Mahatma Gandhi: A rare English recording

There were only two occasions when Mahatma Gandhi was recorded speaking in English. Once in the 1930s and the second, especially historic because it was just a few months before Gandhi was assassinated, was made on April 2, 1947. This second speech has been largely lost to the world. Recently, however, the second speech surfaced in — of all places — downtown Washington. Shankar Vedantam in the Washington Post:

Gandhi’s speech — made with the uneven diction of an elderly man who sounds as though he has lost most of his teeth — had the same themes he visited over and over throughout his life: the importance of nonviolence, the eradication of the caste system in Hindu society, amity between South Asia’s Hindus and Muslims, and a world united against violence and exploitation.

“A friend asked yesterday, did I believe in one world?” Gandhi says at one point in the speech. “Of course I believe in World One. And how can I possibly do otherwise? . . . You can redeliver that message now in this age of democracy, in the age of awakening of the poorest of the poor.”

Click here for the rest of the story and here to listen to the rare recording:

Sam Bahadur (1914-2008)

Former Indian Army chief Field Marshal Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw, who scripted India’s 1971 military victory over Pakistan that led to the creation of Bangladesh, died at the military hospital in Wellington in Tamil Nadu early Friday after developing acute bronchopneumonia. He was 94.

From India Today:

In 1942 at the height of the World War II a fierce battle was raging in Myanmar, then Burma, at the Sittang Bridge. A company of the Indian Army was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the invading Japanese forces for the capture of a position, which was critical for the control of the bridge. The young company commander was exhorting his troops when his stomach was riddled by a machine gun burst. Afraid that his company would be left leaderless if he were evacuated, he continued fighting till he collapsed.

His company won the day and the general commanding the Indian forces arrived at the scene to congratulate the soldiers. On seeing the critically wounded commander, he announced the immediate award of the Military Cross — the young officer was not expected to survive much longer and the Military Cross is not awarded posthumously. Thus began a historic military career that spanned the Indo-Pak wars and the Sino-Indian conflict, the wounded captain surviving to become India’s first field marshal.

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A speech by Sam Manekshaw at his old school Sherwood College in 1969:

Your Grace, the Metropolitan of India, My Lord Bishop of Lucknow, Mr. Principal, ladies and young gentlemen of Sherwood:

Yesterday evening when my A.D.C. told me that I would have to speak here, I was horrified. I thought the Principal had asked me to come and join the celebrations; I did not realize he wanted me to sing for my supper! Believe me, as I stand here, I am terrified. Those near me can almost hear my knees knocking and my teeth chattering. For eight years in Sherwood, I was at the receiving end.

It is customary on these occasions for the guest speaker to give a learned discourse or advice to young gentlemen. It is not my fault that, although I received my early education in Sherwood, I am not learned. Sir, I am fit neither to give you a learned discourse nor advice, I really want to tell you what Sherwood has done for me.

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Manekshaw’s war

Dawn Magazine, Karachi, carried this piece by Commodore (retired) Najeeb Anjum in December, 2007:

It is a reminder of the failure of leadership at the time as exemplified by Yahya Khan and his coterie in their handling of the worst crisis the country ever faced.

The Indo-Pak war of 1971 culminated in the creation of Bangladesh. Ironically, General Yahha Khan, Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army (re-designated as COAS in 1972) and President of Pakistan at the time of independence was a staff officer at Military Operations Directorate as a major and General SAM Manekshaw, the COAS of the Indian Army was posted as GSO-I as a Lt-Col. It was ordained that these two erstwhile compatriots would fight a full scale war against each other on 1971. Manekshaw showed uncommon ability to motivate his forces, coupling it with a mature war strategy and the war ended with Pakistan’s unconditional surrender.

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India’s ‘Dalit Queen’ Mayawati wants short tribute £500,000 taller

From The Times:

She may be an “untouchable” and only 5ft (1.5m) tall but Mayawati - India’s “Dalit Queen” and would-be Prime Minister - wants people to know that she is a giant among politicians.

