OPEN Magazine 22 September 2014

tunku varadarajan soulmates of the east

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tufail ahmad the real al qaeda threat

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2 2 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 14 / R S 4 0

THE world of crossword junkies

THE untold story of the undercover operation that caught india’s most wanted terrorist yasin bhatkal and the shabby treatment meted out to the cops who risked their career

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Volume 6 Issue 37 For the week 16—22 September 2014 Total No. of pages 64 + Covers

Ketaki Pathak

I feel really sad and disturbed that a section of society fails to see the effort that has been made by the makers of Mary Kom to put her story on celluloid (‘Culture Kombat’, 15 September 2014). Having said that, I am sure Northeasterners don’t blend in as easily with the rest of India’s population; that they face a racial bias.

But there’s racial bias everywhere in India. Haven’t you heard Tamilian or Bengali accents being mocked in Hindi films before? Or noticed Maharashtrians often being protrayed as There’s racial bias maids? I am sure you everywhere in India. haven’t because you are Haven’t you heard so focused on how you Tamilian or Bengali are perceived. My accents being mocked friend’s a fourth generain Hindi films? tion Korean in the US. Her great grandfather migrated from Korea. If you listen to her on the phone you couldn’t tell her Asian connection. But you know what? When people see her, they see an Asian. My point is, racial bias will exist as long as the human race exists.  letter of the week Stereotyping Isn’t Funny

i completely sympathise with everybody who’s been offended by the casting of Priyanka Chopra as Mary Kom (‘Culture Kombat’, 15 September 2014). As a ‘Madrasi’ who’s had to endure the foul antics of Mehmood as Master Pillai in the movie Padosan (1968), not to mention several other unflattering caricatures, I can understand what Northeasterners think of these parodies. Hopefully, just as we are beginning to see fewer stereotypes on the South India front, we will see a change in the way the Northeast is treated.  mani

Wake-up Call for the Media

this is a well analysed and articulated piece (‘Tomorrow Is Another Big Day’, 8 September 2014). I don’t think the country is yet angry or impatient with the new Modi Government, though the mainstream media 22 september 2014

is [suggesting so]. Most of us voted for Modi based not just on what he promised, but for his track record over 12 years in Gujarat. It is the media that people of this country are impatient with. The media is yet to break out of its Nehruvian pseudo secular mould, which has been discarded by the majority of Indians.  Shivangni

every necessary change cannot be attempted or achieved in the first 100 days. There is ‘politics’, ‘inertia’ ‘resistance to change’ and a sheer human physical limitation. So you could be more gracious to Modi. We trust him and have seen his opening moves. We are discerning enough to see what is good and what is not. I think we will give him 4 - 8 years before judging him. After all, we gave crooks 66 years to loot our country.  Sivasubramaniam Krishnan

God of Small Kids

this refers to ‘The God of Big Things’ (8 September 2014).

Just to set the record straight, Ganesh Habba has been celebrated all over Karnataka and even in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu for decades now. Mumbai’s Ganesh Chaturthi festival got popular much later and is talked of more because of the film personalities involved. Ganesh Habba all over the south is and always was a neighbourhood celebration and allowed children and adults to mingle and strengthen their bonds, no matter what community, linguistic group or any other background they came from. I recall those years when I went around with my Hindu friends in Bangalore as a kid, asking for sweets from homes all over the neighbourhood during Ganesh Habba. We would sit in front of decorated idols at homes and sing songs, something like going carol singing. Stories about Ganesh were always great to hear; more so, I guess, because he really vibed with kids as the Elephant God.  masha

Modi’s New Target

behind a proven administrator is a master politician (‘From Brand Modi to Modism’, 8 September 2014). Having won the hearts of most middle-class voters, Modi is expanding his voter base among the country’s economically underprivileged. The recently launched Jan Dhan Yojna will give him a solid vote bank in the years to come.  Nile shwar

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The street outside the barricaded building D-5

The Village Still Waits News that the apex court has stayed serial killer Surinder Koli’s execution is greeted with shrugs in Nithari Far from the flurry of activity in the wee hours of 8 September, when the Supreme Court stayed serial killer SurinderKoli’s hanging for a week, the white building at the end of the street bordering Nithari village in Noida remains quiet and decrepit.

D-5, as the house is known, in sector 31, skirts the village that is home to migrant workers from Bihar and West Bengal.

The building belongs to Noida-based businessman Moninder Singh Pandher.

Surinder Koli was an employ-

Delhi

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ee of Pandher and is accused of raping and brutally murdering 15 children and one adult. Koli reportedly cut the bodies into pieces and disposed of them in a drain. The horror first came to light in December 2006. Koli was given death sentences for four of the cases.

Today the banality of life seems to have taken over the horror the village saw. Ashok Kumar, whose six-year-old son Satender, fondly known as ‘Max’ and killed by Koli, owns a shoe shop right next to the house. “He would have

been about 14 by now,” says Kumar. Max was the eldest of his four children and had been missing for over seven months before the murders were discovered. “I see the house everyday but it doesn’t bother me, I have other children to look after,” he says.

Jaggu Lal, 60, used to iron clothes right opposite the house when his 11-year-old daughter Jyoti went missing. After eight months he got to know that she had been killed. He has heard of Koli’s reprieve. There has been no

verdict in Jyoti’s case against Koli or Pandher. Lal, whose ironing stall has been pushed to another spot a few metres away by construction projects in the area, says he has no hope of justice. “The police refused to file our complaints [when Jyoti went missing], and even though Koli has been convicted, Pandher is nowhere to be seen,” he says.

Pandher’s death sentence was overturned in September 2009 and he was acquitted by the Allahabad High Court. n Aanchal Bansal

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Raul Irani

small world

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contents

38 pakistan

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An incendiary experiment with democracy

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The trouble with Telangana’s CM

EXCLUSIVE

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A few good men

The world of Modi

person of the week sania mirza

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Future savvy

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kannur

The blood sport of Malabar

al qaeda

The threat to India

An Indian Star The tennis star who was called Pakistan’s daughter-in-law dedicates her US Open triumph to India Madhavankutty Pillai

I

t was not too long ago that Sania Mirza found herself being dragged into a controversy not of her choosing.

She had just been made the brand ambassador of the new state of Telangana when K Laxman, a local BJP leader, called her the ‘daughter-in-law’ of Pakistan, an allusion to her marriage to the Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik. On 6 September, when she won the mixed doubles of the US Open, Mirza dedicated the win to India and Telangana. It was an answer to those who had questioned her patriotism.

And in an interview to AFP, she said, “It was tough, you know. Just before I left there was a lot happening at home. But, yeah. Still a proud Indian, I guess, five weeks later.”

This is Mirza’s third Grand Slam title after the 2009 Australian Open and the 2012 French Open, and all of them have been in the Mixed Doubles category.

Mirza is undoubtedly the best women’s tennis player this country has ever produced.

It is true that she never made it to the top bracket in the Singles category, where the competition is toughest, but that could also be said of Bhupathi and Leander Paes, the other icons of Indian tennis. But Mirza’s Singles ranking has been much better than that of the two men. She broke into the top 30, her highest ranking being 27, while Paes’ best was 73 and Bhupathi’s 217.

Bhupathi and Paes have also never been dragged into the kind of ugly public intimidation that Sania has seen. When the ‘daughter-in-law of Pakistan’ 4 open

comment became a big talking point, she did an interview with NDTV and said she couldn’t understand why she had to keep affirming her Indianness. “Why am I being picked on?” she asked. And then struggled and failed to hold back her tears.

These are some of the times she got picked on: In 2005, the Kolkata Police had to give her protection when there were rumours that orthodox Muslim groups had a problem with the clothes she wore while playing; after she spoke about the necessity of safe sex at a conference, it was twisted to mean that she was Michael Regan/Getty Images

encouraging pre-marital sex; a case was filed against her for insulting the national flag because a photo appeared of her watching a game with the soles of her feet spread out before the flag.

Her talent combined with good looks makes Mirza a celebrity by default in a country that thrives on turning humans into deities and then takes pleasure in seeing them wince. In Sania’s case it takes on a more vicious form because of her gender and religion. She doesn’t fit the template. She is a perfect target for any fringe element that wants easy publicity using constructs like religion and patriotism that are defined by those who can shout the loudest.

The only way for her to get back is on court, but even her achievements are questioned. Despite three Grand Slams, you still hear voices of condescension about Mirza having it easy and not making a mark in Singles. But the Mixed Doubles is also a competition with good players vying for the title. Winning it might not be as difficult as the Singles, but it is not handed down; there is equal sweat and toil involved.

After her marriage, Mirza announced that she would settle in Dubai. For a couple belonging to India andPakistan, that was the only sane recourse if they had to be together. But she added that she would always hold an Indian passport.

After winning the US Open title, she tweeted a photo of a box of donuts and wrote: ‘That was my celebration in the airport lounge but I am coming hoommeee’. Home meant India. n 22 september 2014

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f o r For trying to get in N Srinivasan once again as BCCI president

He is a man whose son-in-law is directly implicated in a betting racket involving the IPL team that his company owns. The Supreme Court itself has forced him out of the running of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) despite his being its

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Aditya Roy Kapoor’s non-filmi airs

books

Gunnarsson’s ode to India’s monsoon

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Naseeruddin Shah’s memoir

president. And yet, N Srinivasan, who is also president of the International Cricket Council, seems unfazed. The East Zone of the BCCI, whose turn it is to propose who the president will be, has once again decided to bat for Srinivasan. It was part of a majority of BCCI’s 30 affiliated state units that met recently in Chennai in support of Srinivasan—who was also part of the proceedings—and schemed to bring him back to power. To that end, they are going to postpone the Annual General Meeting of 30 September when the president is to be elected. This is because Srinivasan has been barred from contesting the election until the Supreme Court appointed Mudgal Committee report on IPL betting is out. One would think the state cricket associations would have sensibly found a new president to lead the BCCI, but their servility to Srinivasan doesn’t bode well for Indian Cricket. n

After hinting that he wouldn’t be Chief Minister of Maharashtra if his party achieved power, Uddhav Thackeray said he had been misquoted c o n f u s e d d r e a ms

“I am not dreaming of becoming Maharashtra’s Chief Minister. My priority is to [have] our government in the state”

“People didn’t understand my statement. What I had said was, ‘I don’t dream of becoming the CM, I dream of providing all the facilities to the public’”

—Uddhav Thackeray, 6 September, at a rally in Nanded

—On 7 September, in Mid-Day

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NOT PEOPLE LIKE US

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An Opportunity for Reassessment

Altaf Qadri/AP

22 september 2014

J a mm u & K a s h m i r The Operation Megh Rahat carried out by the Army in flood-ravaged Kashmir appears to be redefining the complex relationship between the people of the Valley and the armed forces. The good work by the forces (it alone has evacuated around 40,000 people) could provide an opportunity for the people to reassess their views on what is perceived by many in the Valley as an ‘occupation force’. After Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the state last weekend,

the Army has deployed more than 20,000 soldiers to carry out rescue operations. Reports from the state say that 215 columns, 80 medical teams and 15 engineer task forces have been helping the Valley overcome its biggest crisis since Independence. This Operation could provide a chance for the Army to eliminate the trust deficit between Kashmiris and its men. It could also negate the Left-liberal narrative that routinely tarnishes the image of men in uniform.n open www.openthemagazine.com 5

angle

A Hurried Man’s Guide

On the Contrary

to the ‘discovered’ identity of Jack the Ripper Among serial killers, Jack the Ripper remains the most famous one in history. He is said to have murdered and mutilated at least five sex workers in London in 1988. The killer’s identity was never discovered, making it one of the most enduring mysteries of all time.

But now comes a claim that DNA evidence has shown who Jack the Ripper was—a Polish barber named Aaron Kosminski. Russell Edwards, an amateur detective and writer, announced this in his book, Naming Jack The Ripper. His primary evidence is a shawl—found near the site of the killing of one of the victims, Aaron Kosminski, Catherine Eddowes—that who later died in a had blood stains which lunatic asylum, were never washed after has always been a the shawl was returned. prime suspect as Jack the Ripper

Hulton Archive/Getty IMages

Edwards bought the shawl at an auction in 2007, and, with a molecular biologist, compared its DNA traces with that of Eddowes’ descendants and those who’d been suspects. Kosminksi, an immigrant from Poland who ultimately died in a lunatic asylum, has always been a prime suspect as Jack the Ripper. Edwards was quoted in The Independent newspaper saying that he spent 14 years trying to unmask the serial killer.

A fanciful 1889 engraving of Jack the Ripper’s capture

Many are however not so certain about Edwards’ claims. For example, an article in The Independent wonders how it is possible to be sure that the shawl was never washed in 126 years. It notes that the DNA findings had not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. The Guardian, in another article, says that more than 500 people have been proposed as the real Jack the Ripper. By one particularly bizarre theory, it’s Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. n

Those to Whom Evil Is Done…

K Chandrasekhar Rao’s persecution complex and disdain for press freedom M a d h a v a n k u t t y P i l l a i

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here is a WH Auden poem,

‘September 1, 1939’ on the madness that brought on World War II and it has these lines encapsulating the psychology of victims: ‘I and the public know/ What all schoolchildren learn/ Those to whom evil is done/ Do evil in return.’ You just have to look at K Chandrasekhar Rao, the Chief Minister of the newly formed state of Telangana, to see how insightful Auden is.

For Telangana to come into being, it took years of struggle to overcome the machinations of coastal Andhra politicians and businessmen. After repeatedly being manipulated and betrayed, everyone from the intelligentsia, media, civil society to politicians understandably had a persecution complex. But once victory is savoured you would expect it to go away. Such victimisation is also not particular to Telangana; all separatist political movements go through it. Astute politicians know how damaging this scarring can be and take conscious measures to counter it in order to create a decent society. The whole of Mahatma Gandhi’s emphasis during the freedom struggle was to keep hatred away from it. Nelson Mandela forgave the crimes committed against South Africa’s Blacks after coming to power.

Not so Chandrasekhar Rao, who is suffering from an advancing mix of megalomania and a persecution complex. A survey ordered by his government marks out those of Andhra origin. It reeks of racial profiling and, more dangerously, something to be used in future to throw them out of the state. Two television channels—TV9 and ABN Andhra Jyoti—have been blacked out in the state, throwing freedom of press to the winds. After the telecast of programmes allegedly disparaging of Telangana politicians, the threat of

violence was used against cable operators to shut the channels down.

Rao was recently caught on tape making a speech in which he took open responsibility for the shutdown.

He said it was a lesson for all the others and that he would bury 10 kilometres underground (not humanly possible but that is besides the point) any media that insulted Telangana, its culture, its existence or its Assembly.

This is the language of Bal Thackeray of the 80s and 90s, but even he later realised that the era for such vitriol is over. All politicians are dictators at heart, craving unimpeded power. Rao is no exception but he is still to get that there is something called rule of law in successful democracies. It All politicians is what are dictators prevents elected leaders at heart. Rao is like him from no exception doing what he but he is still to is doing at get that there present. is something Nebulous words like called rule ‘culture of of law in Telangana’ or successful ‘insult’ could democracies be anything and gives licence to take action against anyone.

It is possible that Rao is correct in assuming there is a conspiracy, as the media in the region is largely owned

by Andhra politicians. But, even so, the answer is to refute propaganda with propaganda. Insulting the Telangana Assembly is perfectly legitimate and chief ministers who can’t handle it should apply for a transfer or undergo plastic surgery for a thicker skin. Rao is, of course, hurtling towards humiliation by the courts. It is a lesson that might prove useful to him. This is hardly a country that will tolerate autocracy in one pocket of its map. n 22 september 2014

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The World of Modi

f the photo ops suggest that Prime Minister

Narendra Modi is more accessible to people in Thimpu and Tokyo than to the folks in Delhi and elsewhere in India, it says something about the man. A man who loved political theatre, be it the costume drama of mass salvation or the high-tech vaudeville of election seasons. In all those years, when Delhi was the name of his struggle, when he was the lone evangelist of change, the spectacular fascinated him. Once in power, he abandoned theatre, and he was not the glad hander that you thought he would be either. He was rather remote and businesslike, and accessibility was not the method he chose to retain his intimacy with India. Then there he was, at home in the most exotic locations, enjoying every moment of it, even playing the drummer for the cameras. And by the way, we should remember that this was the man once known to the world not just through headlines such as the Miracle Ruler of Gujarat and the Moderniser in Race for India.

He was also, according one headline from London, ‘The vegetarian who roasts humans’. Modi’s charm offensive has already changed the headlines.

