through them. 


However, like all valuable work in recent times, the Catalogue too comes with a label of 'market for extinction soon' on it. The authors have mentioned that with the growth of the Internet, the current issue of the Catalogue may be the last one. The authors also add that if there are a hundred people protesting against the Catalogue being discontinued, then they may relent and continue with it. Here is one. May this bookstore nor the catalogue ever go extinct. 

Indian Masters: Swami Ranganathananda's centenary

It is not often I blog on individuals who have inspired me. It is very difficult to write and one always finds expressions inadequate.  However, just saw the announcement of a stamp on Swami Ranganathananda and decided to put down associated thoughts for the benefit of those who are not aware of this Master and his work. - R

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The Ramakrishna Math & Mission as a policy does not promote any individual monk of the Order beyond their life time. As an order of monks, whatever personal belongings of each of the monk is cast into the sea after their cremation. So, despite being an order of a large number of monks who have much more to their credit than many of our current day, 'famous' social workers, one may never get to know about their work except when one visits the institutions some of these people have inspired or created. Even then the persona is not provided with the kind of glossy painted aura that is bestowed easily on many celebrities by our media these days.



Despite this institutional self-restraint, some times a stories of monks and their exemplary lives and enormous impact on society does come out. Swami Ranganathananda is one such persona.
The Swami hails from a small village in Kerala and at a very young age was attracted by the ideals of Swami Vivekananda and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. He joined the Ramakrishna Mission and was deputed to be a cook at the Mission centre in Mysore. He says in some of his lectures, how he used to cook and clean and maintain the place while spending the remaining time reading the vedantic literature and Bhagavat Gita. 


The Swami has been in many troubled places at difficult times, including being in the Lahore centre of the Mission at the time of partition and in Rangoon at the time of the Burmese turmoil, he walked back along with many Indians who had to leave their all and walk back to India. His memorial meeting (after his demise a few years back) drew three young men who had attended his lectures on the Bhagavat Gita in the Lahore centre and later have been the Prime Ministers of this country, Manmohan Singh, L.K. Advani and I.K. Gujaral. 


His understanding and interpretation of Vedanta have renewed the interest in this subject among many people. The Swami not merely preached Vedanta, but, practiced it in his daily life too. His commentaries on the Bhagavat Gita for the modern times (in 3 volumes) is one of the most suitable for current times and one can read it for the pleasure of reading. 


His emphasis of the synthesis of knowledge lead many scholars to believe that he was 'modern', however, his engagement with some of the top scientists only convinced him even more on his base of vedanta. Swami has engaged and delivered lectures along some very important scientists and Noble laureates of our times. He is one of the few who could talk about the aesthetic beauty of the upanisad's and the gita apart from their content, like Gandhiji and Swami Vivekananda before him. 


A humble humanist he always had a good word for everyone who visited him, whether they be very young or the high and mighty. I was always struck by the first question he addressed to any young person who did voluntary or social work, 'does it provide you enough money to secure your life?', immediately followed by, 'are your family members happy with you?'. This concern for those who work for the society was something I find to come out of a great compassion towards such people. 


He also has played some significant role in the political sphere, many credit him (though the Ramakrishna Mission has never made any such claims as such) with the important work the Mission did in the North Eastern states as a direct response to the concern on the Chinese infiltration and influence in those parts. 


A great teacher, his lectures on the Upanisads and the Gita (thankfully they are available through the publications by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan) are simple and yet shows his depth of knowledge vast areas. A thorough scholar, many of his writings drew extensively from the Indian traditional scripts and literature also, apart from modern science. His lectures drew large audiences and many read the Gita and Vedanta for the first time after listening to him. Late Dharampalji once remarked that even in the 50s, whenever the Swami lectured, there was a large gathering in Delhi. 


I have had the privilege of interacting with this Master on more than one occasion. We as an organization owe our name to him. It was a publication of one of his lectures, 'India's Vision of Samanvaya' that inspired us to call ourselves by that name. . Later, of course, he blessed our work saying, 'You have the name from me, what more can I bless you with'. The Swami passed away a few years back in his late 90s . His centenary is being celebrated by many individuals and institutions that have been inspired by him. The stamp was released day before in his honour. 

got this simple poster by mail...