The chief minister of the state of Uttar Pradesh has ordered officials to tear down her 12ft (3.7m) bronze statue and replace it with a larger one at a cost of almost £500,000.

Diwakar Tripathi, a spokesman for Mayawati (who uses only one name), said that the statue was removed this month - 45 days after its erection - because it was 3ft shorter than others in the centre of Lucknow, the state capital. The new one was 15ft tall and weighed 20 tonnes - the same as the others, he told The Times.

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Previously in AW: Mayawati: Untouchable and unstoppable

India plans its own colossus

Mike Nizza in The Lede on the Maharashtra government’s grand plan to build a huge statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji (1674-1680) at an estimated cost of $4.5 million. When complete, it will be taller than the Statue of Liberty.

When a proposal emerged to build an immense statue on an island off the coast of one of India’s largest cities, there was no point in denying a nod to New York: “It is true that the Statue of Liberty was perhaps an inspiration a little bit,” one official told Reuters.

While the technical specifications differ just a little — the new statue is to be clad in bronze, not copper, and to rise about 4 feet higher — there are big differences in theme and posture.

Lady Liberty welcomes the tired, poor and huddled masses, but the new statue off Mumbai will feature Chhatrapati Shivaji, a 17th-century warrior king who has lately been embraced by nativist parties who oppose immigration. And where Liberty stands on her own feet, Shivaji will be depicted riding a horse, the International Business Times reports.

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The Internationalilst

Newsweek International Editor Fareed Zakaria, who has written a new book, The Post-American World, on the future of the Muslim world, whether American kids are decadent, and what the United States can learn from the Swiss. From 02138 magazine:

Q:You are responsible for covering the entire globe. How do you prioritize?

A: The most important thing is the column. What subject should I choose? Do I have anything value-added to say about it? How do I report on it properly? Who do I call? What should I read?

All these things feed into each other. When we are deciding the cover for Newsweek International, it’s like having meetings with an intelligence agency. There are all these people around the world saying, ‘This is what’s interesting.’ So then we decide what the most interesting is.

But I also step back, every now and then, and consider: If I were to write a book, what are the broad themes here? Is there a big story people are missing?

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Mr Acceptable, at last

L.K. Advani’s transformation from the foremost symbol of political untouchability to the kindly elder unafraid of defying party orthodoxy appears complete, writes Swapan Dasgupta in Tehelka

It is rare for a public figure to embark on a fresh and daunting journey of conquest at the age of 80. No less audacious is his ability to invoke a personal statement of a fulfilling life spanning the history of India since World War II to lay claim on the national ethos - what might be loosely described as the Indian Creed. But then, LK Advani is not your run-of-the-mill politician. An intrepid traveller, the tireless charioteer who revels in innovative political explorations, he was once described by someone as the “best prime minister India never had”, if not India’s most misunderstood man. Last month, amid a media blitz that left the world of politics and letters gawking with envy, he began the quest to make himself better understood and claim the prize that has eluded him for long - the post of Prime Minister of India.

There are two ways in which LK Advani’s autobiography My Country, My Life can be read. The first is to approach it as a primary source of contemporary history by a person who was either an important decision- maker or had a ringside view of political developments from the early-1970s. The second is to read the 942-page tome as a road map to the mind of a man who has played a seminal role in reshaping the political contours of India. Those who approached the autobiography as a titillating tell-all account of Indian politics have understandably been disappointed.

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Jaguar’s new boss

In The Telegraph (UK), William Langley traces Ratan Tata’s lineage to discover a man of patrician bearing and why he is in such a hurry to leave his stamp on the world

It is tempting to look at Ratan Tata, the Indian tycoon whose company last week took over Land Rover and Jaguar, as a symbol of a nation’s headlong charge towards economic superpowerdom. This, we suspect, is how it tends to be with those pesky, nouveau riche Asians; one minute you’ve never heard of them, the next they are snaffling up all your best-known firms, and treating themselves to large, stucco-fronted mansions in Kensington.