But that is not the point. Modi Abroad marks a definitive shift in India’s engagement with the world, and the air miles the Prime Minister collects only show that he is as much interested in changing India’s conversation with the world as he is about changing India. Before him, India for most of its independent years did not deviate from the Nehruvian Third World ideal. It was an India that found its soulmates in bloated dictators of Africa and Arabia. Many of them were freedom fighters-turned-cannibals, and they named their postcolonial brotherhood the Non-Aligned Movement, which in practice was pro-Soviet and anti-America. Nehru was a global citizen, and the globe for him was divided between the coloniser and the decolonised. Even as the world changed, and even as history swirled around South Block, the Indian Establishment refused to break out of Third Worldism, a mindset conditioned by the received wisdom of anti-Americanism and the romance of the underdog. A decade after the fallen Berlin Wall, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, India’s first right-wing Prime Minister, shattered the idyll when he began a meaningful conversation with the US and caught up with the world after the Cold War. Manmohan Singh built on that, but it was another story that, even as he made himself redundant at home, he found a more rewarding job abroad as the wise old man of the East. In the end he was the brand ambassador of the East’s most misgoverned country, competing with the

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so-called banana republics for the corruption crown.

Modi’s hyperactive internationalism breaks the tradition.

It is what one would expect from a leader who genuinely believes that foreign policy is an extension of national interest, that not ideological straitjackets but only ideas can win the twenty-first century world. He began with India’s near abroad, and it was more about reassurance and reaffirmation than big diplomatic gains. And hopefully he won’t be a captive to the regional joke called SAARC. Do the rituals, but don’t take it seriously, unless you want to reinvent it, which is a near impossibility considering the nature of its members. His real foreign performance was in Japan. The much talked about personal chemistry between Shinzo Abe and Modi (read the brilliant Open Essay by Tunku Varadarajan in the next pages) apart, it was the first movement of an Asian choreography in national interdependence. With Japan, India does not have to be as cautious as it should be with China; it is not mutual suspicion but, in the Modi-Abe era, the friendship of two nationalists driven by the same set of values that sustains India’s relationship with Japan.

It is China, a First World power with a Third World mindset, that will test Modi’s still evolving art of internationalism. Indian policy wonks and politicians suffer from a China complex, which is nothing but a symptom of low confidence in the possibilities of Indian democracy. Modi, being one of its most redeeming products, has no reason to be intimidated by the pinstriped social capitalists of Zhongnanhai. So when the new Chinese helmsman Xi Jinping visits him in Delhi this week, Modi should be talking to his guest as a personification of what some Chinese call the Fifth Modernisation they are being denied: democracy. Xi will become Modi’s equal only when he delivers what he has promised: the Chinese Dream, which itself is an echo of an idea Beijing is obsessed with, America.

America, of course. And India’s relationship with Washington should not be conditioned by the imagined Asian trinity of Delhi, Beijing and Tokyo. The anti-Americanism that was once nurtured by socialist India has already been undone by the shared sentiments of disparate societies. The most ardent voices of anti-Americanism have an American accent. President Obama, the world’s most powerful lame duck, may have a problem with Modi the former Chief Minister of Gujarat, but India and America are natural allies, united by the dreams, fears, and responsibilities of freedom, of democracy and their partnership should be more enduring than the current occupant of the White House. Time is on Modi’s side.

So is history. n 22 september 2014

open essay

BY TUNKU VARADARAJAN

soulmates of the east

The Modi-Abe bromance is built on a grand Asian project

T

here is an old American phrase,

‘wooden Indian’, that was used to describe the life-size statues of Native American chiefs placed outside tobacco stores in the United States in less enlightened times. Since many customers were illiterate, vendors needed a visual prompt to lure them indoors. I’ve always thought of that phrase when I Tunku visualise Manmohan Singh, a gentleVaradarajan man, but oh-so-wooden on the public stage. One cringed when he stood next to is the Virginia George W Bush, an exuberant Texan, in Hobbs Carpenter New Delhi; and one cringed again when Fellow in he was at the White House with his wife, Journalism at the visiting the Obamas. Alongside the Hoover Institution elegance of the American First Couple— at Stanford he with his expressive leanness, she University. He is with her robust physique—Singh working on a book seemed a cut-out doll with a turban. A on the political Wooden Indian. legacy of the Shah Narendra Modi, his successor, offered Bano case , The an altogether different image on the Divorce That diplomatic stage in Japan earlier this Rocked India month. His Jodhpuri suit was much better tailored. He moved easily, a faint trace of swagger in his gait, and was never awkward in a crowd.

His was an altogether more physical presence. Can you imagine Manmohan Singh playing the drums before a Japanese audience? Can you picture him tweaking the ears of a little boy in public, as Modi did playfully to a tyke in Tokyo?

The biggest contrast between the two men, however, was in Modi’s chemistry with Shinzo Abe, his Japanese counterpart.

(So comradely were the two men, in fact, that I expect to be told

by Dinanath Batra that ‘bromance’ was invented by Vedic brahmacharis.) For Indians, this rapport was a phenomenon to behold. It was the first time since Jawaharlal Nehru that an Indian prime minister appeared to have a true soulmate in another international leader of stature. World leaders, when visiting each other, usually put on convincing shows of conviviality (sometimes with teeth gritted). Occasionally, they even hit it off. The Modi-Abe bond, however, suggests an extraordinary harmony, one that goes beyond the comfort of shared wavelengths.

The peerless ideal of soulmateship will forever be the ReaganThatcher duo. Like Messrs Modi and Abe, Ronnie and Maggie were profoundly—even adamantly—nationalist. Their special relationship was grounded in the Special Relationship (so much more vaunted in London than in Washington) between the US and Great Britain, whose modern origins lie with another pair of soulmates, FDR and Winston Churchill. India and Japan have, as yet, no such singular relationship: Ties between the two Asian countries, for long correct and cordial, are only now showing a passion that catches the eye and suggests that a Big Alliance is afoot.

One has to reach for the history books and

those stilted (but charming) old newsreels to encounter the last bosom buddy of an Indian prime minister: He was Gamal Abdel Nasser, whose friendship with Nehru defined an era of nonalignment. Although Nehru was patrician and Nasser the son of a postman, they bonded over a shared project that sought to transcend nationalism. Nehru, a gregarious internationalist, had other friends, too: Tito, Nkrumah, and Chou En-Lai (who would later break Nehru’s heart). But after Nehru, Indian prime ministers became socially stilted.

Shastri wasn’t in office long enough to bond with anyone, and Indira, who followed him, was much too haughty. Patrician like her father, but without his erudition and confidence, she could be more combative than comradely on the world stage. (Richard Nixon, famously, refered to her as “a bitch”.) India’s warmest ties under her were with the Soviet Union, whose leaders prefered a scripted bonhomie. After her came a succession of gauche men, beginning with the distinctly unconvivial Morarji. The prime ministers who followed him were mostly netas from the Cow Belt, ill at ease on the foreign stage and so wedded to provincial priorities that a ‘bromance’ with a fellow statesman from abroad was inconceivable.

If there was one prime minister who cut a dashing figure amid that grab-bag of gray men, it was Rajiv Gandhi. Personable, cosmopolitan, more at ease in the West than he was in his own country, Rajiv could have been a rare Indian prime minister who forged close ties with a fellow-traveller from a friendly country. But he was, alas, a lightweight in international affairs, not to mention a reluctant politician.

Like Reagan and Thatcher before them, Modi and Abe have bonded over a grand project. If the first pair were determined to win the Cold War for the West, the two Asian BFFs are working in tandem to protect their countries from an increasingly irrepressible China. All the great modern political friendships have been embedded in grand endeavours, none more ambitious than the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, wrought by Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin. The ultimate odd couple, the two men met each other 10 times between 1977 and 1981, the year of the Egyptian’s death, and developed a lively, improbable friendship.

Years earlier, Konrad Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle—who embraced and kissed each other on the cheeks in Reims in 1963, after signing the Franco-German Friendship Treaty—sought to banish from Europe the spectre of war. (In the four years preceding the treaty, they met 15 times and, per Der Spiegel, wrote 40 letters to each other.) The same European project drove François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl into each other’s arms. Who can forget the image of the two men holding hands at Verdun, where countless German and French soldiers perished in 1916?

For all their outward differences, Modi and Abe could one day come to have as much in common with each other as Reagan and Thatcher. What is unusual is that their bromance has blossomed at a time when no other leaders of top-rank countries are ‘in a relationship’. Apart from these two men, I can’t think of any soulmates on the international stage. Can you? n

For all their outward differences, Modi and Abe could come to have as much in common as Reagan and Thatcher

22 september 2014

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COVER STORY

thankless india The manhunt for Yasin Bhatkal was India’s most meticulously planned undercover operation. It was also one of its kind in the history of Indian Intelligence. A few good officers from the Special Operations Group, unwavering in their confidence, risked their career and, for a while, secretly defied their bosses in Delhi as they zeroed in on the elusive terrorist who masterminded a series of attacks across the country. On 28 August in 2013, when Bhatkal was taken into custody from a house near the Nepali town of Pokhra, it was the finale of an operation that could have fallen apart at any time but for the brave five who partly financed the exercise with their own money. Thankless India has not appreciated their work till the day. PR RAMESH chronicles India’s most sensational stakeout. An Open Exclusive

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The SOG team leaves the India-Nepal border for Pokhra where Bhatkal is believed to be hiding

An

Indian tourist leaned thoughtfully on the metal balustrade outside a bar in Nepal’s scenic town of Pokhra. Clad in Bermuda shorts and a bright bush-shirt, the man could have been any of the thousands of Indian tourists who throng this town. The watering hole overlooked a lake, bordered by verdant hills.

Hired speedboats driven by tourists sped past him. It wasn’t the foothills of the Himalayas and the salubrious weather that had brought him here. Inside the bar, two of his colleagues waited, trying to appear casual but with urgent matters on their mind. Two others of the group were in a different part of town, sipping Coke while awaiting that vital signal for action.

This was an undercover stakeout for India’s most wanted terrorist Yasin Bhatkal. It was the denouement of a sixmonth long operation to capture the elusive man known as the ‘Ghost Who Bombs’.

The man outside the bar was anxious. As head of the Special Operations Group (SOG) unit charged with the task, he knew there was no room for error. It was, after all, a foreign country. To solicit the cooperation of the Nepal police and intelligence services, it was important to be certain of the target’s identity. Failure was not an option.

It was on 13 August 2013 that the undercover tourist

expedition began, launched in Patna by the Bihar unit of the SOG. The go-ahead was given by the Joint Director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), stationed in Bihar’s capital, at a meeting held with his deputies. The meeting took place in the backdrop of an alleged witchhunt of IB

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The cops begin the stakeout from a a favourite tourist destination

officials who were part of the operation that busted the terror module of which Ishrat Jehan was a part. The Joint Director wanted to ensure that the low morale of his forces did not come in the way of their work.

The leader of the team that led the Nepal operation was among those present at the meeting. In the thick of the meeting, he received a phone call on his mobile.

Recognising the caller, one of his key ‘human assets’ in Nepal, he rushed out into the corridor to take the call. The informer had received news from one of his men that a man resembling the ‘suspect’ in a photograph given by the IB had been seen in Pokhra. However, the suspect was clean-shaven and had close cropped hair, unlike the man in the picture. But the eyes matched. According to the informer, the suspect had referred to his wife, a teacher in Delhi (his wife did live in Delhi and was being shadowed by Intelligence sleuths), his parents in Dubai (they had been in Dubai, running a laundry, but had returned since to Bhatkal in Karnataka), and was posing as a Unani doctor.

Posing as a Unani doctor was one of Bhatkal’s favourite disguises. In Dharbanga, Bihar, where he had set up a sleeper Indian Mujahideen (IM) cell, he had assumed the same identity. In Nepal, he was Dr Yusuf.

By

now, the officer was certain they had their man.

He rushed back in to inform the Joint Director. An Operations man, the Joint Director was convinced. He asked for time to call his superiors in Delhi’s IB establishment. But the IB bosses were not convinced. The Joint 22 september 2014

bar in downtown Pokhra,

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Haddi, a Bhatkal associate and a wanted Indian Mujahideen operative, comes out of the house

Director reconvened the meeting in Patna to tell the officers of the disappointing response from the national capital. But the officer who had got the lead from Nepal was not one to give up easily, and took it up with the Joint Director again after the meeting. “Sir, my source is sure, the information looks authentic, most of the details match. We have to take this chance, to pass it up would be suicidal,” he told him. “We have to go to Nepal, even if we are jailed [for it].” After a pause, the Joint Director replied: “You’re right. But you have to pose as tourists.”

The Joint Director knew he was sticking his neck out, as were his men.

He had sought permission for an official trip to Nepal, but his IB bosses had been curt. “There will be fifty pieces of information. Will you send out fifty teams?” The Joint Director had another thought in his head: the Bihar unit had been keen on nabbing Mohammed Ahmed Zarar Siddibapa, alias Yasin Bhatkal, particularly after the Bodh Gaya blasts, which bore the imprint of the IM but had not been confirmed thus far. “We have to take this as a challenge,” he concurred.

There were many precautions to be taken, especially since this would not be an official expedition. The Joint Director cautioned his men: “Don’t take any ID cards with you that will reveal your identity. Deposit [them] at the border. Remember, if you are caught, you will be jailed. If you fail at the task, things will be very bad. You’ll have to cool your heels in some jail in Nepal. And I will be repatriated to my parent cadre for my role in this expedition.”

Things began to move at lightning speed after that tacit approval. A special unit of five men was put togeth22 september 2014

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Nepalese cops bring Bhatkal out of his hideout, to be delivered to the SOG

er. “May we take East Champaran SP Vinay Kumar into confidence about the operation?” asked the team leader.

Kumar, a well-connected police officer, often held coordination meetings with his Nepali counterpart and would be of help if things went askew. Things were finally falling into place.

Nepal had always attracted thousands of inter-

national tourists, including Indians, every year. Since the 90s, though, it had become a safe haven for criminals and terrorists fleeing the Indian police. The SOG, which was set up in 1999 under the IB at the Centre by its then chief Ajit Doval, had since the mid-2000s turned its focus to Naxal leaders; by 2011, it had nabbed Kobad Gandhi, a Doon School alumnus whose association with the Maoist cause blew the lid off the myth that extremists were mainly recruited from among the underprivileged. The SOG in Bihar, however, was directed by the government to focus on fundamentalist Muslim organisations whose operatives had begun to use Nepal—which shares a porous border with Bihar at Raxaul—for rest and recuperation. The SOG’s anti-terror squad was entrusted with the task of tracking and ferretting out the terrorists wanted for a variety of bomb blasts and killings over the years across India. Accordingly, it had cultivated a network of informers in Nepal, especially in towns with high Muslim populations.

It was clear that any assignment by the squad had to have a fair amount of secrecy, involving as it did crossborder terrorist activities and a friendly neighbour such open www.openthemagazine.com 15

The Raxaul checkpost in Bihar at the India-Nepal border

as Nepal. There was also a strategic imperative to keep the operation under cover from police forces in India for security reasons. At Raxaul, for instance, the border post and town police were notorious for their complicity in the smuggling of a variety of goods across the border, including subsidised foodgrains and fertilisers (including urea, used in the making of explosives). Information leaks would be hard to contain.

The

leader of the team was chosen on account of his ability to think on his feet. Bhatkal, according to an IB officer, was “as slippery as Houdini” because he had perfected the art of avoiding detection. He constantly changed his sartorial style and appearance (clean shaven, wispy bearded, full bearded, moustached). He would also change his mobile phone often and use it only for a few seconds at a time to avoid being tracked and his location identified by intelligence agencies. The IM may have used the internet to spread its message and contact media organisations after successful operations, but the dreaded head of the outfit avoided email. Bhatkal also changed addresses frequently, often moving into nondescript rooms hired in sparsely populated areas and colonies that 16 open

Prashant ravi/Biharphoto

were less likely to be under surveillance.

In 2013, the Indian Government announced a Rs 3.5 crore reward for details of Bhatkal’s location or for his capture. At 30, he was considered responsible for more than 220 deaths countrywide. He figured on the ‘Most Wanted’ list of 12 states, including Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. For the five-member SOG team, it was a hunt for a very high-value target.

The informer had told the SOG commando that a man who could be Bhatkal was sighted at Routahat in Bara district, 40 km from Raxaul, where the ‘suspect’ had the shelter of one Maulana Moinuddin Ansari at a madrassa near Gaur. According to the informer, the ‘suspect’ spoke with a “South Indian accent” and had moved to Pokhra.

The SOG team leader got in touch with the IB head quarters at New Delhi, but got a dressing down. Delhi’s officialdom was convinced that Bhatkal was in Pakistan, and had no takers for the hot lead from Nepal. “This is so demoralising for field officers who put their heart and soul into their work,” a police official tells Open.

The demoralisation had mostly stemmed from the Ishrat Jehan encounter case, for which the IB was hauled up along with the Gujarat Police, some of whose top officers were believed to have planned and executed 22 september 2014

In the border town of Raxaul , immigration officials are known for their complicity in smuggling. It is difficult to keep secrets here the entire operation. The team leader and his field officers faced a specific problem in the case of Yasin Bhatkal. Wanted for his alleged role in virtually every terror attack since 2007, he was known to have not only masterminded several of the bomb blasts in various parts of the country in that period, but also planted some explosives himself.