Being careful on the cry for war

The joint cry for 'war on terror' that India has to unleash on Pakistan has marched from the periodic rhetoric of political right to a sales pitch for mass media since 26/11. For more than a week now our media seem to precipitate the idea of war in our midst.


The westward looking among us have sucked up duly to this. We want our own version of American War on Terror. We want to be part of that global fight which would lead to  many of us do not know what. 'Cold Start, 'Surgical Strike' are the kind of terms suddenly crowding our media space, seeking to suddenly educate us on offense strategies and technology about which none of us have any clue, I don't.


If the American example has taught us one thing, that is this, you can't win a war on terror by terror alone. They have been made to bleed in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are caught in the quagmire which was set-up by the trumped up war potential with the same 'precision bombing' and other such terms on their television after 9/11. More importantly, hate for America has not decreased in any part of the world. If anything people hate America more. 


The Americans have not gone on 'war on terror' in their own land or that of their neighbours. This too holds an important lesson for us. Pakistan is an extension of India, we cannot root out the virus that is crippling the Pakistani society by destroying part of the society. The 'fundamentalist' virus will remain. India has for long stayed blind to the developments in its vicinity. 


While we have been aware of and engaging in the economies of the western nations, we don't know how many people die of hunger in Afghanistan or Pakistan. While we are proud of our corporates getting listed in NASDAQ or other western markets, we don't know the threats of  local markets in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Burma and other countries of this region (of course many of us don't know some of these facts about our own country, that is a different issue).  If India wages a war in its neighbourhood, the war will drain India forever. We have the Sri Lankan example. A nation waging a war on parts of its own people has been bleeding now for decades and its economy crippled.


Let the feeling of being 'hurt' and 'anger' not lead us to approve or indeed demand a war. We may not be able to afford the consequences. 


The other rhetoric that has emerged from the Mumbai 26/11 is more important. The need to cleanse our system of governance. I had earlier blogged on the need for an Indian character in our response to terror. Two interesting response for that post ensued, (1)  my pointing out the inherent inefficiency in our governance systems was refuted by Joe. He took it as implying inefficiency on the part of the IAS officers. I have nothing against them and do think some of them are amazing individuals. What I implied was that they are often imprisoned by an archaic system that they cannot press F5 on. They have to navigate within the system for their survival. Some perhaps are efficient navigators, but, it cannot be denied that our arms of governance, the legal system, the system of public participation and the method of governance need a far more systemic assessment for their limitations. They have failed to deliver and those of us whose lives are not linked with day to day engagement with this system are the ones feel the impact the least. Indeed most of us who are hurt and angered today are often the least inclined to engage with the system. 
(2) the second response was as a long phone call from Sathya, who said that India has no right to interfere in the affairs of Pakistan, after  all they have a democratically elected government now. I don't agree. Reports make it clear that Pakistani democracy hangs by a thin thread with multiple players holding it up. India cannot today ignore the weakness of Pakistani democracy and demand action out of its government or by the same token denounce the government for inaction and bomb and destroy some of the terrorist places. The Pakistani government can only do the former at its own peril and will have to respond to the later through violence to survive.  A mature approach is to help Pakistan build their democracy, we have ignored their weaknesses for too long only treating it as our strategic advantage. It could be a long haul, but, for too long we have ignored their societal problem through the infiltration of fundamentalism. 


Indian governments have to stand up for a character of this region and build in that in its response to terror.  Currently, there doesn't seem to be a great approach of our own, we are parroting (and indeed being encouraged to) 'our right to respond' because someone else has said it. This is what I had earlier written as lacking in character. If there was a 'Indian response to terror' that was built from fundamentals on the foundations of the Indian world view, then it would be different from that of others and rooted in our own strengths and understanding. I cannot accept that a civilizational entity that prides its record of not going to war for over 5000 years lacks the courage or vision to come up with its own response to terror.