Ratan, 70, and his faintly mysterious Bombay-based family, do not fit this caricature at all. Resoundingly non-nouveau, the Tatas have moved among India’s business aristocracy since Queen Victoria was on the throne, and while the last 150 years have seen a steady growth in their power, wealth and reach, the family is famed for never having done anything even remotely headlong.

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LK before he leaps

Vir Sanghvi in the Hindustan Times says L.K. Advani’s memoirs, My Country, My Life, is a readable, rewarding and, often, racy account of his political career, yet the book’s silence on key events is telling

Anybody who has ever interviewed LK Advani will know that he is an unusual Indian politician in the sense that he does not shy away from discussing issues. He is unusual also in that he is comfortable with ideas and happy to conduct an intellectual argument. If he has faults, they lie in his sensitive nature. He is remarkably thin-skinned for a politician, will often take needless offence and equally, will be easily and tearfully overwhelmed. Plus, he is reluctant to cause hurt. Rarely will he say anything bad about any of his colleagues even when the truth might do him more good than the evasions he sometimes resorts to.

Advani’s strengths and weaknesses are captured in his new book, My Country, My Life, (Rupa). It is a readable, rewarding and often racy account of his political career. Written from the heart, it is part-memoir and part-manifesto. But he pulls his punches. And so, his account of his time at the head of his party is only half-complete. Many of the mysteries of the last ten years are not solved and, frequently, we can only guess at the truth by what is left unsaid.

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Also, read our previous post, Inside L.K. Advani’s Mind, here

Pakistan’s new PM: Not a ‘yes man’

Eminent Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir in The News:

The new prime minister of Pakistan has the distinction of saying a big no to both President Pervez Musharraf and late Benazir Bhutto many times. Yousuf Raza Gilani (photo) has always been loyal to his party but he is not a “yes man” and that is the quality which impressed PPP Co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari a lot.

Zardari nominated Gilani for the post of prime minister because he is sure that his nominee will not take any dictation either from the president or from any powerful diplomat. Only Zardari can take the risk of bringing a defiant person to the office of prime minister who may one day say no even to him.

Zardari remembers that Gilani said no to his leader Benazir Bhutto twice when he was Speaker of the National Assembly from 1993 to 1996. Gillani issued the production orders of some opposition MPs in 1994 who were in jail. Prime Minister Benazir was not ready to implement the orders of her own Speaker. She wanted to punish Sheikh Rashid Ahmad who used filthy language against her many times. Gilani took a stand. He argued that his orders must be implemented, otherwise he will resign from the post. Finally his orders were implemented.

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And from BBC: By his own admission, Pakistan’s Prime Minister-designate Yusuf Raza Gillani, has not been one of the “good boys” of President Pervez Musharraf’s regime. The regime tried to coerce him into joining many of his Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) colleagues in switching sides. But Mr Gillani refused to do a deal with Mr Musharraf and his loyalty is much admired within his party. More:

Why Musharraf must go

Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, who teaches colonial history and political economy at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, in The Times of India:

Over the past few weeks, Pakistanis have been suffering from prolonged power outages, a major reduction in the supply of gas, and a dramatic shortage of wheat flour. The situation reached crisis-like proportions about two weeks before February 18 and while things have not deteriorated further, they have not got much better either.

This is ironic given that the regime’s most celebrated success has been the ‘economic revival’ that it has engineered. Since October 1999 the government has initiated a series of economic ‘reform’ measures, which have met with the approval of the IMF and World Bank. The regime has been rewarded, particularly after the September 11 attacks in America, with massive inflows of financial assistance.

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Pakistan’s kingmaker — or next king?