The ‘Ghost Who Bombs’ had given the slip to Intelligence units in so many Indian states that few believed he could be nabbed. There had been a few close brushes. In December 2009, Bhatkal, who was wanted for bombings in Delhi and Hyderabad, was picked by the Kolkata Police in connection with a theft case. But he managed to convince his captors that he was a local resident called Bulla Mallik, and walked out of the Shakespeare Sarani police station. His next bomb blast came soon after.

In 2008, Bhatkal and some of his colleagues in the IM— which was declared a terrorist outfit in June 2010 by India and in 2011 by the US—were located through a tip-off in Chikmaglur in Karnataka. But the police delayed the raid and Bhatkal got away again. In 2010, the CCTV camera footage of the German Bakery blast case identified him in Pune.

In 2010, in a big goof-up, the Karnataka Police had nabbed Yasin Bhatkal’s younger brother, Samad, at Mangalore Airport and the UPA Government prematurely announced the capture of the country’s ‘most wanted’ man. However, then Home Minister P Chidambaram had to admit that it was a case of mistaken identity and released Bhatkal’s brother. These developments were enough to make the IB’s higher authorities in New Delhi balk at any claim that Bhatkal had been traced.

the team. By 2 pm on 20 August, they reached Motihari and sought out SP Vinay Kumar. They filled him in with the broad plan without mentioning specifics, and found him keen to join their mission. This suited the unit perfectly well. The SP arranged two more vehicles for the men to use. Later that day, the group left for Pokhra—a 280 km journey—from Birganj, just a few kilometres across the border from Raxaul.

Among the first things the SOG team did was call the Nepali informer and ask him to meet them at Birganj to work out details of the plan. This was a risky move which could have backfired, and the decision was taken only after weighing the pros and cons. The team leader had never met the informer before, only spoken to him over the phone. It could have been a trap set for the SOG. But it was a call that they had to make.

At no point was it let slip that Vinay Kumar was also travelling with the team. Things went smoothly at the meeting and the informer left Birganj for Pokhra soon after, reaching early the next morning to await the arrival of the team. The SOG team, along with the senior police official, reached Pokhra the next evening and checked into Mount View Hotel. All the necessary logistical support was arranged by Vinay Kumar, who had by then been told about the target. The Nepali informer came to Mount View on 21 August to discuss details. After breakfast that morning, the men, in Bermuda shorts and shades, hired two motorcycles and set out for watchpoints they had chalked out. The stakeout to nab the nation’s most dreaded terrorist was about to begin, and there was no saying how long it would take.

It was the third week of August 2013. The myths

mation that Bal Bahadur Thapa aka Abdullah, a former Indian Army soldier who lived in Burhi Bazaar, a few kilometrer from Pokhra, knew the location of Yasin Batkal’s main hideout. A convert to Islam, Thapa— who, incidentally, was detained by the Nepal Police during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit—was known to ‘look after’ Bhatkal. The team asked the informer to meet up with Abdullah at 1.30 pm, just before the afternoon Muslim call to prayer. The informer, it was decided, would request Abdullah to take him to a place where he could offer namaaz.

For the men of the SOG team, time stood still while they waited. Finally, the phone rang. It was the informer, confirming that Abdullah had agreed to take him to a place where he could offer namaaz. On two bikes, the men

around Bhatkal did not dampen the team’s confidence.

The plan was in place. The five of them would leave for Nepal in a Mahindra Bolero posing as tourists. There was only one constraint: money. As a junior official, the team leader earned only a modest salary. “Almost 30 per cent of our salaries is spent on operations. We don’t get paid enough. We have meagre savings. If we still persist with enthusiasm in our assignments, it is primarily because many of us are passionate about our work. We move out of our comfort zone often in the line of duty,” in the words of an SOG officer.

The team leader obtained a Rs 40,000 loan from a friend to buy Nepali SIM cards and cover the other expenses of 22 september 2014

It was also on 21 August that the team received infor-

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followed the informer, who was in a car. At Burhi Bazaar, they deliberately slackened but kept tailing the car at a discreet distance. They saw the informer draw close to a man, presumably Abdullah, and hold a conversation for about 10 minutes. They then left together, leaving the two SOG team members scrambling to tail the car.

The convoy of vehicles ground to a halt some two kilometres ahead. They had reached Oregaon Chowk, and before them stood a small house. Located by the highway, this house gave its occupants a vantage point from which to watch out for anyone approaching, and seemed like a good location for a man in hiding. The team stayed put on the highway to assess the situation. While they lay in wait, they heard a motorbike approach. The pillion rider seemed somewhat familiar. Could he be their quarry?

The pictures of Bhatkal they had downloaded off the net did not completely match. The motorcycle drove right in through an entrance at the back. This was Bhatkal’s residence, they were convinced. Still, they had to get conclusive proof that this was indeed the case.

The

exhilaration of locating what could be Bhatkal’s hideout threatened to fizzle out the very next day. Abdullah was avoiding the informer. The SOG men called the informer in for a debriefing session.

According to the new plan, he was to pretend he had a medical problem and wanted to be treated by a Unani doctor. He would go with Abdullah to the doctor’s cham-

It is in the tourist hub of Pokhra that the SOG team begins one of the riskiest stakeouts in India’s anti-terrorist operations ber, collect a voice sample, observe the surroundings, note the number of people around, and, if possible, check whether they slept on floor kalims or beds.

The ruse worked. Hours after his appointment, the informer called SOG members to say that the Unani doctor appeared to be Bhatkal. “He is fair and his Hindi is good, but he appears to be a Kashmiri, not a South Indian.”

That didn’t sound quite right. This input triggered another net search for identifiers—such as birthmarks and scars—that are difficult to disguise. They zeroed in on three specific details: Bhatkal had an obstinate tuft of hair on his forehead, a few strands of unruly hair that curled backwards. Two, Bhatkal had a prominent scar on his forehead. Three, he had a pronouncedly protruding upper set of teeth. Whether the man in question was a Kashmiri or South Indian could be ascertained from the voice sample that the informer would capture, which could be put to phonetic analysis for inflexions and diphthongs in his speech. The informer was given an additional behavioural tick to check for: Bhatkal was 18 open

known to remove his headscarf only for the ritual ablutions before offering namaaz.

None of this could be checked in a hurry. The informer had to be handled carefully so that he did not blow the operation prematurely.

Surveillance, meanwhile, continued.

It was soon discovered that Bhatkal had created a network of 20 to 25 young men who were regular visitors to his residence. Oregaon Chowk was sparsely populated and tea shops were hard to come by, but there were quite a few bars. These served as watchpoints for the SOG members. The exercise would demand patience, they knew, but by 24 August, they had a breakthrough: the informer, posing as a patient, had used his mobile’s ‘record’ mode to obtain a clear voice sample of the Unani doctor. The team set about examining each inflexion and vowel sound. At the end of the exercise, they were sure it was Bhatkal’s voice. The speech in Hindi had a southwest Maharashtrian overhang. The team was convinced.

That night, the team met at the hotel for a stock taking 22 september 2014

Gopal Chitrakar/REUTERS

session. The team leader called his Joint Director in Patna at 8 pm to give him the good news. “Are you sure? Shall I talk to the DIB?” the Joint director asked. “Sir, 200 per cent,” he replied.

The men, however, told the Joint Director that there could be difficulty in getting the ‘target’ across the border to India , given the checkpoints en route. “Sir, if Delhi rejects our proposal to nab Bhatkal, we are ready to lift him [anyway],” the team leader told the Joint Director. In police speak, ‘lift’ could involve a range of methods: from drugging and gagging the suspect to rendering him unconscious for transportation, or just plain threatening him into accompanying them.

To be on the safe side, however, they decided to take an Additional Director of the IB in Delhi, another operations man, into confidence on the details of their operation.

“I hope you are certain. If we are wrong, we will be crucified,” he cautioned, before he picked up the hotline and informed his higher-ups that the Bihar SOG team was ready to act. “If the suspect proves not to be our man, we will set him free,” he assured the IB top brass.

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The Centre got in touch with the Nepal government, a coordinated effort to arrest ‘a wanted criminal’ was immediately agreed upon, a call was placed to an official attached to the Indian Embassy in Nepal, and an Indian Police officer posted there swung into action.

On

the morning of 25 August, a four-member Nepali police team arrived to coordinate efforts with the SOG and hand it a set of conditions: 1.Don’t pick up the suspect from a crowded place such as a bazaar or a bus station.

2.Don’t accompany the Nepali cops during the operation 3.The Indian team will not be anywhere near the building once the house is identified.

If the ‘target’ turned out to be a Nepali citizen, the SOG members were cautioned, the repercussions on IndiaNepal ties could be severe, given the anti-India sentiment prevalent in the country at the time.

To retain secrecy, the Indian team did not divulge any details on Bhatkal to the Nepali police. Only the open www.openthemagazine.com 19

house was pointed out for the latter to go ahead and make the arrest.

The SOG men would wait at a distance. From their surveillance point, they spotted another person in the house: a handsome man who they quickly identified as Asadullah Akhtar, also known as ‘Haddi’, an al Qaeda operative. ‘Haddi’ was the main suspect in the Varanasi, Pune, Zaveri Bazaar (Mumbai) and Ahmedabad blasts.

Bhatkal’s senior in the IM hierarchy, he was a hardened operative trained in Afghanistan, and the Indian Government had a reward of Rs 10 lakh on his head.

‘Haddi’ was also reputed to be highly intelligent.

Sensing something amiss, he ventured out of the house to look around Oregaon Chowk, and, at one point, noticing an SOG man, even began trailing him. To shake the al Qaeda man off, the SOG man had to duck into a hair salon closeby—he emerged clean-shaven, his beard gone, but all the safer for it.

There were disappointments in store. The Nepali police officers, after some sniffing around, gave up and left Oregaon Chowk. Meanwhile, Vinay Kumar had to rush back to Bihar; communal clashes had broken out in Motihari on the eve of Krishna Janmashtami. The SP took one of the Scorpios with him, leaving only one vehicle for the SOG men. A sense of gloom settled in.

The silver lining appeared on 27 August. All

the while, officials of the Indian Government had been talks with their Nepali counterparts to convince them of the need to catch the suspect. The nod finally came, but with a rider: the operation could only be conducted at night.

The next day, nature seemed to be conspiring against the SOG members. At around 4 pm, it started raining heavily. Later that evening, they had to return their hired motorcycles. With only one vehicle, there was no question of accompanying the Nepali police.

But time was running out, so the SOG team asked the Nepal police to conduct the raid on that very day. They watched from a distance as the local police finally entered the house on the highway off Oregaon Chowk at 8.30 pm.

At 10 pm, the SOG team got a call from the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu. The IPS man on the line was furious. “You are picking up an innocent man,” he yelled, “The man you staked out is a turbine engineer.”

The operation was at threat of being jeopardised. One of the men in the team replied: “If you are an IPS man, you should smell a rat when a turbine engineer practices Unani medicine and calls himself a doctor. Isn’t this man’s name Dr Yusuf? Please ask the Nepali police to bring him out. We will identify him.”

REUTERS

The Nitish Kumar government did not even allow its police officials to arrest or interrogate Yasin Bhatkal

A little calmer by now, the embassy official agreed to convey the request to the Nepali police. “Our men had a strong suspicion by now that the delay in nabbing Dr Yusuf was a deliberate ploy,” an Intelligence official familiar with the details of the Bhatkal operation maintains.

At 10.10 pm, the two suspects in the house were finally brought out. An SOG team officer yanked Dr Yusuf’s beard and swung him around, ignoring the man’s loud protests.

It did not take long for the doctor to admit who he was.

He was Yasin Bhatkal and ‘Dr Yusuf’ was just the latest of the dozen different identities he had taken on.

Top authorities in Delhi were informed of the developments in Pokhra. The SOG men were anxious to get hold of Bhatkal’s possessions, including his laptop, before anything could be erased or deleted.

Again, the Nepali police ordered the men to keep a good distance from their vehicle in view of the many security checks at the border. They would ferry the two nabbed terrorist masterminds to the border, where the SOG men could take them into custody.

The SOG men rushed back to their hotel to grab their bags and rush to the border. It was already close to midnight and impossible to find a cab. But the hotel’s management helped them reach Narayangarh, where they were joined by Vinay Kumar, who had forked out close to Rs 80,000 of his own money to fund the operation.

AP

The SOG team reached the Indian border territo-

ry at around 6 am on 29 August, and took Bhatkal and ‘Haddi’ to a forest guesthouse in Bettiah, Bihar, for a thorough interrogation. For this, it would be best if the arrests were kept under wraps. In New Delhi, however, the Home Ministry andNational Investigation Agency (NIA), which had no role in the operation, were in a scramble to take credit for catching India’s most wanted terrorist. Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde made a short statement on the country’s biggest terrorist catch of recent times, setting off a media frenzy.

Bhatkal and ‘Haddi’ were later moved to the East Champaran district headquarters of Motihari for further questioning. Bihar’s Additional Director General of Police Rajesh Chandra rushed from Patna to join the exercise.

Curiously, shortly afterwards, he was called back to Patna by the Nitish Kumar government.

Each member of the SOG team had put his career at risk for the operation, but it was clearly worth every bit of effort. Bhatkal was wanted for 17 bomb blast cases, including those of the German Bakery in Pune, Zaveri Bazaar in Mumbai, the High Court and Jama Masjid in Delhi, and others in Jaipur, Varanasi and Faizabad.

By nabbing the two terrorists, the team had managed to neutralise both IM factions: one, Pakistan controlled, headed by Bhatkal, and the other, SIMI-controlled, headed by ‘Haddi’. And they did it almost entirely through the

22 september 2014

A hooded Bhatkal being taken to a court in Motihari on 29 August 2013

dint of their own effort, without needing to fire a single bullet. But to their dismay, New Delhi and Patna had little to offer them in acknowledgement. post script

l Bhatkal is currently lodged in prison No 2 of Tihar Jail.

l The SOG team leader got a letter of commendation and a cash reward Rs 1 lakh, but was not considered for a gallantry award. The then Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde issued a notification offering him a reward of Rs 3.5 lakh, but the Ministry issued a corrigendum shortly withdrawing it, saying that it was his duty. l Joint Director, IB, Patna, got a commendation certificate from Director, IB. l Vinay Kumar is now the Superintendent of Police of Saran, Bihar. n

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political violence

THE BLOOD SPORT OF MALABAR As the murder politics of CPM and RSS in northern Kerala continues to seek martyrs in the most gruesome ways, ULLEKH NP in Kannur traces the origins of the violence to a martial tradition of fearlessness and honour

C

Party of India (Marxist) leader P Jayarajan welcomes you with a disarming smile, as if he is meeting a comrade-in-arms after decades. Long years of pain and suffering following an attempt on his life

by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh rivals have not dented his sense of humour and hearty laugh, nor his enthusiasm for exchanging pleasantries. Neither does he seem overly distracted by the political turmoil building up in the aftermath of the murder of 42-year-old local RSS leader E Manoj, which could put several of his party workers in the dock. He would rather enjoy the pleasant yet unrelenting rain outside. He goes on to crack a joke or two about Rahul Gandhi, pokes fun at the naïveté of expelled former CPM MP AP Abdullah Kutty, who has found sanctuary in the Congress, and enquires about national politics and Modi with the curiosity of a teenager. He then picks up a call with his left hand—he can barely move his other hand—to brief his lawyers about the latest criminal cases slapped on party workers in this northern Kerala district that has been a simmering pot of political violence for long.

Someone mischievous or subversive just had to open the lid, and all hell would break loose.

Jayarajan is back in chat mode as soon ommunist

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as he hangs up the phone. In between explaining the nature of the cases against his party workers, he talks about his exercise regimen: he goes for a brisk walk. That is all. At 64, he is still youthful and jovial despite having to live with a right arm rendered immobile and with numerous other scars. “I used this one to eat rice with until I was 49,” he says pointing at his right hand. The story is now part of communist lore of the district: on the day of Onam in 1999, alleged RSS goons attacked him at his then home in Kizhakke Kathiroor with bombs, axes, machetes and cleavers. He suffered extreme wounds on his spinal cord, limbs and chest, and almost died. Kathiroor is known for its rich martial-arts culture and for the legendary 16th-century warrior Kathiroor Gurukal, who is believed to have been killed by another martial arts great Thacholi Othenan through deceit. It is now known as poozhikkadakan, an unethical act in a duel and involves splashing of sand to blind the opponent.

Eye for an Eye Like CPM’s Kannur district secretary Jayarajan, Sadanandan Master, the former Jillahsahakaryavah of the RSS in the CPM citadel, too, lived to tell the tale.