Finally, any war in any part of the world today means more production and marketing of weapons of war. There are businesses that are dependent on production and servicing of war machines which rightfully look at any semblance of a new large scale war as a good opportunity. As part of their marketing strategy, one cannot find fault with them if they encourage the parties to move in the direction of the war. It is important to see how much of our public opinion on war is being influenced by such elements.  It is important to see how much of the Pakistani public opinion on war is influenced by such elements. Being victims of such influence is something we share now and that could be a good point to start a dialogue. 

Why hasn't anyone banned 'Rail Roko Dharna' yet?

The Indian Railways transports large amount of our population from home to work every day and reaches much larger number of essential commodities for our people. It qualifies as an 'essential service' certainly. 


So, why do we allow people to stop trains from going on time just to show their anger and dissent on one thing or another? Why does the state and the railway department permit people this photo opportunity?


Yesterday noticed yet another 'rail roko' announcement in a large poster, a group has announced that it would stop train to show their protest in different towns on different days! And has its leader stopping another train, sure enough for some other issue on an earlier occasion. It was as though the stopping of train was a birth right of any political party or movement for any kind of protest? Why does the nation state and department allow people's essential service to be held at ransom?


One can understand the spontaneous gesture of road roko that often happens in our rural areas where a group of  villagers resort to it to ensure that people passing by their village pay attention to the status of the village, but, a pre-planned, announced (and celebrated) kind of rail roko does not stem from the same spirit. It was as though the state was happy as long as people were dissenting in certain ways that it can watch and manage.

response to crisis: what is our character?

Each person responds to crisis based on his character. When institutions respond, they do so based on the characters that has been built into by their founders as well as the nature of its current occupants. When the staff of Taj hotel responded the way they did in putting their life in front of that of their guests, they represented a culture of safe guarding their guests interests first, this could have come from the management, the promoters and the culture they created and which the staff internalized.


When the government responds the way it did, it represents the impotence of the governance machinery as well the incompetence of the people currently occupying it. Strategically the political blunders are unimaginable. 


1) What the purpose of summoning the ISI chief? Apart from the notional victory of having 'summoned' the chief of another country's intelligence agency, what does it provide the Indian Government? Did the PM actually believe that the ISI chief will come and provide RAW or whoever with all the information they need? To me it seems like asking for the impossible. We have forever blamed ISI for so many terror attacks in India, if that were true, then why ask them for help? If that were not true, then, what purpose will it serve?


2) Rushing the foreign secretary to brief Mr. Obama seems to be an equally unimaginative initiative. USA is not your larger governing structure. Why do it now? What purpose does it serve?  The USA is looking at the rest of the world to bail itself out currently. The days of the uni-polar world is over, the very attack is the proof of that. You don't need to report to the 'boss' every time. You are the boss now. Can't you act like one? 


We have not even called for a emergency meeting of the UN to pass a resolution against Pakistan, to declare it as a terror state. We have not even asked Pakistan to hand over LeT functionaries to us, instead wait and watch while the initiative has been wrested by them and their President makes a statement that, 'we will act based on the evidence'. If we believe that the current government in Pakistan is all 'goody- goody' then, we should have invited Zardari to Mumbai as a gesture and let him be grilled in public by the very articulate media. If we believe in retaliation, we should have said so straight away like Bush did after 9/11. 


Instead, the entire international strategic initiative has been wasted. Now it is down to the bureaucrats who will wrangle over the syntax of what to write for some 'joint statement' with US government to be and what were the exact words used by the President of Pakistan at the time of his conversation with the India PM.  


A moment when the entire international political focus was on India, by not making our statement, ANY statement on terrorism that reflects our own internal character, we have failed to stand for ourselves or stand up for ANYTHING. We have reduced a moment of significance to a wimpy, unimaginative, non-committal bureaucratic wishy-washy kind of nonsense thereby losing an opportunity to have our say in global fight on terror. This is unpardonable.


If this is the global scene, locally we are no better. Shivraj Patil has forever been criticized, and if you have to change him immediately after such an attack, it only gives a sense of success to the terrorists. When multiple-failures result in such a major crisis, it is not time to blame each other and call for peoples' heads to roll, it is time for a very serious review and corrective action. How is Chidambaram better than Shivraj Patil? And isin't the finance ministry equally important? Only a week ago, PC made a statement that he is watching the global financial crisis 24x7, now what happens? or does it mean that he is dispensable in the larger scheme of things in the finance ministry? 