Asif Ali Zardari speaks to the BBC’s Aamer Ahmed Khan on Pakistan’s next prime minister, his new friendship with Nawaz Sharif and an ongoing enmity with President Musharraf

One month after Pakistan’s landmark elections, the country still has no prime minister.

The man who is playing a key role in deciding who will hold this post is Benazir Bhutto’s widower, Asif Ali Zardari, who now heads her Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). He has emerged from the 18 February elections as one of the most powerful politicians in the country. The nondescript street where he lives in Islamabad is little different from any other apart from the large blocks of concrete strewn randomly across it to prevent any suicide car bomb attackers.

Numerous men in black, with the word Benazir blazoned across their T-shirts, efficiently frisk anyone who enters the street.

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Inside L.K. Advani’s mind

The Times of India carries excerpts from BJP leader L.K. Advani’s forthcoming autobiography, My Country, My Life

The unexpected defeat of the BJP-led NDA in the May 2004 parliamentary elections has brought a new challenge before my party. I have acknowledged my own share of responsibility for the setback. In retrospect, I feel that many things could have been done differently. These lapses made the vital difference between victory for the Congress and defeat for the BJP. And numerically, what a narrow difference it really was!

Nevertheless, the BJP’s defeat cannot mask the truth about one of its most enduring achievements – namely, my party’s success in transforming India’s polity from being dominated by a single party to one that is now essentially bipolar.

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And, in Outlook, Saba Naqvi Bhaumik says the release of the book on Advani’s past is a gesture towards the future

Clearly, Lal Krishna Advani believes that the time has come to put the many controversies of his life to rest or at the very least give his version of events. As a public relations exercise, his 985-page book, My Country My Life, should reap him dividends. It clears the air on many issues involving him and the BJP. Moreover, the release of the book has been used to reaffirm his position in the party, get the endorsement of the RSS and larger Sangh parivar, and restate his acceptability to existing and potential NDA allies.

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Anything for an unquiet life

Even before she was out of her teens, Irene Khan had seen enough hate and cruelty for several lifetimes. Rather than run away from injustice, she decided to fight it head on. The head of Amnesty International talks to Kira Cochrane. In The Guardian, UK:

As a studious, idealistic teenager, living with her family in Dhaka, Irene Khan witnessed conflict first-hand: bloodied bodies in the street, indiscriminate violence, boys just a few years older than herself heading into the fray. This was 1971, as East and West Pakistan slid into the war that would eventually create an independent Bangladesh. The school Khan attended was quickly closed, and from then on she and her two sisters stayed home together, day after day. They saw corpses just outside their windows - the same windows that shattered as stray bullets flew through. “For a 13-year-old,” says Khan, “it was like living through a war movie.” She and her sisters heard the terrible stories of rape, of soldiers marching from house to house, brutalising whoever happened to be inside. “I remember the three of us talking about what would happen if the army actually came,” she says. “I had figured out that there was a place up in the roof where I could hide behind a water tank, and if they found me, I could jump from there.”

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The world’s 10 oldest leaders

From foreignpolicy.com:

1: Robert Mugabe
President of Zimbabwe
Date of birth: Feb. 21, 1924

2: Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz al-Saud
King of Saudi Arabia
Date of birth: 1924 (exact day unknown)

3: Girija Prasad Koirala
Prime Minister of Nepal
Date of birth: Feb. 20, 1925

4: Abdoulaye Wade
President of Senegal
Date of birth: May 29, 1926

5: Hosni Mubarak
President of Egypt
Date of birth: May 4, 1928

6: Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah
Emir of Kuwait
Date of birth: June 6, 1929

7: Raúl Castro
President of Cuba
Date of birth: June 3, 1931

8: Mwai Kibaki
President of Kenya
Date of birth: Nov. 15, 1931

9: Manmohan Singh
Prime Minister of India
Date of birth: Sept. 26, 1932

10: Than Shwe
Chair of the State Peace and Development Council of Burma
Date of birth: Feb. 2, 1933