Master, a lower primary school teacher and a former member of the CPM who

had emerged as a charismatic RSS functionary, was based in Mattannur, Kannur, until 1994 when he was attacked by a group of armed CPM members from another part of the district—a well-known ruse to camouflage the identity of the murderers—who chopped off both his legs below his knees. He did not die, but while he was being taken to hospital, suspected RSS volunteers slewed to death KV Sudheesh, a leader of the CPM’s student wing, SFI, right in front of his elderly parents. Unlike Jayarajan and Master, both accused of being votaries of eye-foran-eye politics prior to attacks on them, Sudheesh, who lived in a relatively RSS dominant area in the district called Thokkilangadi, seemed to have had no inkling that he, of all people, would be the target of a murderous RSS attack. He had ignored warnings from party colleagues advising him to shift to a ‘safer’ location, saying RSS cadres in his neighbourhood were friends.

Friends they may be, until the urge of vendetta strikes. Though not as diabolical as Sicilian vendetta and the code of Omerta, the region called Kadathanaad—south of Thalassery and north of Koyilandy by the side of the Kotakkal river and comprising violenceravaged areas such as Pattiam, Panoor, Pathayakkunnu, Kathiroor, Konkachi, 22 september 2014

illustration by anirban ghosh

sk mohan/the hindu archive

The spot near Kathiroor in Kannur where RSS leader E Manoj was fatally attacked by alleged CPM workers

Palloor, Nadapuram, Vanimel and so on—has seen repeated clashes among members of the CPM, RSS and various Muslim organizations. Hundreds have been left dead and maimed by bloody bouts of what is widely described as revenge politics. Politicians elsewhere in the state, even those of the CPM, RSS and other parties, hasten to distance themselves from the political violence that continually hits Kannur, calling this northern district ‘Kerala’s Bihar’ or some kind of Wild West that’s distant from the political discourse in other parts.

Bad Blood For his part, historian and social scientist Rajan Gurukkal smirks at what he describes as frivolous claims by uppity southerners: “I also once thought that there could be an anthropological explanation to the violence in the north Malabar or northern Kerala, a region of heroic poems called Northern Ballads that eulogise the fighters. If you read these 18th-century heroic poems, you come across the tradition of using mercenaries, just as in cock-fights, for resolving individual-level conflicts. The killed mercenary’s heir would retaliate, and then there was the chain of retaliation and counter-retaliation.” Adds he: “Now there is no meaning in relating such 26 open

culturally contingent associations by way of explanation, because it is as individualised a society as it is anywhere else. The crime statistics show that there is no difference between Kannur and Thiruvananthapuram or Alappuzha in terms of murder rates, political or other types. It has evenly spread to all of Kerala, and the murder rates in Kottayam and Pathanamthitta are higher than what they are in Kannur.”

True, crime stats alone can’t establish the connection. Despite Gurukkal’s numbers, though, the part of Kannur under Kadathanaad has seen a series of political murders that can be described as vendetta killings, and the sight of mothers mourning their sons being cremated in the frontyards of homes is common in places like Kathiroor, Pattiam, Pathayakkunnu and Chokli. RSS activist PP Mohanan was killed in 1994; his murder was followed by a series of murders which saw several RSS and CPM leaders getting killed. Jayarajan was one of the accused in the Mohanan murder case.

It was after a wild cycle of retaliation and counter-retaliation that, in 1999, Jayarajan was attacked. Within months, and merely six days after a ‘ceasefire’ thrashed out by Justice VR Krishna Iyer, RSS leader KT Jayakrishnan was hacked to death by a CPM killer squad in front of

his students on 1 December 1999. To be fair to the CPM, contrary to the nationwide propaganda launched by the RSS, Jayakrishnan was no pacifist who looked the enemy in the eye with compassion to win him over. Besides, he was not the first school teacher to have been killed or attacked in Kannur in front of his young students. In 1978, Raju Master, a CPM local leader in Pannoor, was slain by RSS workers inside a classroom. Similarly, an attempt on the life of CPM leader Damodaran Master was made inside a school in nearby Thrippangoottor in 1972; the CPM’s Suresh Babu, a teacher, was stabbed inside a school in Thalassery in 1999. The list of brutal attacks and counter-attacks is a long one.

A senior police officer asserts, “If all this is not vendetta politics, then nothing is. Among them, the RSS, the CPM and Muslim radical outfits often celebrate the murders of their opponents by distributing porotta and beef curry (irrespective of party affiliations) and by bursting loud crackers. All this tends to continue despite the passage of time and despite the fact that the younger generation is in no way able to connect with this kind of abominable behaviour.”

Myth and Truth In earlier days, when the roads were narrower, if two local kings met face to face, one had to yield and lean a bit to let the other go. But very often neither would relent, resulting in a duel that would see two hired Chekavars (practitioners of martial arts whose heroics are celebrated in the Northern Ballads) fight until one of them dies. The spiritually inclined (or the superstitious, whichever way you look at it) believe that the restless souls of those who lost their lives in these duels of the past haunt Kadathanadu, and it is their spell over the region that stirs up political mayhem. Says a priest with a local temple in Koothuparamba in Kannur, “The modern-minded among us might dismiss such pronouncements as superstition, but I have enough reason to believe that until those souls of the dead find redemption, violence of this kind will always be there.” He adds that he and several other priests in the area are conducting rites to ensure moksha—an escape from the cycle of birth and rebirth—for “our forefathers”.

22 september 2014

One may dub such utterances as whimsical, but then the recent killing of Manoj, the Shareerik Shikshan Pramukh of the RSS in the district—his vehicle was bombed before he was hacked to death— a few days before Onam has re-opened old wounds. Bitter memories of the Onam attack on Jayarajan 15 years ago still fester. A local CPM leader based in Kathiroor bluntly tells Open “that one should have no doubt about our intent”.

He goes on, “Comrade Jayarajan was forced to flee from Kathiroor after the attack, and this guy, Manoj, who was among the attackers (he was among the accused), was roaming around freely around here. That didn’t go down well with our comrades here. Let me tell you that much. You can guess the rest.”

Jayarajan’s son Jain’s Facebook post congratulating the killers of Manoj also sparked hostilities. Though the posts were soon deleted, the RSS’s Kerala Pranth Karyavah Gopalankutty Master says that the killing was done with the blessings of CPM’s top leadership. “They

killed Manoj without any provocation.

In a short period of one week, two of our activists were murdered and a series of atrocities were staged. CPM is carrying out their policy of uprooting enemies.

They are trying to stop the flow of their workers to BJP/ RSS. This will not only destroy peace in the district, but will also wreak havoc elsewhere,” he says.

The legendary 16th-century warrior Kathiroor Gurukal is believed to have been killed by another martial arts great Thacholi Othenan through deceit

Meanwhile, Jayarajan, who often appears calm and composed, has come under criticism for being deeply vengeful and for using the party apparatus to settle personal scores. A Kannur-based CPM leader says that the majority in the party “disapprove of this action (Manoj’s killing)”. He adds, “It is high time the party started appealing to the middle classes and purged its old mentality of bumping off rivals physically. We all can coexist. More importantly, Jayarajan, despite his ‘cool’ nature, has internalised the kind of politics he has learnt from his political masters such as MV Raghavan and others… he is able to offer his blessings to such dastardly acts and still remain unperturbed.”

Kannur-based RSS leader Valsan Thillankeri says that he and his organisation have reached out to peace-loving leaders of the CPM to get rid of this “rotten politics run for personal reasons”. He vouches for the fact that several CPM leaders, both within the district and outside, have conceded that the latest killstuart forster/alamy/india picture

Two men practice the ancient martial art of Kalaripayattu in Kerala

Of Party Villages, New Strategies Thillankeri traces the political violence in Kannur to CPM leaders’ intolerance of any opposition to their views. CPM leaders, on the other hand, contend that it was the RSS central leadership’s “nefarious designs” to foment anti-Muslim violence in north Kerala as early as the 1960s that fathered all this mindless violence.

“Both reasons are valid,” notes a former CPM leader. He emphasises that leaders of the undivided Communist Party who had suffered police atrocities and repression by landlords under Congress rule, kept up an aggressive political stance by targeting anyone who opposed them as a spy of the feudalist Congress and the police. “It is a very complicated subject to analyse. Having been through hell, oldtime communists distrusted all those who opposed them and behaved as though they were enemies. But I can’t say they tried to eliminate them. They just stayed away from them. The next-in-line leaders didn’t inherit the humaneness of their predecessors, and, when they started becoming powerful, began to suppress any dissent, both inside and outside the party. So, intolerance towards other views became a habit too difficult to break,” he notes. “The RSS made some progress in establishing a presence in Kerala through beedi workers and they instigated violence against Muslims in Thalassery. The CPM resisted it and they became sworn enemies. The anti-Muslim violence of 1971 in Thalassery that destroyed comSubir Halder/India Today Group/Getty Images

c ratheesh kumar/the hindu archive

ing, which has triggered protests from even within the CPM, was absolutely unwarranted.

BJP and RSS activists stage a dharna in front of the Kerala Secretariat; (below) CPM leader Pinarayi Vijayan

munal amity in the region was the brainchild of the Nagpur man in charge of some parts of Kerala, Bhaskar Rao. The RSS was the first to use bombs and also axes in attacking political opponents,” he adds.

Trained to Kill While the CPM accuses the RSS of training cadres to kill using various weapons, including axes, the communists were not far behind themselves. A person who was a mastermind of numerous anti-RSS and anti-Congress ‘operations’ to liquidate rivals says that the CPM used to meticulously train its cadres “where to stab, what angle to aim from, the power required while pulling out a knife, [and] how to make a bomb, defuse it, activate it and so on”. He says that he doesn’t regret heading the team because that was a time when the CPM had to resist attacks and protect its leaders. “Please don’t forget that Congress goons and RSS workers used to hunt down CPM leaders in broad daylight in those days. I have escorted many leaders to safety during Emergency… if I was required to kill someone to protect a leader, I would do it,” he states with finality.

During the Emergency, the CPM even entered into a tacit pact with the RSS to fight the Congress. In the past, the CPM used precisely such loyalists to lead killer squads of party workers. But not any longer. “The 2012 slaying of a leader of a breakaway faction, TP Chandrasekharan, only proves that ‘quotation gangs’ who are hired for money have encroached onto [the territory of] CPM’s killer squads, making its leaders far more vulnerable.

Unlike dyed-in-the-wool party workers, these guys just spill the beans during interrogation,” says the former CPM leader.

He emphasises that all this talk about

‘party villages’, where the CPM holds enormous sway, is an exaggeration.

“There are no such villages where the rule of law doesn’t apply. The arrests of TP’s assassins prove that party villages are not cohesive units as they are made out to be. Let’s not overrate the strength of the CPM and the wisdom of its leaders. Most often they are whimsical and foolish,” he insists.

A local Congress leader says that the CPM leadership doesn’t seem really aware of the RSS-BJP’s fresh designs.

“Those leaders of yore may have tackled the RSS problem, but the new leaders don’t seem even aware of that. With Amit Shah, a powerful organiser, at the helm, the BJP is certain to have an agenda for each state. My feeling is that the BJP will use the Manoj murder, which will be investigated by the CBI, to spread its wings in northern Kerala, where it currently doesn’t have much electoral prowess.

With Islamists gaining in strength in the region, more and more Hindus who had earlier aligned with the CPM may now veer towards the BJP,” he offers. The growth of Islamist groups in the region remains a major worry, he adds.

Interestingly, the jailed Lashkar-e-Toiba operative in south India, Kannur-born Thadiyantavide Naseer, is accused of recruiting numerous Malayalee Muslim youths for LeT camps in Pakistan.

The signs of vendetta politics taking on communal hues in Kannur are plain for everyone to see with the CPM clashing with both the RSS and radical Islamists.

Unfortunately, like in vendetta politics, there are no winners in the game of communal polarisation. And in all likelihood, there will be no end anytime soon to the clangs of swords in Kadathanadu. n 22 september 2014

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INNOCEAN-001/12

letter from the ghats

RE-IMAGINING BeNAReS Waiting for Narendra Modi to regain the city that never stops dreaming

By Saraswati Nandini Majumdar

I

am back in Benares after a peri-

od of seven months. From my very first moment of being back, of stepping out of the railway station, driving through the city and settling down at home, the basic difficulties of life in this city strike me. During this first day back, there are power failures for about eight hours. For unknown Saraswati Nandini reasons but perhaps, as people tell me, Majumdar is the because of the recent rain, the broadband connection has stopped working. After author of Banaras: spending the day trying to catch up with Walks Through important work online, I decide to go India’s Sacred out for a walk. The last spell of rain was City (Roli Books) just a short shower, but the road outside my house is flooded.

Last time I was here, the road had been newly fixed. But now it has broken down into a crumbling, pot-holed mess. As pedestrians and vehicles inch their way down a strip of tarmac that protrudes from the lake, a loud, impatient traffic jam forms.

Still others simply wade through the water with utterly matter-of-fact faces. The pile of garbage that usually sits on one side of the road has disintegrated and unidentifiable bits of trash are floating on the water. A manhole sits uncovered along the other side of the road, sewage gushing out. Somewhat faintheartedly, I abandon my idea of a walk and call out to a rickshaw. At Assi Ghat, the sight of swamps of rotting garbage and sewage sinks into me even while the sight of the Ganga in the early evening, magnificently broad now because of the monsoons, fills me with some of my old Benaresi pride.

I have recently read about Modi’s trip to Japan. As I wander through the lanes near Assi Ghat, my mind goes over the news of his intentions, of developing Benares along the lines of Kyoto, as a ‘heritage city’ and a ‘smart city.’ Wonderful, I think.

But doesn’t anything ‘heritage’ mean dead and gone, and now preserved? Over a million of us live and work here in Benares.

We are not heritage.

For all of my life, Benares has felt like a bubble, disconnected from the rest of the world, governed by its own forces. The people of the city are completely accustomed to life that has an inefficient and unfinished quality. They are complacent about it. At the very most, if provoked, they respond to it with the same philosophical attitude with which they approach every aspect of life, one of seemingly infinite patience and goodhumouredness.

But Benares is also a bubble of great beauty.

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The ghats are breathtaking, and are loved and used by all for peace of mind and play. Within its lanes, there are smaller but equally magnificent versions of the palaces and mansions that line the river, as well as communal squares, wells, shrines and tombs. All of these spaces are still used by the people. Also within the lanes are the workshops of artisans who have produced stunning Benaresi silk and brocade for generations, as well as the homes and baithakis of artists who developed and continue the Benaresi gharana of music and dance. Old-style music and dance ‘sittings’ still take place in temples and homes, known only to insiders.

B

enares’ spaces work reciprocally with the city’s remark-

able and unique culture, one that values diversity, tolerance and playfulness. The ethos that accompanies this culture and allows for its continuation, despite the physical breakdown of some of the city’s most beautiful buildings and spaces, is called Banarasipan. Anyone can be a Benaresi, regardless of caste, class or religion, as long as they love their city and understand how to live life wisely and imaginatively.

This kind of secular and dynamic communal spirit, and the material framework that supports it and allows it expression, is a strong example for the administrators, designers and engineers of modern India. In understanding the heritage of Benares, one must understand all its aspects, not just the material, but also the philosophical and cultural, and how they work together.

Modi’s visit to Kyoto and the MoU that he signed on 29 August to establish Kyoto and Benares as sister cities is important in many ways. It breaks the bubble that Benares has occupied for decades, connecting it to the rest of the nation and the world—a step towards the connectivity that in fact characterised the city in the past and shaped it. And so Modi’s step also breaks the bubble of Benares in another way, by connecting the city with its own past as well as the future.

Benares has been rendered transparent, its blemishes and beauty open to scrutiny as should be. The Government’s gaze has long disregarded Benares. Modi’s pointed attention, whatever the motivating ideology behind it, is a welcome change.

As a ‘heritage city,’ Benares’ ghats, lanes and old buildings need to be preserved. Illegal constructions and demolitions need to be stopped. A sewage treatment system needs to be finally put in place (after much stalling by the central and municipal governments) in order to stop the pollution of the Ganga. The roads have to be fixed and an effective garbage disposal system introduced.

22 september 2014

Arun Sharma/Hindustan Times/Getty Images

Narendra Modi attends the ‘Ganga Aarti’ ceremony at Dashashwamedh Ghat in Benares on 17 May after his decisive electoral victory

But there is so much more than that. If we imagine Benares as a ‘heritage city,’ there are wonderful examples to which we can look. Modi has looked towards Kyoto, but there are also cities like Leiden and Heidelberg in the Netherlands, both very old places of commerce as well as culture that have been deliberately, actively preserved, and in imaginative ways. There is London itself, where it is not just possible but a joy to walk anywhere at all, or to ride a bike or take public transport.