Character is the what is lacking in the way this government has handled the crisis. Character requires conviction, conviction of some sort, any sort. That, we have found wanting in a major way.   


Systemically we need to look/ re-look at many of our safe guard institutions for us to understand why we fail every time:

1) When Intelligence agencies give a notice that there is a possibility of a terror strike, who delivers this note? to whom? what is the responsibility of that person? what is he supposed to do with it? how?

2) How are police men trained? how do they learn how to tackle emerging methods of crime and weapons?
3) Who is responsible for bringing down and escalating security to a person or institution based on whatever intelligence he/she possesses? Is there is a process in place which is governed by certain rules or does this person do that automatically? If there are such processes, how frequently are these reviewed and updated?
4) Who need to communicate to citizens of a city when the city faces crisis of any sort? From the government and bureaucracy? The problem is no one was talking to the citizen of the city of Mumbai except the news channel announcers and they were competing with each other all the time
5) There was absolute pandamonium the other day when media were finally permitted to question someone after one of the operations was supposedly over, not realizing that the operation was still on. What are the rules that govern the government's interaction with the visual media, particularly those that are broadcasting live during a time of crisis? Why was there not one centralized government source talking to the media, and, just about any one and everyone making statements (poor RR Patil lost his job for talking too much)
6) Who determines/governs the behaviour of the media in such times? While on news channel was supposed to have gone over board there was another self-congratulating itself all the time about how restrained it was. What are the rules that govern the telecast behaviour of the visual media?
7) What are the factors that determine who attends to a terror situation and how? Why did senior officers of the police walk in the front to take the bullets? Not to belittle the life of the junior officer or take credit from the senior ones, but, what are the governing principles under which a police officer decides that so and so has to attend to a certain issue or that he has to directly attend to it himself?
8) The CM of Maharashtra is supposed to have told the Home Minister from the Centre that he would require 200 commandoes, how did he arrive at this number? who does the estimation of the need of forces in any situation and based on what factors?
9) Many have questioned Modi's remarks made at time when the operations were still on in front of the hotel, the question is what are the reasons to let a politician to get a photo opportunity, is there any law that prescribes how far a politician can go near a place of terrorist operation even as the rescue work was on?
10) There have been far too many questions about NSG, its operational requirements and resources made available to it, etc. One does not have to go into it, but, if these are the only trained people to tackle terrorist attacks in the country, then, what is the level of preparedness in which they are maintained? Mr. Dutt, their chief in on of the many tele-interviews said, 'you don't expect this kind of thing to happen, so, it takes times to get ready' or words to that effect. If the chief of the only force trained to tackle terrorists in this country says that then there is something terribly wrong. 
11) Everyone is surprised about the terrorist coming in from the sea, how many scenarios do our anti-terrorist groups prepare themselves against? Particularly in terms of urban warfare? How frequently and does the role of other coordinating agencies well defined in this process? What role do political leaders have to play in all this?
12) When there are so many ex-servicemen and police officers so readily available for the visual media to share their experience and knowledge for that 2 minutes of highly interrupted and often irritating public space, how and where does the government system utilize this knowledge?


How much amount of detailing we do in our governance is based on how much we understand its design, its character. We have a borrowed design that is out dated and patched up to cover its inadequacies. Most bureaucrats think changing the system is not the rule, adhering to it is; thereby making any changes based on response to external changes as an almost impossible task. Obviously, what we have not created, we cannot change. The one character that represents our bureaucracy that is its inability to respond to situations, any situation, particularly crisis AS PART OF ITS DUTY, not because few exceptional individuals STEPPED ASIDE THEIR DUTY to respond to the situation. 

P.S.: I post this with much trepidation, the web and blog space is filled with too many people voicing their opinion on the terror attack. I am worried that all this energy should dissipate our anger as just words and not as actions. There are not many actions possible at the individual level at the time of a terror attack, but, much before and after and all the time. If some of the anger is directed towards that, it would be a productive energy rather than wasted in mere digital symbols that would be archived automatically in a month.