For details on the number of years they have been in power, the number of children and grandchildren, health status and the next in line, click here:

Asif Ali Zardari: From prison to zenith of politics in Pakistan

The widower of Benazir Bhutto now sits at the pinnacle of Pakistani politics, a startling comeback for a man was once one of Pakistan’s most ostracized figures. Jane Perlez reports from Islamabad in The New York Times:

Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of the slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, now sits at the pinnacle of Pakistani politics. It is a startling comeback for a man who, though never convicted here, spent 11 years in jail here on corruption and murder charges as one of Pakistan’s most ostracized figures.

The election victory last month of Ms. Bhutto’s party, which he now leads, has left Mr. Zardari, 51, Pakistan’s kingmaker. He came closer than ever to official rehabilitation last week, when a court here dropped many of the corruption cases against him.

The last two cases in Pakistan are scheduled to be dismissed this week. These days, Mr. Zardari’s most pressing concern is whom to choose as prime minister, a decision he is expected to make any day now.

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Meet the new Asif Zardari

Karan Thapar on a personal encounter in the Hindustan Times

Most people, I believe, grow to fill the responsibility placed on them. Promotions are, therefore, an act of faith. But that said and done I’m flabbergasted by the change in Asif Zardari. He’s literally become a different person.

The Asif I remember was a jovial tease, informal, chatty, fond of the good life and determined not to be boring or even serious. We first meet the night after his wedding. “Benazir’s told me all about you,” he said with mock gravity. “I’m on my best behaviour!” He then spent the evening pulling my leg and, frequently, his wife’s too. Let’s put Kashmir aside for a wiser generation to sort out, he said. Let’s not be hostage to the UN resolutions, Zardari added.

Weeks after Benazir first became prime minister we were together on her special flight from Islamabad to Karachi. It was an aged propeller plane which flew at a sedate speed. Sitting in the prime ministerial drawing room at the front, Asif looked at his watch. We’d been travelling for nearly two hours. “If you’d stuck to PIA not only would you have arrived but you’d be in the hotel pool by now!” I protested I wasn’t in a hurry. “Yeah? Let’s see if you return with us!” I didn’t.

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This day in history: historic March 7 in Bangladesh

From The Bangladesh Today:

On this day in 1971, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founder of Bangladesh, addressed a mammoth gathering of hundreds of thousands of people at the then Race Course Maidan, now Suhrawardy Udyan, urging them to join a non-cooperation movement and continue the progrmmes until the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent country from the colonial rule of the then Pakistan.

Bangabandhu asked the nation to prepare for the war of independence from oppressive Pakistani regime. “The struggle this time is for freedom, the struggle this time is for independence, Joy Bangla,” Bangabandhu declared from the grand rally.

The Awami League and its front organisations have drawn up an elaborate programme to observe the historic day in limited scale due to the on going state of emergency.

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No country for old men

Anjum Niaz in Dawn, Karachi, on the Zardari makeover:

Forgive me Coen brothers for borrowing the title of your film that fetched four Oscars last Sunday. This column is not about Academy Awards, but the vanity of man. It’s about the makeover of men who can’t make up their minds whether to let their hair and moustaches look grey, white or black.

If they were ordinary people, they would not have cared. But they are our stellar material, who hit the mini-screen day and night and are in-and-out of our living rooms. Put under the glaring lights of cameras, these guys come across as a confused bunch when it comes to personal grooming. They, I’m sure, have enough money to pay super image-makers and pricey consultants to advise them on what colour conforms to the needs of the time.

This VVIP hair-colour-confusion is a tale as old as the hills. In America, a wrinkled Ronald Reagan showed off his boot polish black puff until the last day in office at the White House. Even though the aging president had begun to show signs of Alzheimer’s and quite easily forgot names of dignitaries, once addressing Prince Charles as Princess of Wales at a glittering gala, his unmistakable Hollywood-style hairdo never floundered. It seemed stuck to his head like glue.