Like them, we should have, first, simply a clean and functional city—a city with no garbage, open sewers, rotting refuse, days and nights without electricity, polluted water and the resignation of provincial backwardness. Then we could and should also have parks and gardens, libraries, community centres, and neighbourhood events. Benares had all of these civic amenities in the past and all of this forms the city’s unique heritage.

Most of all, if the people of Benares are to continue to live and practice their culture and to strengthen it, they will have to participate in the processes of change, along with learning to follow top-down structural changes. To orchestrate such participatory processes, any government would have to demonstrate not just efficiency but also imagination and sensitivity, the ability to recognise that culture and community 22 september 2014

are multiple and complex. It is not an impossible task, but revolutionary for modern India… and most likely too much to hope for from Narendra Modi.

M

odi’s name passes through the city like a waft of a new

and unnamed wind. The people of Benares are optimistic, expectant, impatient, dismissive, resigned and skeptical all at once. Just like the idea of bullet trains seems at one level premature and over-ambitious, so does transforming Benares into a Kyoto or Leiden seem, although highly desirable, purely theoretical.

On my rickshaw ride to Assi Ghat and then my wander through the lanes near Assi, and in the days that have followed that first, somewhat jolting day back, my observations and chats with my fellow Benaresis has spelled out that what Benaresis, of all kinds, want first of all is simply a functioning city and lives of satisfactory comfort. We want first of all to have fixed the spaces in which we live, the water that we use and the air that we breathe, rather than promises about a future that is undoubtedly wonderful, but imaginary. If Modi can give us just all of that, he will have earned this city’s votes. Only then can we together dream and work further. n open www.openthemagazine.com 31

Haunted by the ghost of Osama The latest jihadist threat to India is real because the new al Qaeda is a branch of Pakistan’s military, writes Tufail Ahmad

T

he nature of the jihadist threat

to India is turning complex. In a video released on 3 September, al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri a announced the establishment of al Qaeda’s new branch in the Indian Subcontinent. On TV channels, Indian analysts have mostly dismissed AlZawahiri’s announcement as a desperTufail Ahmad ate bid by al Qaeda to renew its image is a former following the murderous competition journalist with the from the Islamic State, formerly the BBC Urdu Service Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). It and Director of is true that al Qaeda hasn’t mounted a South Asia Studies spectacular 9/11-style attack recentProject at the ly, but then 9/11-type attacks do not Middle East Media happen every day.

Research Institute, Al Qaeda remains an agile terrorist Washington DC network and its affiliates are executing attacks regularly in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere. These attacks do not get global attention because Western targets are not involved. The world knows that American journalist James Foley was beheaded by jihadists, but there are no media reports that scores of other journalists have been killed in the Syrian conflict. For India’s security purposes, it will be meaningless to make a distinction between the jihad launched by the ISIS, which is attracting Muslims from India, and the jihad of al Qaeda, which is backed by sponsors operating from Pakistan.

Al Qaeda’s Look East Policy The establishment of al Qaeda’s new branch, al Qaeda Jihad Organisation in South Asia, could have been forecast two years ago. In the wake of the anti-Muslim conflicts in Myanmar and 32 open

Assam, al Qaeda’s central leadership based in Pakistan began evolving its ‘Look East’ policy from mid-2012 onwards. In a statement issued in September 2012, Ustad Ahmad Farooq, who is the head of al Qaeda’s Preaching and Media Department for Pakistan and has toured the West, including France, warned that the anti-Muslim riots ‘provide impetus for us to hasten our advance towards Delhi’. Sometime early this year, al Qaeda’s media arm As-Sahab established a media production unit for India called As-Sahab in South Asia.

While the establishment of al Qaeda’s new branch may not appear new, it does not mean that the threat to India is not strengthening. Al-Zawahiri’s announcement means only one thing: more information will be available over the next few months on the extent to which al Qaeda has succeeded in recruiting Indian Muslims. Just two days after Al-Zawahiri’s video, it emerged that 23 Muslim youths from Manipur left their homes to join this new branch of al Qaeda. These media reports, based on intelligence sources, cannot be dismissed as baseless. From mid-2013 onwards, a new jihadist organisation emerged in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region called Ansar UtTawheed Fi Bilad Hind (‘Supporters of Islamic Monotheism in India’). Its videos of the past year show that about a dozen youths from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh have been training somewhere in the PakistanAfghanistan region.

To say that al Qaeda’s jihadist message is not succeeding in India would be to live in denial, though it appears that Muslim youths from India might prefer ISIS to al Qaeda. There are footprints showing that Indian Muslims are responding to al Qaeda’s jihadist message. Over the past year and a half, Maulana Asim Umar, the emir (head) of al Qaeda’s new anti-India branch, released several videos urging Indian Muslims to join the global jihadist battlefields such as Yemen and Syria, and asked Kashmiris to abandon stones in favour of Kalashnikovs. So, regardless of whether the jihad call was from al Qaeda or ISIS, 22 september 2014

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Al-Zawahiri’s announcement means that more information will emerge over the next few months on the extent to which al Qaeda has succeeded in recruiting Indian Muslims the consequence is that more than a hundred Muslims from India are fighting in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. India is a huge country and one cannot expect Indian intelligence agents to be present everywhere all the time. The full extent of how many Indian Muslims have gone to these countries is unknown even to Indian intelligence agencies.

In the video, Al-Zawahiri clarifies that it took two years to establish the anti-India branch. “This is something what Pakistan always wanted to happen in emerging India,” says Pakistani journalist Asif Magsi, now on a media fellowship in Washington. He adds, “It’s now overt to the world that the ISI and Pakistan army have close ties with al Qaeda. The Pakistan army provided a safe haven to the former al Qaeda chief [Osama 22 september 2014

bin Laden] in its military backyard in Abbottabad. India and its allies must warn Islamabad for indirectly trying to sponsor terror in the region and India in general via al Qaeda and jihadi outfits.”

The Pakistani military’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is known for creating and nurturing terror groups to advance Pakistan’s foreign policy objectives. The timing of Al-Zawahiri’s video is also significant, as it came just days before the 9/11 anniversary.

As part of the video, there were two more speeches which have not been reported in the media: one is by Maulana Asim Umar and the other by Ustad Usama Mahmoud, who has been appointed as the new branch’s spokesman. Asim Umar traces open www.openthemagazine.com 33

the history of qital (fighting to kill) from the early Islamic era, cites a Quranic verse as per which Prophet Muhammad was asked by Allah to march for jihad alone if need be, without anybody else by his side, and goes on to narrate how Islam’s first caliph Abu Bakr Siddiq decided to wage jihad against those Muslims who wouldn’t pay their taxes. So, while Asim Umar’s speech traces the legacy of what he calls “1,400 years” of qital and its jihadist message to Muslims, Usama notes that the first objective of the new organisation is “to wage jihad against America and the international order of kufr [unbelief] under its patronage” and the second objective is the enforcement of Sharia through “every method”, noting that for this, Qital Fi Sabeelillah (fighting in the path of Allah) is the “topmost” method.

The jihadist thinking is that the second objective—of establishing Sharia rule and a caliphate—cannot be achieved unless the US-led international order is destabilised. In fact, in issue VI of the Taliban magazine Azan, released last August, the jihadists described the pre-9/11 strategy of al Qaeda as successful. In a cover story, the magazine was specific in advocating a policy of entangling America in wars initiated by jihadists so that American resources could be stretched far and wide. ‘We have to spread our attacks on American interests throughout the world,’ it urged its followers. The jihadists view democracy as antithetical to Islam and in their minds, India is thenew America and part of a US-led international order of democracies.

Al Qaeda as a Branch of the Pakistani Military To some extent, India can indeed prevent and counter ISIS-led radicalisation, but as a state it needs to worry about the al Qaeda threat more than about self-motivated homegrown jihadists.

A careful examination of the nature of al Qaeda reveals a worrying aspect. The Al-Zawahiri video has another timeline in its sight, the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan by end-2014, and is therefore aligned with the Pakistani military’s strategic objective aimed at reacquiring control over Afghanistan through the Taliban as the US leaves. This strategic objective is part of the ISI’s vision of a broader Islamic state.

It is about time the Indian security establishment understood the nature of this security threat: al Qaeda is essentially a branch of the Pakistani military.

The facts on the ground are clear. Although it has been led by Arab militants, al Qaeda is a Pakistani organisation; it has been nurtured and sustained there. It is from Pakistan that it has spread to the Middle East and Africa. Its central leadership is housed there. It is now established beyond doubt that Osama bin Laden was comprehensively protected by the Pakistani military. Al Qaeda was founded on the watch of the ISI when it was controlling and executing the Afghan jihad in the 1980s. If you look at the nature of the 9/11 attacks on New York and the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai, the two appear to have been planned by a single person; in the case of 9/11, they decided to launch airborne invasions of American cities, and on 26/11, they decided to mount seaborne attacks on Mumbai for its spectacular effect: in both cases, they used GPS technology to plan terror attacks in order to alter the course of international politics. In the case of 9/11, it was meant to damage the global economic system, 34 open

and in Mumbai, the goal was to reshape India-Pakistan ties.

This argument that the 9/11 and 26/11 attacks were planned by a single person in the ISI is buttressed by the fact that several former ISI chiefs continue to work for the Pakistani intelligence, among them Lieutenant General Hamid Gul and Lieutenant General Shuja Pasha, both retired but the latter has been reportedly appointed as the Regional Chief of the UAE’s intelligence agency. Journalists working in Pakistan have reported in the international media that on many occasions when they went to meet Hamid Gul in recent years, he had gone to the Pakistani military headquarters. It should be noted that Gul was the ISI chief when al Qaeda was established in Peshawar in 1988. Pakistan’s Urdu press reported recently that former ISI chief Shuja Pasha was coordinating the minute details of the protest marches by cricketer-turned politician Imran Khan and Islamic scholar Maulana Tahirul Qadri. This indicates that the forces which protected Osama bin Laden are indeed thriving.

There is another dimension. At least theoretically, and in terms of strategic planning, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar is indeed the topmost al Qaeda leader. Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri offered bai’yah (oath of fealty) to Mullah Omar as Emir-ul-Momineen, or the Leader of the Faithful Muslims. Mullah Omar is considered Emir-ulMomineen by al Qaeda affiliates across the world and all Taliban factions. A few years ago, when the US threatened to launch drone attacks in Baluchistan, the ISI was so worried about Mullah Omar’s safety that it moved him from Quetta to Karachi. Much like Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar is also comprehensively protected by the ISI. Although al Qaeda’s many affiliates work in independent operational domains within their geographical area, there is no doubt that in the Indian Subcontinent, al Qaeda functions as a branch of the Pakistani military.

In an interview with Azan in May 2013, former Pakistan Air Force (PAF) engineer and now leading Taliban commander Adnan Rasheed noted the existence of a secret organisation in the Pakistani military called Idara-tul-Pakistan (‘the Institution of Pakistan’), whose purpose he pointed out is to nurture jihadist networks across Pakistan’s navy, army and air force. In the interview, Rasheed recounted a comment he made to his boss at Idara-tul-Pakistan while speaking about members of Jaish-eMuhammad led by Maulana Masood Azhar: “We are soldiers in uniform and they are soldiers without uniform”, both reporting to the ISI. All Pakistani and foreign security analysts are of the view that the Pakistani military indeed has a jihadist bedrock to its strategic thinking. Former PAF chief Air Marshall Asghar Khan is on record that Pakistani initiated all four wars against India and lost them all. Amid this history of defeats, Pakistan appears to have lost hope of winning a conventional military conflict with India and is therefore working on a policy of bleeding India through jihadist organisations such as Jaish-e-Muhammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba and al Qaeda. At this time, the ISI may be specially inspired by the ISIS’s spectacular success in Iraq and in its scheme of things al Qaeda is a readily available resource.

In the video, Al-Zawahiri clarified that the purpose of the new organisation in the Indian Subcontinent is to erase the international borders demarcated by the British in 1947 so that a 22 september 2014

Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images

The Al-Zawahiri video factors in the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan by end2014 and is aligned with the Pakistani army’s goal of regaining control over the county larger Islamic state could be established. For close observers of Pakistan, this objective of al Qaeda is essentially shared by the Pakistani military and its ISI, a jihadist organisation that doubles up as an intelligence agency but imagines itself as the ideological guardian of the Islamic state of Pakistan. It is relevant to know that Pakistan is described by Pakistani thinkers as ‘Medina-e-Sani’, or Second Medina, the first being the Islamic state established by Prophet Muhammad. At this point in time, by establishing a specialised terror machine aimed at India, al Qaeda is essentially advancing the ISI’s objectives in India and across South Asia.

It was always clear to close observers of Pakistan that the ISI would plan something for 2014-end, when US troops leave Afghanistan. In the video, Al-Zawahiri appears well fed and in robust health; and the task cut out for international intelligence agencies is to search for him in Rawalpindi, where the Pakistani military headquarters are situated, not in caves and mountains.

India Needs Counter-Radicalisation Measures One must keep the jihadist threat in perspective: terrorists cannot take over our governments and countries. At most, they will mount some attacks like those in Jammu & Kashmir or those undertaken by the Indian Mujahideen in several parts of India, or the occasional spectacular attack like 26/11. However, one 22 september 2014

point is obvious: the current generation of jihadists is ideologically motivated and they are not hiding in caves, mountains and jungles. There is nothing surprising that Indian Muslims are attracted to them; it was always expected that a few Indians would be attracted to the ideology of jihad someday. However, there are ways to prevent and counter radicalisation among Muslims in India.

Indians must laud the Hyderabad parents who recently displayed exemplary courage, wisdom and foresight in alerting police officials that their sons were headed for Iraq to join the ISIS. Those youths were held in Kolkata and those parents must appreciate how this saved their sons. However, a wave of political correctness and denial is sweeping Indian society. On We the People, a TV show hosted by journalist Barkha Dutt and telecast on 7 September 2014, this writer had the opportunity to hear firsthand outright denials by both Hindu and Muslim analysts that there is an al Qaeda threat to India. Leading Islamic scholar Maulana Mahmood Madani presented the case of the youth who were stopped in Kolkata as if they had gone to play football, not for their onward journey to Iraq.

The fact that the police let them off after some questioning means that security officials are indeed handling such issues sensitively. Islamic scholars like Mahmood Madani and Maulana Salman Al-Husaini Nadwi of Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama, who wrote a congratulatory letter to ISIS chief Abu Bakr open www.openthemagazine.com 35

ap

Regardless of whether the jihad call was from al Qaeda or ISIS, the grim reality is that more than a hundred Muslims from India are fighting in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan Al-Baghdadi, should take a lesson from the parents of these Hyderabadi youths. Notwithstanding the Muslim denial and secular political correctness associated with the issue of terror in India, and the excessive politicisation of India’s national debate on counter-extremism, the Indian security establishment must remain professionally alert to the emerging threat from jihadists. The global jihad has been seeping into Indian society for several years, but its symptoms are beginning to emerge only now. India’s task is already defined by Pakistan’s ISI, al Qaeda and the ISIS. On priority, India needs to undertake the following measures: One, the Indian legal system is far behind the global jihadists, who are highly educated and are fully aware of political freedoms and legal limitations of free societies like the US, UK and India to prosecute them. India must enact a counterradicalisation law. Authoritarian and theocratic states like China and Saudi Arabia can fight terrorists with the power of crude force. However, India is an open society and a thriving democracy. Its law-abiding citizens are determined to bring up their children in an environment of personal liberty. Most Indian citizens are youths. At least half of India’s 1.25 billion people are under the age of 25 years; 65 per cent of the population is below 35. This is an entirely new political population, which doesn’t connect with the emotional turmoil of Partition and can barely remember the effects of the Emergency. This young population has grown up essentially in a culture of liberty. Counter-radicalisation legislation will plug legal loopholes in the system, aid Indian citizens in defending their legitimate personal liberties, and vitally empower India’s security agencies.

36 open

Two, Indian security agencies can learn some lessons in counter-radicalisation from democratic countries. In the United States, counter-radicalisation got a boost through sting operations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). India must introduce FBI-style sting operations to prevent sleeper cells on our streets. But sting operations cannot succeed without strengthening India’s legal framework. Laws should also be in place to prosecute terrorist acts by Indian citizens outside the Indian soil. In the US, individuals trying to contact terrorists can be prosecuted; and in the UK, anyone other than counterterrorism researchers can be jailed for downloading jihadist videos and literature. It is hard for investigating agencies in India or elsewhere to produce police evidence against terrorists, resulting in their acquittal by courts on technical grounds.

Sting operations can go a long way in aiding intelligence and prosecution officials in collecting admissible evidence.