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India’s most powerful people

In its annual power list, India Today mixes new names with old to come up with a list of those who matter most in the creation of a new India. Some of the names, Ratan Tata (at #1) and Mukesh Ambani (#2) are now standard bearers on the list. Anil Ambani inches his way up to #3.

Media barons continue to matter. Brothers Samir and Vineet Jain (#9) of the Times of India group, Raghav Bahl (#1 of TV18 and Prannoy and Radhika Roy (#22) of NDTV continue to be on The List, while Ronnie Screwvala (#24) of UTV is the new entrant.

Other names debuting on the list include former President APJ Abdul Kalam (#7), K.V. Kamath (#13), managing director of India’s largest private bank ICICI and Lalit Modi (#29), BCCI’s powerful vice president and the creator of the Indian Premier League.

Film stars continue to make the list with Shah Rukh Khan (#6) way ahead of Amitabh Bachchan (#16), Rajnikant (#2 and Aamir Khan (#38). And cricket, the other religion of India along with films, rules with Sachin Tendulkar (#25) and Mahendra Singh Dhoni (#35).

For a complete look at who’s on the list, and why, click here.

Hair apparent

Vir Sanghvi in his Counterpoint column in the Hindustan Times says that unlike in the West where appearance matters, Indian voters don’t really care about how politicians look. So where does this leave Pakistan where politicians like Nawaz Sharif have recently had a hair transplant?

  

Okay, so it isn’t just me. A few months ago, as the political scene in Pakistan hotted up, Indian TV channels all began telecasting ‘exclusive’ interviews with a man who was described as Nawaz Sharif. I am not an expert on Pakistan but, even to my untutored eye, there was something odd about this Sharif.

It was the hair. The Sharif who had welcomed AB Vajpayee to Lahore had a head like a billiard ball. So distinctive was his baldness that Pakistani papers claimed that Nawaz and his brother Shahbaz were affectionately called ‘Do Ganje’ by their friends in the Punjab.

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Bolly-good Barack!

We spotted this on 3quarksdaily:

The improbable friends of Raj Thackeray

Raj Thackeray’s core supporters include IITians, economists, doctors and lawyers, writes Manu Joseph in The Times of India

It can be proved that every Hindi film that has been described by its director as, “a metaphor,” has flopped. Because it is a language from exile, a hint that the speaker does not dwell in the same world where tickets are sold. This was also the reason why six IITians who launched a political party in Chennai became a joke. “Reality is a continuum,” they said on their website. They were pitted against Karunanidhi who promised a free colour television for almost all.

Where Raj Thackeray belongs, is unambiguous. So, it is at first hard to accept that in a congregation of young men and women whom he had handpicked to be his inner circle, the English expressions that fill the air are, ‘Symbiotic tie of a migrant’, ‘Disequilibrium’, ‘Social frigidity’, and even, ‘Diphthong’. This is so different from the unmistakable prose of politics. Agar hamare raastey mein aaya toh patak dunga usko , said Abu Azmi a few days ago. Karke to dekho , replied Thackeray.

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Democracy loses if Thackeray’s rampage is not checked

Deny thugs like Raj Thackeray the oxygen of publicity, appeals sociology professor Dipankar Gupta to the media in the Mail Today

Before the Maharashtra Navanirman Sena (MNS) activists hit out at taxi drivers and push cart vendors, they messaged a willing media to carry their message. They waited till cameras were in place, some even with tripods, before they struck out at their targeted victims. Television and media crew duly obliged the MNS’s call as if they were reporting for duty. As nothing was filtered away, the photographed images took on a surreal carnival like look. MNS became an instant media event and the hapless north Indian migrants of Mumbai paid the price for it. But there is a larger lesson in all of this. Not only is it possible now for a struggling politician to become an instant media figure, but the minoritisation of an entire community is just a phone call away.

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A South Asian in the White House?

Pramit Pal Chaudhuri in Hindustan Times.

If John McCain wins this year’s US presidential race, it will mean, among other things, the first South Asian in the White House. McCain’s youngest daughter, Bridget, 16, is of Bengali descent - a Bangladeshi orphan adopted by the family.

McCain’s wife, Cindy, visited an orphanage in Dhaka run by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in 1991. The sisters asked her to take two girl babies with severe medical conditions back to the US for specialised care. One had a cleft palate, the other a congenital heart disease. Cindy McCain flew them both back.

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How about every adult in the world voting in the US election?

Vinay Lal, who teaches history at University of California, Los Angeles, in Hindustan Times:

Every four years, the world is taken on a roller-coaster ride as Americans cast their vote for the President of the United States. Though votes are also cast to fill vacancies in the Congress, state governorships, and other state and local offices, the story of the quest for the presidency is an all-consuming affair. This year’s race for the White House has everywhere generated more than the usual excitement, and understandably so. For the first time in American history, the Anglo-Saxon white male’s iron-clad grip over this office seems to have been put into question. Had Hillary Clinton been the sole Democratic frontrunner, she would already have ‘made history’. All but poised to claim victory as the nominee of the Democratic Party, she suddenly found more than a worthy contender in Barack Obama, who is not only young but, from his father’s side, of African descent. In a country where nearly one out of every three African American males will, in his lifetime, have had some experience with the criminal justice system, the political ascendancy of Obama is an unexpected political phenomenon.

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Tiger burning bright

Last week, Bal Thackeray announced his disdain for the ‘Modi pattern’ and the ‘Mayawati pattern’, and reiterated the Shiv Sena’s special relationship with Sharad Pawar. What did he really mean, asks Kumar Ketkar in The Indian Express 

A roaring tiger with menacing eyes is a symbol of the Shiv Sena. But the Sena supremo has the mind of a fox. The BJP leadership is often in awe of Balasaheb Thackeray — not just the state leadership but also the high command. Balasaheb knows this and enjoys outwitting them. So it was no surprise to Balasaheb watchers when he suddenly announced last week that Maharashtra will have ‘only the Shiv Sena pattern’ and not the ‘Modi pattern’. To drill the point home, he declared that not even the ‘Mayawati pattern’ will have any relevance in the state. Actually, he need not have brought Mayawati into this matrix.

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Aung San Suu Kyi: Prepare for the worst

Aung Hla Tun has a report on the detained Myanmar opposition leader in Reuters

Detained Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is frustrated at a lack of talks on political reform with the ruling military junta since last year’s bloody crackdown on dissent, her party said on Wednesday.

After a rare meeting between the Nobel peace laureate and leaders of her National League for Democracy (NLD), spokesman Nyan Win said Suu Kyi held out little hope that unprecedented international pressure on the generals would bear fruit.

“Let’s hope for the best and prepare for the worst,” he quoted her as saying, adding she worried that Wednesday’s 90-minute meeting, and another immediately afterwards with junta liaison minister Aung Kyi, might give rise to “false hope”.

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Remembering Bapu

On Gandhi’s death anniversary today: Rev Jesse Jackson visits India and there is quite a bit of introspection on the legacy of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and his relevance to the world today.

First, historian and author (India After Gandhi) Ramachandra Guha argues in the Hindustan Times that Gandhi cannot be understood without the context of his faith and religious belief but it was a faith that was of vital assistance in promoting peace and harmony between people who worship different Gods, or no God at all:

Many years ago, I had an argument with the philosopher Ramchandra (Ramu) Gandhi about his grandfather’s faith. I had always admired the Mahatma, but my secular-socialist self sought to rid him of the spiritual baggage which seemed unnecessary to his broader message. Could we not follow Gandhi in his empathy for the poor and his insistence on non-violence while rejecting the religious idiom in which these ideas were cloaked? Ramu Gandhi argued that the attempt to secularise Gandhi was both mistaken and misleading. If you take the Mahatma’s faith out of him, he told me, then Gandhi would not be the Mahatma. His religious beliefs were central to his political and social philosophy - in this respect, the man was the message.