Three, intelligence agencies in India must keep in mind that fake encounters cannot be acceptable to the Indian republic, though it is also a fact that security officials will find themselves in situations of genuine encounters. There are additional reasons: fake encounters morally corrode police forces and intelligence agencies from within; they destroy the moral fibre of our societies to fight back against the menace of terrorism; and in the long run they can destroy us as a nation with a moral purpose in the world. Fake encounters also alienate good-intentioned Muslim parents who want to save their sons from turning jihadist. Parents like the aforementioned in Hyderabad are the first line of defence against jihadism in society. Jihadist terror is also a moral challenge, and counter-terrorism measures must be accountable within India’s constitutional framework. n 22 september 2014

HAUTE TIME

TISSOT INNOVATORS BY TRADITION

T

issot, a member of the Swatch Group, with its signature ‘Innovators

by Tradition’ has been pioneering craftsmanship and innovation since its foundation in 1853, has its home in the Swiss watchmaking town of Le Locle in the Jura mountains.

The brand’s innovation leadership, with its strict adherence to quality control, is powered by the development of high-tech products, special materials and advanced functionality to meet diverse needs and tastes across the 160 countries it is present in.

Tissot with its commitment to respecting tradition, performance, precision and setting of new standards is the official timekeeper and partner of FIBA, AFL, MotoGP, FIM Superbike and the World Championships of cycling, fencing and ice hockey. The brand has recently added one of the world’s largest sporting events to its portfolio of partnerships, becoming Official Timekeeper of the 17th Asian Games Incheon 2014.

Whether for the athletes themselves or the billions of fans across Asia, Tissot has created a special collection, to make this time memorable, keeping the dynamic nature of the games

in mind. The timepieces exude a majestic essence with a touch of dynamism added to the equation. The dashes of red unveil the energy of the 17th Asian Games, along with its silk printed case-back. It is a watch with ultimate precision and has a power reserve of 80 hours.

In India, the commemorative collection was launched on the 21st of August 2014. It comprises of watches, synonymous with Tissot’s Timekeeping precision. The Tissot Asian Games Collection priced between INR 54,400 and INR 28,000 includes the following: Traditional — Tissot PR 100 Automatic Asian Games Special Editions 2014 Classic — Tissot PRC 200 Chrono Quartz Asian Games Special Editions 2014 Stylish — Tissot Luxury Automatic Asian Games Limited Editions 2014 Dynamism — Tissot Asian Games Special Edition 2014 Innovation — Tissot T-Touch II Asian Games Limited Edition 2014 The Tissot Asian Games Collection is definitely to be treasured for Av e n u e s a lifetime.

Imran Khan, chairman of the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party; (facing page, 2nd from left) Tahir ul-Qadri, Sufi cleric and opposition leader of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek party

faisal mahmood/reuters

Triad of trou F

ormer Pakistan cricket-captain-

turned-politician Imran Khan, is not budging. He, along with ‘moderate’ cleric, Tahir ul-Qadri, has been holding dharnas (sit-ins) in some of the most sensitive areas of Pakistan’s seat of government, Islamabad. Khan leads the centre-right, Pakistan Tehreek-eInsaf (Pakistan Justice Movement), a Nadeem F Paracha party that he formed in the mid-1990s is a Karachi-based but which (almost suddenly) shot into columnist with prominence in late 2011, a good 15 Pakistani years after its formation. newspaper Dawn Khan and Qadri have been conducting their respective sit-ins with their supporters for over 20 days now and have vowed that they will not move until Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif hands in his resignation. As tensions mount, bouts of fatigue are paralleled by rousing speeches by Khan and Qadri, thick with rousing ‘revolutionary’ clichés and angry tirades against ‘Pakistan’s fake democracy’. At least two major clashes between the protestors and the police have already taken place. The first clash occurred when both the leaders asked their supporters to shift the sit-ins outside the Prime Minister’s offices. Police fired numerous rounds of tear gas and rubber bullets at the advancing protestors. At least three men 38 open

were killed and dozens injured which also included some cops who were beaten up by the protestors.

The government and members of other opposition parties accused Khan and Qadri of using women and children as ‘human shields’—an accusation both the leaders denied. The protestors were finally pushed back and the sit-ins ended up stationing themselves outside the impressive white structure of the Pakistan Supreme Court.

The area now looks like a disaster site. Litter began to pile up and diseases and viruses were reported to have engulfed many men, women and children who were camped there.

A few days after the first clash, the protestors suddenly began to move towards the headquarters of the country’s state-owned television channel, PTV. Dozens of men, carrying clubs and sticks, barged into the building and began to rampage their way across its many rooms and studios, halting the transmission of various PTV entities, including its international channel, PTV World. After about 20 minutes of mayhem, the protestors agreed to vacate the premises when soldiers belonging to the Pakistan Army arrived and sealed off the building.

The army has been given the task to protect the many state and government buildings in Islamabad, but so far the soldiers have mostly kept an eye on the protestors from the sidelines. In an angry editorial, Pakistan’s leading and respected English daily Dawn criticised the military leadership of remaining 22 september 2014

akhtar soomro/reuters

ble

A paralysed government is pitted against a movement starring an iconic street fighter for change, a demagogue who plays with the mass mind and an omnipotent General. Pakistan’s experiment with democracy is as incendiary as ever by Nadeem F Paracha

vague in its stance; a stance, the editorial lamented, that was actually encouraging certain ‘unconstitutional’ and ‘undemocratic’ ways of Khan and Qadri.

Both these men have denounced the government of Nawaz Sharif, levelling allegations that it came to power through a rigged election. Though the election took place in May 2013, Khan and Qadri decided to protest against the results more than a year later. This has triggered the now widespread belief among their detractors that Qadri and Khan have the backing and support of certain influential remnants of the dictatorship of General Parvez Musharraf and of even some serving military men who see Nawaz Sharif as a threat to the economic and political interests of the country’s powerful armed forces.

The president of Khan’s party, the PTI, Javed Hashmi, was recently ousted by Khan when Hashmi broke away from the protests and—in a dramatic press conference—insinuated that Khan was acting on the instructions of some displeased army officers, both retired and serving. Khan and Qadri were quick to deny the allegations and so did the official media wing of the Pakistan Army, the ISPR. Nevertheless, most interesting has been the stance adopted by the all-powerful army chief, General Raheel Shareef.

If sundry analysts and ‘defence experts’ are to be believed, then the General is not so keen on what transpires in Islamabad.

It should be noted that General Raheel, who took over from General Kayani, has exhibited a desire to change some charac22 september 2014

teristics of the country’s armed forces. Known as a candid and professional soldier, General Raheel, it is believed, is squarely focused on turning the forces into a well-oiled fighting machine, untainted by the amorality of power politics. A BBC profile on him that appeared on the day he replaced Kayani suggested that it was General Raheel who is one of the main architects of the new narrative emerging within the armed forces that now squarely places internal threats (such as extremist militant insurgencies) as being almost as menacing as the conventional external threat faced by the country by its long-time foe, India. Consequently, General Shareef did not waste much time in launching a full-scale military operation against extremist insurgents holed up in the country’s rugged northwest areas. His decision in this context was mostly prompted by the brutality with which these insurgents had begun to attack soldiers and officers (apart from civilians and policemen).

T

he claims of Khan’s detractors who accuse him of being a ‘military puppet’ get somewhat complicated when one is faced with the following: the military’s narrative of the threat from extremists is certainly changing, but Khan’s stance in this context has remained more or less the same. He has been a vehement opponent of a military operation against militants; so much so that over the years many of his critics have also gone on to accuse him of being a sympathiser of extremopen www.openthemagazine.com 39

mian khursheed/reuters

allows himself to be played as a pawn by those who have a lot to lose if the current strain of democracy stays dominated by mainstream parties such as the PML-N, PPP and others. Khan’s support mainly comes from Pakistan’s urban middle-class or a section of it that may be termed ‘the blocked elite’. This includes a growing number of urbanites who in the last decade or so have managed to gain economic and social influence through the business-friendly policies of the Musharraf regime (1999-2008) and assertive private TV channels. They had expected to rub shoulders with the country’s traditional ruling elites, but that was not to be because Khan’s party was routed in Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan in the 2013 election and could only win the Khaybar Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province.

Q

adri’s party, the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT), though older than Khan’s PTI, has never managed to win more than two seats in an election.

Yet, Qadri succeeds to gather an impressive crowd with remarkable ease. This is mainly due to the following he enjoys among sections of the more moderate ‘Barelvi’ school of Sunni Islam. An articulate Islamic scholar, Qadri has been outspoken against extremism. More interestingly, as the last liberal PPP-ANP-MQM coalition government and as well as the current centre-right PMLN set-up failed miserably to contain a vicious sectarian and intra-sectarian war taking place on the streets of Pakistan, many Muslim sects, sub-sects and ‘minority’ outfits (which believe they have been under siege) too have begun to lean towards PAT. Both Qadri and Khan claim that the traditional democratic system in Pakistan is stacked against those who are as popular among as the conventional parties, but are being kept out of the corridors of power. Both of them are basically talking about the blocked elite. This is an urban bourgeoisie that claims to not only have the right balance between liberalism and politics done in the name of religion, but also the best idea of how to guide and help the country’s vast peasant classes that still vote for conventional parties.

At the time of writing this report, Qadri and Khan were still holed up in Islamabad trying to keep the interest of a fluctuating audience (both at the site and, especially, on TV), through rousing speeches, music and numerous promises of ‘unveiling the truth.’ The military has held firm on its commitment to stay out of politics so far, whereas other major opposition parties have decided to stand by the PMLN regime.

But the incumbent regime hasn’t helped itself much. Though it enjoys an impressive majority in Pakistan’s parliament, it still seems nervous and sloppy, almost paralysed and unsure of exactly how to confront the challenge posed by two men who it thinks have been propped up by a ‘third force.’

There’s still no sign of the fat lady. n

General Raheel, it is believed, is squarely focused on turning the armed forces into a welloiled fighting machine, untainted by the amorality of power politics

ists! Of course, Khan denies this and has often blamed some of his opponents in politics and the media of ‘distorting his image with such propaganda.’

Even more interestingly, till the point when General Raheel finally decided to move forward and initiate an operation, the views on this of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)—the party Khan unabashedly detests—were quite similar to those of Khan.

The PML-N and PTI can both be slotted in the centre-right pigeonhole of conventional politics, and they had come down hard against the former coalition government of the centre-left Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Awami National Party (ANP), and the liberal Muttahida Qaumi Movment (MQM), for undermining the option of holding a ‘sincere dialogue’ with the militants and for encouraging a military operation.

After winning the 2013 election and forming a majority government at the centre, the PML-N managed to generate a consensus among all parties and the military to ‘give peace a chance’. Several rounds of dialogue were held with militant groups, but as attacks on security forces continued, the talks finally collapsed and the Nawaz Sharif government reluctantly green-lighted the military’s insistence that an operation alone was the only option left.

Khan has only rarely mentioned that operation in the many speeches he has made at his sit-in. Neutral observers often consider him a naïve but ambitious character who unwittingly 40 open

22 september 2014

future savvy

photo Courtesy ford

Ford shaped the previous century in no small measure and could yet shape this one too

by ARESH SHIRALI

F

ew brands have burnt their

way into my synapses quite the way this four-letter word has: Ford. Its very mention evokes an intimacy that I have been trying to fathom since the moment I jumped to grab a preview of Ford’s take on the future of ‘auto’ in automobility on a visit to the company’s design centre in Melbourne. Some of it is personal: of all the stuff of dubious utility that may be pinned on my father, the clearest proof in existence is of his having gone forth

22 september 2014

to spawn the so-called ‘Shirali-Ford Theorem’ of algebra. What fascinates me, however, is Ford as a car company: and its challenge of living up to its own name.

Its founder Henry Ford, after all, gave us a definition of business leadership that remains hard to surpass. Mould your market, he said, don’t get moulded by it.

Asking people what they wanted, he joked, would’ve had him trying to make a better horse. And, with the benefit of hindsight, it was not the motor-car’s invention that pushed clipclop-carriages

off the streets of America, it was its mass affordability. Which, in turn, was enabled by the costs saved cranking out lots and lots of Model-Ts along an assembly line, a production shift that came to define the 20th century in more ways than one. It not only gave us the modern industrial age, its adoption for arms gave America a distinct advantage in World War II, and its eventual effects could call for another Chou-En-Lai-ism: it’s too early to say.

Might Ford’s future be as dramatic as its past? To awe yourself with its design open www.openthemagazine.com 41

technology, all it takes is five minutes in the hot seat of its virtual reality lab in Melbourne—all goggled up and fingerstrapped, it feels so real, you’d itch to shift into gear and vroom your way into a world of make-believe. This is how new models are designed and perfected these days: with bits and bytes of simulation.

But the real drama could lie in what Ford envisions for the real world as it urges us to ‘Go Further’ (as its slogan has it).

For one thing, it is clearly not in the business of better horses. “Ah, now that’s where smart technology comes in,” says Steve Crosby, chief engineer, body, Ford Asia Pacific, referring to the company’s yen for thinking ahead of blind curves.

For another, while Ford sees sense in adapting to local markets, CEO Mark Fields is going full-throttle with its ‘One Ford’ strategy—a global cohesion plan drafted by his predecessor Alan Mulally—that has already seen it leave a loss of $12.6 billion in the dust of 2006, avert a federal bailout in 2009, and post profits of $7.2 billion in 2013.

Affordability is Ford’s mantra, and Fields wants to reach out to millions with hitech wizardry on wheels available so far only to a few. “Our vision is not only to create the smartest, safest driving experience,” says Jim Holland, engineering director, Ford Asia Pacific, “but also to make those innovations available to all.”

How Ford goes about it could pit it against rivals old and new, perhaps even infotech players, in a market battle to reshape the very idea of automobility as a self-driven affair.

B

ack in India, the only hint of what’s

awheel at Ford came last July in the form of its EcoSport, a hardy compact vehicle that has sold some 60,000 units in its first year on Indian streets and still has buyers marvelling at its sporty look, robust drive and you-must-be-kidding fuel efficiency. Its clever little secret lies under the hood: Ford’s spiffy EcoBoost engine that uses cylinders just two-thirds the size to crank out the same power. It looks like just another chunk of metal, but, at the risk of a run-in with Aussie law (having signed a non-disclosure deed before being shown a naked sample), here’s what it does: its software optimises its mix of air and fuel in a way that lets the piston’s con-shaft pump furiously away in a lot less space. Vive la différence!

In all, the EcoSport looks and feels a lot bigger than it is, and if bang-for-the-buck is what the Indian car market is all about, then this one’s bang on. But its success is not just a story of extra pep for less petrol.

The firm’s founder Henry Ford gave us a definition of business leadership that remains hard to surpass. Mould your market, he said, do not be moulded by it

Speak to anyone who’s taken it for a hill excursion, and you’ll hear of the wonders of its brakes, which go into action on their own if you risk a rollback in stopand-go traffic on a steep incline.

The idea is to assist the driver only as much as he or she wants, clarifies Alexander Kaps, supervisor, driver assistance technologies & active safety, Ford Asia Pacific, reassuring me that these geewhiz safety aids are just aids rather than attempts to turn cars ‘idiot-proof’ (my indignant phrase). Out in front of Ford’s Design Centre on a chilly Melbourne morn, among the trial vehicles on offer is a hulk on wheels that goes ‘yes master’ at your command. Well, not quite, but this 4WD will soon be able to respond to your voice like a robot. Its web-linked Sync software will find you a McDonald’s outlet, guide you to a tricky address, or play you a remix of Roadhouse Blues, among other things you ask for. My purpose right now is bulk management, and at the press of a button, it locates a parking slot, tells me of its triumph, and then guides itself neatly into what by Aussie standards is a tight spot, its steering wheel turning left and right spookily on its own under my nose.

Even more unnerving—okay, reassuring—is the ghost at the pedal of a Ford Kuga that slams itself to a halt if its sensor spots an object you’re about to crash into. Testing this ‘Active City Stop’ feature against a wall of cushion blocks is not easy. At first, my foot reflexes just couldn’t keep off the damn brakes. But then, letting go is a liberation of another kind. It takes a little getting used to, that’s all. If you can be ghost-assisted without even asking for it, why not?

And why stop there? Why keep your eyes on the road and hand upon the wheel at all? Just sit back and let the omnipotence of technology take charge.

Google knows, it’s what the world needs.

W

ith urban airwaves suffused

with data and computers talking in terabytes, a car can now be transformed into a passenger pod to be wheeled around streets by satellites and sensors without anyone at the wheel. This way, you get to issue orders while a global network does all the grunt work to get you there—safely. Human error and fatal 22 september 2014

photos Courtesy ford

Peter Bunting, digital innovation manager, Asia Pacific, at the Ford immersive Vehicle Environment lab that puts ‘ultra high definition’ virtual reality to work on car design

smash-ups, they say, may soon be history.

So far, so geeky. But, wait, what about market forces? Left to themselves, will they push for such a car? “Customer demand is definitely there,” replies Adam Smith, manager, vehicle energy management engineering, Ford Asia Pacific, “and so is the technology.” Not all cars are driven for pleasure, he says, explaining his point about demand. Moreover, he adds, talking about supply, the modern steering wheel is already just a joystick of sorts, a sensor of the driver’s intent for the car’s software to pick up and act upon.

We’re at Ford’s You Yangs Proving Ground, and, aware of my urge to burn some rubber doing ‘hot laps’ at the wheel of an EcoBoosted Ford Focus, Smith seems to detect my dismay: market forces, alas, are unlikely to resist the driverless car.

“So, will it replace a driver’s car? No,” he says, “But a regular car, yes, possibly.”

What limits the idea, he goes on, is 22 september 2014

something else. It would imply a radical shift in road responsibility—from individuals to corporations—and there may be hell to pay if anything goes wrong.

“It’ll need an aerospace level of safety testing,” he says, “and if it’s going to be as expensive as that…”

Smith seems to shrug. Demand and supply recede to make way for questions of moral sentiments. With hackers running riot on the web, how safe is it to be ghost driven? Do its day-to-day benefits outweigh the Black Swan risk of a system failure?

We pile into a Ford Ranger for a tour of the endurance track of the You Yangs ground, a vast patch of wilderness some 50 km west of Melbourne. It feels like a wildlife safari. Squeals erupt around me each time a kangaroo is spotted in close range, making my right foot twitch. If an infant were to tumble out of a pouch (or jhuggi), would you trust your friendly underhood ghost to slam those brakes?

It’s cold and windy by the time we reach the speed track for our hot laps, with palms being rubbed together more in anticipation than for warmth. It reminds me of Bill Gates’ 1999 book Business @ the Speed of Thought, the one in which he goes off on a tangent talking about the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States. While the Soviets were first off the block, taking breaths away by launching canines and humans into orbit, American astronauts preferred to wait—insisting on a spacecraft with actual navigation controls of its own. It’s this sense of individualism, Gates argues, that eventually saw them whizz past the Soviets.

Ford’s Sync interface, it turns out, has been developed in sync with Microsoft.

It makes me clench a calf to step on the gas. It’s me, and just me, at the wheel. No sign of a ghost. And that’s the idea of an automobile, isn’t it? Autonomy. n open www.openthemagazine.com 43

The

h i gh of i d d e n wo r d s

raul irani

As the second edition of the only national crossword competition gets underway, Madhavankutty Pillai takes a look at the intriguing close-knit community of the best solvers in India

C

rosswords entered Vinayak Ekbote’s life when he

was in school in Hyderabad in the late 70s. The Hindu newspaper used to come home and he would try to solve the crossword getting just a clue or two right. The habit continued into engineering college but he lost touch once he came to Delhi to study at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade.

He then went to Russia for five years and it was only after his return to Delhi that, sporadically, he would again go at it. Once, in the early 2000s, on a flight from Delhi to Hyderbad, he shocked himself by unexpectedly solving an entire crossword, something he had only done a couple of times. But even then it was only an occasional indulgence.

That has changed. Ekbote, a 48-year-old engineering consultant, now solves at least two crosswords daily. As soon as he gets up, he downloads The Hindu newspaper’s crossword on an app in his phone and then works on it over 40 minutes. If it is not completely solved, he keeps going at it for the rest of the day. “I also do one more crossword, usually of The Telegraph, UK,” he says. What turned Ekbote’s fledgling interest into a semi-obsession was running into ‘The Hindu Crossword Corner’ (Thehinducrosswordcorner. blogspot.com), a blog by a retired army colonel, Deepak Gopinath.

Vinayak Ekbote, who solves at least two crosswords daily

Cryptic crosswords follow a certain system. The clue will read like an ordinary sentence but within it lies the encrypted answer. One part of the sentence will have the ‘definition’, another part the ‘word play’—both will indicate the solution. Within this structure, a number of elements are encrypted. The answer could be hidden in the sentence itself; there might be a double definition; an anagram of the solution may be buried somewhere, and so on.

But Ekbote, despite his many years at crosswords, hadn’t really known the rules. He just worked by instinct. In Gopinath’s blog, he found the solution to The Hindu crossword put up daily with explanations of the clue type.

As example, take a couple of clues of this Monday’s Hindu crossword. The 10 Across clue was ‘Scan cervix to reveal tumour (6)’. Gopinath put it up on his blog as ‘Scan cervix to reveal tumour (6) CANCER (T)’. It shows that the answer ‘Cancer’ was hidden in the clue. Similarly,

the 9 Down clue was ‘Woody growth in the middle of road (4)’ and Gopinath put it up as ‘Woody growth in the middle of road (4) TREE (sTREEt)’. The definition here is ‘Woody growth’, which indicates ‘Tree’. The wordplay is ‘in the middle of road’; another word for ‘road’ is ‘street’ and so the middle of the first and last letters of ‘street’ would be ‘tree’.

“Every day,” says Ekbote, “[Gopinath] deconstructs the clue, breaking it up into the relevant elements and arriving at the solution. So if you regularly go through the blog, you will know the techniques to employ.”

Last year when the Indian Crossword League, a national competition, was organised for the first time, he expected Gopinath to be in the top ten. And Ekbote, who eventually came 12th himself, was not really surprised when Gopinath won top honours, thus becoming the unofficial crossword champion of India because this is the only such competition in the country.

photos abhishek srivastava

Shuchismita Upadhyay runs the popular blog Crosswordunclued.com 46 open

T

his year the Indian Crossword League starts on 14 September. There will be 10 weekly online rounds and an offline final of the top ten in December.

The League is the brainchild of an IAS officer, Vivek Kumar Singh, who is currently the principal secretary, environment and forest department, of the Bihar government. His interest started in college in Delhi and he went on to be the crossword setter of the Indian Airlines magazine Swagat for over a decade, besides publishing a book on cryptic crosswords. Last year, he realised it was the 100th anniversary of the first published crossword and decided to use the occasion to give India’s crossword culture a boost.

“Crossword has primarily been a private pursuit. I thought, ‘Why not make it competitive?’” he says. He started with an all India inter-school crossword contest that has now been adopted by CBSE. “Then I also got the Indian Crossword League organised for a general open category,” he says. They had eight online rounds and the finals of the top ten was held in Bangalore. Here, there were two rounds. In the pre-final, the contestants had to solve a Crossword in 30 minutes and based on that six went through to the finale, which Gopinath narrowly won.

Gopinath, who stays in Bangalore, gets up at quarter-to-six in the morning and takes his dog out for a walk. He returns home and starts solving The Hindu crossword, which is online a little after 6. At 8.30 am, the solution gets uploaded onto his blog. There are annotations explaining the clues and even some humourous elements like cartoons and quips to spice it up. Gopinath has been doing this everyday with military discipline ever since he started the blog in 2009.

Last year, most of the finalists were regular The Hindu crossword solvers and there is a reason why it has so many adherents. It is the only newspaper that sets its own crosswords; other papers mostly syndicate them from UK publications. For Colonel Gopinath, the time taken to solve the crossword ranges from half an hour to two hours but there are also days when he does not get everything.

“But I still publish the solution with a couple of blanks,” he says. A large number of crossword solvers are meanwhile waiting for Gopinath to upload it in case they need to understand a clue or to gen22 september 2014

Since 2009, Deepak Gopinath has been uploading solutions to The Hindu crossword onto his blog ‘The Hindu Crossword Corner’ at 8:30 am every day erally exchange comments on their experience solving it. Gopinath keeps up this interaction for the rest of the morning His interest in crosswords began in college in Coimbatore in the early 70s. It continued in the Army, especially when he was posted to remote areas. It was after his retirement in December 2006 that crosswords became an inviolable part of his daily routine. When he first started the blog, it had no visitors. But then, whenever a solver who was stuck for a word of that day’s Hindu crossword would google, it would land him or her to his blog, which already had the solution.

“That’s why it caught on and people got attracted to it,” he says. Even the setters of the The Hindu crossword are regular visitors now. He and those who frequent his blog have also had offline meetings four or five times in Chennai and Bangalore.

Last year, it was through a comment that he realised there was a Crossword League being held and decided to take part. And when he reached the offline finals, he 22 september 2014

found that of the ten, five were personally known to him through his blog.

“T

he youngster who came second

was only 21 years old and he was very good. In the first (pre-final offline round) crossword which everyone had to solve in half an hour, none of us could get everything right. But he got the maximum,” says Gopinath. He is referring to Mohsin Ahmed, a Bangalore based scientist from ISRO who has a reputation in the crossword community for being very quick and sharp.

Ahmed got his interest from his mother, an avid solver of The Hindu crossword.

‘I found it quite intriguing and surprisingly managed to pick up on the rules pretty quickly. This was about seven-odd years back, when I was in school,’ he says over email. ‘There was a bit of a competitive element too, as I’d try to out-solve my mother. I sometimes snuck the paper in my bag, took it to school and solved it in

a particularly boring period.’

The thing about cryptic crosswords is that it takes time and patience to pick up, but once you get the idea then it never stops being a challenge. ‘There’s no dearth of words in the English language,’ he says, ‘And given a word, 10 different setters would clue it in 10 different ways. Cryptic crossword setters are an extremely innovative bunch. There’s always a challenge.’

He gives the example of an interesting clue—‘Tree is rife with bananas (5,3)’— that appeared as part of a Hindu crossword set by Buzzer (Bhavan Kumar).

Ahmed says, ‘First note how smooth the reading of the clue is. There’s nothing to suggest that it’s a cryptic statement. Also, (5,3) indicates the number of letters in the solution. Here, the answer has 2 words of length 5 and 3 letters respectively. You can split this clue as: Tree (=definition) // is // rife with bananas (=wordplay). Now for the wordplay part: The answer is an anagram of (rife with).

‘Bananas’ also means ‘crazy’ (as in ‘He’s open www.openthemagazine.com 47

abhishek srivastava

Mohsin Ahmed, a scientist who works at ISRO, has a reputation in the crossword community for being quick and sharp bananas’). So it is an indicator of an anagram (that is, the letters RIFE WITH have gone crazy/bananas... which suggests a reshuffling of letters). On playing with the letters, you get the answer WHITE FIR, which is a tree, as indicated by the definition.’

In the competition last year, Ahmed finished on top at the end of the online rounds and even in the offline pre-final round where they had to solve a crossword in 30 minutes. ‘But in the final round, the Colonel managed to pip me to the post,’ he says.

Gopinath, according to him, is one of the best solvers in the country. But the Colonel has decided not to compete this year and Mohsin is one of the favourites to win the competition.

S

huchismita Upadhyay, an infotech professional from Bangalore who came fifth in the Crossword League last year, has a popular blog, Crosswordunclued.com, in which she has interviewed many of the best Indian crossword solvers. She says the thing that is common to all of them is persis48 open

tence: “The learning curve is steep with cryptic crosswords. It is very easy to start and then see that you are not able to solve anything and then give up. Everybody took time to learn. Whoever has become a good solver really had that persistence to understand which clues they are missing, spending time and effort on it.”

Upadhyay began the blog because her own experience showed how lonely a pursuit crossword solving can be. Her father used to ask her to read The Economic Times to get a grasp of finance, and she got interested in the crossword. She had no clue how to go about it and would look at the solution of the next day to understand how they worked. “I was about 13, in Delhi,” she says, “I didn’t know anyone else who solved crosswords, so I didn’t have anybody to tell me. I would spend a lot of time [trying] to understand why something was the clue.”

Later on, she saw there was a crossword community on Orkut and joined them.

She also started reading books. In 2008, when she started the blog, it was to show beginners how the technical aspects worked. “All my old blogs are more like tutorials for new solvers. Then I started

posts on evaluating clue types, reviews about different crosswords and so on.”

Her blog also has what is probably the first ever Hindi cryptic crossword that she, along with another setter, created.

“Cryptic crosswords are not really happening in regional languages. The one we set must be the first of its kind. At least I have not heard of Hindi cryptic crosswords before we wrote one for the blog.”

She has interviewed setters too and finds that their personalities often come through in the crosswords they set. “If you see Neyartha’s crosswords in The Hindu, there will be a lot of science-based clues in it. There is a setter (in the UK) called Anax who used a lot of play on verb and noun formations. He would use a word like ‘sandwiches’ (which reads as a noun) on the clue surface but actually is a verb in the cryptic reading. If you are solving a setter’s clues over a period of time, you tend to look out for this kind of word play,” she says.

An interesting post by her is on a retired Indian scientist, S Naranan, who analysed 3,404 crosswords he had attempted over a decade to find out if there is a pattern to the unsolved clues, and came to an interesting conclusion. Says Upadhyay, “What S Naranan is trying to say is that—and this works for solvers who nearly complete the crossword— suppose you have a large volume of crosswords solved by a person and if you know how many are there with ‘n’ number of errors and how many with ‘n+1’ number errors, then you can predict the whole pattern.” So if a person has solved 1,000 crosswords, and in those 1,000 he has missed one answer in so many number of crosswords and missed two in so many others, then it can be predicted in how many crosswords he has missed three clues, how many has he missed four and so on. Naranan published a paper on this in 2010 in the Journal of Quantitative Linguistics.

Upadhyay does a crossword, usually The Times UK one, early in the morning, and, if time permits, one or two more over the day. She finds it difficult to explain what drew her to crosswords except that it is probably something hardwired into her. And as with all the others, she has to get that daily high of hidden words. She says, “If I pick up a newspaper I simply have to look for the crossword in it.” n 22 september 2014

cinema

mindspace

Hindi cinema’s enfant terrible remembers his turbulent early years 52

Caught in the deluge

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o p e n s pa c e

Saif Ali Khan Aditya Roy Kapoor

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n p lu

Mary Kom Life of crime

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cinema review

Bublcam Parmigiani Tonda Metrographe Steel Abyss & Black LVR MapMyIndia UHMP 900

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tech & Style

The genetics of taming Potassium for the heart No link between bra and cancer

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science

Bored of Censors

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roug h cu t

And then one day: A memoir

by Naseeruddin Shah No Country by Kalyan Roy Kathmandu by Thomas Bell

books

Monsoon, a documentary on India’s annual rains

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the times of india group

CINEMA

Monsoon Magic A veteran Canadian filmmaker captures the miracle and mayhem of the Indian rains in a remarkable documentary that premiered last week at the 39th Toronto International Film Festival Saibal Chatterjee in Toronto

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alk inevitably veered around to raincoats and umbrellas, if only in jest, as the audience settled down for the first-ever press screening of Sturla Gunnarsson’s a year-in-themaking documentary film, Monsoon, at the 39th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Hours later, on 5 September, the skies over the city began to growl ominously and then opened up like an upturned water-tank. Thundershowers triggered downtown traffic snarls, sent festival attendees scurrying for cover and threatened to wash out the red carpet events of the evening. It was almost as if Gunnarsson’s immersive film about the Indian rains had brought a Mumbai-type monsoon downpour to Toronto. But like it almost always does in India, life went on despite the chaos.

TIFF took the smooth with the rough as it negotiated its weather-marred second day. Did the Raga Malharinspired musical score on the Monsoon soundtrack have something to do with what was happening outside?

If the sideshow orchestrated by the grey skies was any indication, the 50 open

after-effects of the Indian monsoon— which is now on its last legs on the Subcontinent—could dump a lot of water on North American movie lovers over the next few months. The ‘awe and mystery’ of the weather system that unfolds every year in the Indian Subcontinent, both sustaining and endangering life, has been parlayed into visuals of staggering beauty in a new feature-length documentary by Oscar-nominated Gunnarsson. Filmed with ultra high-definition 4K Red Epic cameras modified for extreme conditions by director of photography Van Royko, Monsoon is scheduled for release in North America in November. The film, replete with stunning time-lapse photography and laden with outstanding music composed by Bombay Dub Orchestra’s Andrew T Mackay, takes the audience on a choppy yet exhilarating journey along the path of the plentiful 2013 monsoon as it hits coastal Kerala and wends its way up to Meghalaya, where ‘the clouds go to die’.

The 63-year-old Iceland-born Canadian filmmaker’s deep and abiding fascination for the Indian

monsoon has its roots in extensive peregrinations across the country over the years. Gunnarsson’s wife is a Punjabi Canadian with strong and sustained links with the land that her grandfather migrated from many decades ago.

Gunnarsson describes the Indian rains as “the most dramatic show on earth”.

He says: “I saw in the monsoon an awful, beautiful, unfathomable phenomenon and wanted to both experience it and meditate on it.” The exercise has clearly paid off, yielding a road-trip documentary that journeys beyond the physical dimensions of the rains and probes the combination of nature, science, wonder and faith lying at the heart of the annual ‘show’. In 1997, Gunnarsson had stayed in India for an extended period for the shoot of Such a Long Journey, his critically acclaimed adaptation of fellow Torontonian Rohinton Mistry’s bestselling novel.

“We actually shot the film in the nonmonsoon months,” the director recalls.