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In the Times of India, political psychologist Ashis Nandy analyses the ‘fear of Gandhi’ and the middle-class antipathy towards him that has only become stronger in the global knowledge industry:

On the 60th year of the murder of Mohandas Gandhi, we must recognise the ambivalence towards him in India’s modernising middle classes. Gandhi was not killed by British imperialism or Muslim fanatics, but by middle-class Hindu nationalists committed to conventional concepts of statecraft, progress and diplomacy. He was not killed by a lunatic, as Nehru alleged, but by one who represented ‘normality’ and ’sanity’.

The middle-class antipathy to Gandhi cuts across ideologies. During one of her earlier tenures, Mayawati precipitated a first-class public controversy by attacking Gandhi. But she was only joining a long line of distinguished critics of Gandhi, stretching from Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the classical liberal turned Muslim nationalist, to Bal Thackeray of the Shiv Sena. New, aggressive critics of Gandhi are now being thrown up by the knights of globalisation in India.

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And, finally, political scientist Pratap Bhanu Mehta in The Indian Express argues that Gandhi achieved more in death than in his life, which in the 1940s had become marginal to the new forms of Indian politics:

Gandhi’s gloriously original and inventive life continues to be extraordinarily fascinating. But his assassination remains shrouded in embarrassed silence. At the Indira Gandhi memorial, visitors are subjected to the details of her assassination. Gandhi, on the other hand is memorialised, but not primarily through Birla House, a monument that still does not have its rightful place in the historical itineraries of Delhi. There is a simple story we have told about the assassination: Gandhi was killed by a fanatic representing the fringes of society, and that is that. But for a life whose every gesture was overloaded with meaning, the interpretive silence over Gandhi’s assassination itself begs for interpretation. Was it the enormity of that crime that silences us? Or was it its marginality? Were the perpetrators distant from us? Or was there a wider complicity, if not with the assassination itself, with the sentiments that fuelled it? The question, ‘Why was Gandhi killed’, is an easy one to answer only if we deliberately shut ourselves to the complex political realities of the time.

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Modi, my maid and a few home truths

Posted by Daipayan Halder in his blog, Subaltern Studies

My maid is a Modi fan. She is a Maharashtrian, a Dalit (she told me so, I had no way of knowing) and an avid Muslim hater (I knew this morning). She had gone to hear Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi (the same man who had been variously called the ‘Butcher of Gujarat’ and a ‘mass murderer’ for his alleged support to post-Godhra Hindu rioters) rave about his third consecutive Gujarat victory and rant against Muslim anti-socials who need to be shown their place at Shivaji Park the Sunday before last Sunday. She came back convinced. “Them, Mollahs need a thrash or two from time to time,” she told me while mopping the floor, “and Modi will ensure that”.

“What have you got against Muslims?” I ask, hiding my shock behind a smile. “They are all wrong,” is all she offers.

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Mayawati and Musharraf among 10 leaders to watch in 2008

Eurasia Group, a global political risk advisory and consulting firm, released on Wednesday its list of 10 leaders to watch in 2008. The list, published in Mint, includes leaders whose performance will have global implications.

“The first four leaders on our list-from Iran, France, Russia, and Pakistan-will be making decisions for their countries that have powerful geostrategic implications,” said the Eurasia Group.

Iran’s conflict with the West and Pakistan’s internal conflict could have dramatic implications for global security in 2008, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Pervez Musharraf are key players in these struggles,” it added. The list also includes those who will exert considerable influence on their own countries which, in turn, have important roles to play in the emerging global order.

The list includes Mayawati, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.

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