“But when I left Mumbai after my fourweek research trip, the rains were just a day away and I could feel the excitement and expectancy in the air.”

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In his documentary, Gunnarsson is aided in making sense of the Indian rains by a man he calls a “monsoon philosopher”—Dr Ranjan Kelkar, former director-general of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD).

The seasoned weatherman, on his part, asserts that monsoon is “the soul of India”. “Monsoon is India’s only source of water,” Dr Kelkar says on camera.

“For all the water that we need to drink, to raise our crops, there’s only one single source, which is the monsoon. So the monsoon does not only bring water.

It brings life to India…” Gunnarsson focuses on this ‘life’ at the heart of a natural phenomenon. The monsoon impacts the economy and sways the mood of the stock market, but more than anything else it shapes India’s human and cultural dimensions like nothing else does. Towards the very end of the film, Dr Kelkar stands before a gigantic rock precipice in Meghalaya, contemplating his position in the universe. “You realise how insignificant you are before the creation of the Creator,” he intones.

Monsoon is Gunnarsson’s “love letter to India”, and it brings him face to face with a large array of individuals—fishermen, school children, bookies, astrologers, park wardens, Mumbai dabbawallahs, meteorologists and even a Bollywood star. Each character adds a distinct layer to this contemplative but entertaining documentary that scours the length and breadth of a vast country in order to understand how the mighty monsoon shapes the lives of its people.

The audience watches in horror as rainwater rushes into the home of 12-yearold Kerala schoolgirl Akhila Prasad after a levee bursts amid a heavy downpour.

Akhila’s father is understandably devastated, but the little girl exudes optimism and talks of rebuilding the house. It is hope and faith, says Gunnarsson, which drives those that are fated to struggle with the elements in India. “This is the closest a non-believer like me can get to God,” says the writer-director. The film opens with an overarching tone-setting statement: “The monsoon is like an ancient god wreaking chaos and destruction and creating life.”

Over its 106-minute runtime, Monsoon captures with wit, empathy 22 september 2014

and wonderment “a land of believers” dangling between unwavering faith and helpless resignation in the face of the forces of nature. Gunnarsson has a field day documenting the ways of India’s meteorological bureaucracy. He highlights the work of the Government weathermen in Kerala charged with the task of announcing the ‘official’ arrival of monsoon. Earth scientists studying cloud microphysics at Mahabaleshwar’s Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology also figure in the film. The spirit of young Akhila has clearly left a lasting imprint on Gunnarsson. “I am in constant touch with her. Their house

Sturla Gunnarsson in India

has been rebuilt and she has returned to school,” he reveals. Akhila will be arriving in Toronto in a couple of months for the North American release of Monsoon. She, Gunnarsson says, has never stepped out of the woods, let alone been aboard a plane.

Monsoon isn’t only about parts of India awash in the rains. It also travels to a parched Maharashtra village that has received no rainfall for four consecutive years. A photojournalist chronicling the plight of the farmers here gives voice to the despair that hangs heavy over the region. Other individuals pop up, none more intriguing than Kolkata’s Bishnu Shastri, a cockily confident bookie who never loses a weather bet. Ironically, he is a migrant from one of the driest parts of India—

Rajasthan. Gunnarsson’s film also features a Kaziranga National Park warden, who is hard-pressed to protect the rhinos from poachers when the rains drive the animals to the Karbi-Anglong hills, and the sole official who mans the Cherrapunjee IMD office and dutifully reports on a daily basis back to the headquarters in Delhi. Fishermen in Goa, barred by law from going out to sea in the rainy months, and those in Kerala, who risk their lives with a prayer on their lips because “if they do not fish they do not eat”, are also among those who figure in Monsoon.

Could any discussion on the Indian monsoon be complete without a reference to Bollywood? Gunnarsson picks his favourite rain song, Rimjhim gire saawan, from the late 1970s Basu Chatterjee film, Manzil, featuring Amitabh Bachchan and Moushumi Chatterjee , and gets the latter to reminisce on her take on the ‘wet sari song’.

“I picked this particular number because it was a rare Hindi rain song shot off the lot and not in the studio,” says Gunnarsson. “And of course I love the rendition by Lata Mangeshkar.”

Needless to say, the making of the film was no walk in the park. Getting across India at the best of times takes some doing, and this was at the height of a very good monsoon. Rain deflectors had to be used to keep the cameras dry and the lenses were always wrapped in electric blankets to prevent condensation and fogging. The most difficult part of the project was anticipating the rains and readying for the shoot. “The Indian monsoon is a chaotic tropical system and making predictions is never easy,” says Gunnarsson.

Will the film be distributed in India?

“I would love that to happen,” says the director. But until that materialises, Monsoon could travel to film festivals in the country—Goa, Mumbai and Kerala—so that at least some Indians get to see it. But whether the film will actually make landfall in India is, at this juncture, no less difficult to predict than it usually is to forecast the progress of the monsoon. n Saibal Chatterjee is a Delhi-based film journalist open www.openthemagazine.com 51

books The Big Bad Shah The memoir of Hindi cinema’s enfant terrible brings out in vivid colours the turbulent early years of an exceptional talent JAI ARJUN SINGH And Then One Day: A Memoir

Naseeruddin Shah Hamish Hamilton, 272 pages, Rs 699

N

aseeruddin Shah’s account of his life up to age

32—or 33, since Shah himself is unsure whether he was born in 1949 or 1950, and says this allows him to be whichever age it suits him to be on any particular day— is one of the two best books I have read by, or even about, an Indian actor. The other one is Dev Anand’s ego project Romancing with Life. That might sound like a flippant comparison (and it may even be a little insulting to And Then One Day). After all, could two performers be more different? One was a larger-than-life movie star who spent decades joyfully embracing his own fame and ‘connecting’ with his adoring fans; the other is a non-starry actor who determinedly eschews larger-than-life-ness, prioritises a character’s inner truth and says he turned a corner in his career when he became conscious of his own arrogance. But the memoirs have this in common: you can almost hear each man saying the words as you read them. Anand’s book was florid, often narcissistic, always sanguine about how others viewed him (even as he continued to make embarrassing films in his last years) and founded on a certainty that he had a moral duty to live up to the Image. Shah’s is hard-hitting, caustic, constantly aiming for self-awareness, and often uncertain and selfdeprecating in the process: ‘What this book will mean to anyone I have no clue but I had to get it out of my system’.

The elliptical title ‘And Then One Day’, implying a story constantly in progress (the words don’t refer to a single episode in Shah’s life), is apt for a book about someone who expects never to stop learning about himself and his craft. This doesn’t mean Shah is completely averse to narrative creation. Trying to explain his passion for acting, he writes, ‘It does seem like an aberration of behaviour to want to be someone else all the time, and I think it happens to people who, like me, can find no self-worth early in life, and thus find fulfillment in hiding behind make-believe.’ Describing being backstage before a performance, and the opening of the curtain, he says: ‘Suddenly the womb was gone and I was staring into a black

void.’ And here is the rationalist mesmerised by a childhood memory of an actor (or was it a clown, or are they the same thing?): ‘I have since steadfastly believed that the only magic that happens in this world happens on the stage.’

Shah has shown himself to be a fine essayist before (as in an anthologised piece he wrote about actors in Bimal Roy’s cinema) and his talent is palpable early in this book, when he describes his first school, St Joseph’s College, as a version of Transylvania—‘Nainital’s rains, gusty winds and frequent mist probably reminded these Irish adventurers of home, but all it needed was rider-less carriages and giant bats flying around at dusk to complete the picture’—and himself as a pre-teen, afflicted by a stammer during a class play. His lifelong love for cinema began here, mainly through regular screenings of American and British movies, but also a dubbed Sivaji Ganesan-starrer he hated; it would be a while before he was properly introduced to Indian films.

In these early chapters, he writes about a conflicted relationship with his father (one that would see a form of closure only years after the latter’s death), a series of academic failures, the raging of hormones in a time ‘before prudery became fashionable’, a first sexual tryst at 15 when he was still ignorant about masturbation (‘I must be one of very few guys who had sex before learning to worship at the altar of Onan’), and the advent of marijuana in his life. Some of these early sections— accounts of property-related bloodshed in his extended family, a failed trip to Bombay where he got to play an extra in two movies—are meandering and repetitive, held together by his wry, unsentimental narration. But by the time he arrives at the National School of Drama (NSD) in the late 1960s—a period that coincides with a rushed wedding to a woman 14 years older than him—and later at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), the narrative has coalesced, and ‘All that David Copperfield kind of crap’ (the first chapter’s title, channeling Salinger) has made way for a portrait of a young man on the cusp of self-realisation.

One gets the impression that Shah is organising scattered memories, articulating them for himself. There is a breathlessness in the writing, long paragraphs with few visual breaks and parenthetical asides (describing a tonga ride in Ajmer, he mentions, apropos of nothing, his envy of the horse’s ability to defecate ‘while running full pelt’). A nerve-wracking physics exam runs as follows: ‘There was a question on the Wimshurst machine (if I’ve got the

‘The only magic that happens in this world happens on the stage’—Shah the curmudgeon guest stars in what is a fuller, measured view of his sharp, searching mind

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22 september 2014

Naseeruddin Shah with Ratna Pathak at a film party

name right and an astrophysicist I know assures me I haven’t), an object the size and shape of a knife-sharpener’s wheel with what looked like a number of cut-throat razors attached to it in circular fashion. I had spotted the accursed thing in a physics lab and had always left it well alone, as evidently had the rest of the class. What it is used for I still couldn’t tell you but I managed that night to chew the cud and ingested enough information to regurgitate it all on to the paper the next day and scrape through by the skin of my whatsits.’ Anyone who has spoken with Shah will recognise the voice immediately; it is exactly as he might tell the same story at a party, in a tone that manages to be eloquent, casual and sing-song at once.

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hah doesn’t skimp on the admiration when discuss-

ing personal heroes like English actor-manager Geoffrey Kendal—who combined humility and purity of purpose with a missionary-like zeal for teaching Shakespeare—or mentors such as director Shyam Benegal and FTII professor Roshan Taneja. But there is also casual irreverence, whether he is disclosing his love for corny old Dara Singh films with titles like Fauladi Mukka or his regard for the eccentric Raaj Kumar; ‘not for his acting which was dreadful, but for the way he safeguarded his interests, prolonged his career and sent all Follywood for a flying fuck to the moon whenever he felt like it’. He is frank, even cutting about people he worked with—from Satyadev Dubey to Peter Brook—but reserves some of the sharpest barbs for himself: admitting his inability to be a father to his first child, Heeba (‘I completely shirked my share of the duties’), realising at FTII that he had become complacent (‘I had grown

22 september 2014

only in my conceit’) and dismissing his own work in films like Albert Pinto ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai (‘I had gone all Elvis Presley and James Dean when it was street cred that was required’).

One of the most affecting things in this book—all the more so because Shah himself doesn’t get maudlin about it, though much of it must have been deeply upsetting when it happened—is his account of a friendship with an actor named Rajendra Jaswal. The two were so close at NSD that they were treated as a single person and even referred to as ‘Jaspal/Shah’, but the intensity of the relationship had ugly repercussions, as Jaspal, a talented actor undone by his own insecurities, became pathologically obsessed. Things came to a head with a murderous attack on Naseer at a dhaba, culminating in a surreal scene— more ‘filmi’ than anything in the movies Shah was doing at the time—wherein clueless policemen smacked a wounded Naseer about before taking him to the hospital. So dramatic is this story (in terms of its inherent content, not the telling) that I briefly wondered if Jaspal —about whom an initial online search revealed nothing—was an invented doppelganger, a sort of sly literary device incorporated within an otherwise factual memoir, as a comment on the perils of too much proximity (something Shah himself is wary of as an actor; he has little patience with theories that demand ‘immersion’ in a character). The story is true though, and it’s tempting to compare ‘Jaspal/ Shah’ to the Mozart-Salieri legend, except that this would amount to romanticising a dismal tragedy. Also, Shah has never been anything like the archetype of the genius possessed with God-gifted brilliance. As he repeatedly stresses, passion, hard work and constant curiosity got him open www.openthemagazine.com 53

On a set for Bhumika (1977); a still from Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro Bhi Do Yaaro (below)

where he is, along with a measure of sheer good luck (perhaps things would have been tougher if he hadn’t been a fluent English-speaker, or if his FTII years hadn’t coincided with the beginning of Benegal’s feature film career and the emergence of a new kind of cinema).

Even after becoming a ‘star’ in the parallel film circuit, Shah continued his efforts to find inner truth as an actor, which led to a disillusioning stint with the theatre innovator Jerzy Grotowski in Poland, complete with a bizarre workshop in a forest, pretentious talk about reaching the ‘primal state’ and (there is a neat, circular irony here) a variation on the personality cults he was constantly trying to escape in the big bad world of Bombay cinema. (‘This had the smell of proselytizing and prophet-building.’) And so, poignantly, And Then One Day closes by recounting a series of failures or uncertainties: the disenchantment with Grotowski; the falling through of Shah’s dream of playing Gandhi in Richard Attenborough’s film; an apprehensive reunion with the daughter he hadn’t seen for 12 years, at precisely the point (though this isn’t emphasised) where he is preparing to shoot Masoom, in which his character must take responsibility for a son he has never met before. His relationship with Ratna Pathak, whom he married in 1982, has brought some emotional grounding by this point, but the impression as the narrative ends is that of a man and actor still trying to find his way forward.

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or me, the main value of this book is that it provides a full-

er, more elaborate view of Shah’s sharp, searching mind than one gets from interviews—and this is particularly important for a subject whose default mode is to be critical, even rude. The short newspaper or TV interview can never do such a person justice, and indeed Shah has sometimes come across as one-dimensionally condescending in such interactions. (The journalistic tradition of condensing quotes as sensational headlines adds to this.) Here, he shows his more measured aspect.

There are many glimpses here of Naseeruddin Shah the curmudgeon (and who would have it any other way?) but there is also a clear sense of where those qualities stem from.

During a conversation a few years ago, I inwardly bristled when Shah snapped: “This Auteur Theory, it’s bloody rubbish!” Yet, when you read about the details of his strife54 open

ridden time at the FTII, the struggles of actors who were treated as outcasts by the establishment and not given the respect due to every other element of filmmaking, it becomes easier to understand his anger towards self-important directors. Also, his later experiences in the film industry; being peremptorily called for a meeting by big-money producers, for instance, and informed that he had been selected for a big film, which would naturally mean abandoning, midway, the ‘small and inconsequential’ project he was working on.

Shah is upfront about doing certain films purely for money, but I have always been a little foxed by just how bad he has been in some of his commercial ventures. Take the 1992 Tahalka; in a film packed with dreadful performances trying manfully to outdo each other, his is arguably the worst, less credible even than Aditya Pancholi’s. There may be a part explanation in the book: ‘My attitude to Hindi cinema turned even more condescending, possibly because I couldn’t see myself fitting in […] Being effective in popular movies requires a certain kind of sensibility and an unshakable belief in them, neither of which I possessed.’ It is possible to disagree strongly with some of his opinions—such as his contempt for the personality-driven acting that has been an essential, vitalising part of movie history for over a hundred years, and his scoffing at critics who read meaning into Sholay and ‘other equally shallow films’ (as if serious analysis must be reserved only for the works of Ray or Fellini) while at the same time appreciating that someone of his stature, someone hard to ignore, is willing to be an enfant terrible in an industry intent on self-congratulation, political correctness and celebrity adoration.

More than once, he expresses doubt about the wider appeal of this book, implying it is a selfish exercise, ‘an exorcism’, something his children might read ‘if they wish to understand me better’. Which could be a euphemistic way of saying that he gives a flying eff whether or not you, dear reader, find any of it useful. But his candour, and the sharpness of thought and expression that accompanies it, are what make this memoir so readable. Don’t trust the crabby old man trying to short-sell his authorial gifts—trust the tale instead. n Jai Arjun Singh is the author of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro: Seriously Funny Since 1983 22 september 2014

books All Over the Map A rich and capacious debut novel spreads across Ireland, India and America, but turns into a fable when it doesn’t quite come together Shougat Dasgupta No country

Kalyan Roy Bloomsbury India | 560 pages | Rs 599

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uch of debut novelist Kalyan Ray’s cross-continen-

tal saga is set in the mid-nineteenth century period of Irish history; the Irish experience, including above all the horror of the Potato Famine, mirroring India’s own as a British colony. No Country begins, though, nearly 150 years later in upstate New York where an ageing Indian couple has been murdered in their bed, the blood lurid on the sheets. Almost immediately, Ray transplants the reader from New York in 1989 to bucolic Ireland in 1843.

In the village of Mullaghmore, we are introduced by narrator Brendan McCarthaigh to tax collectors burning down his friend’s stone and hatch cottage: ‘his da stood grinding his teeth, his ma on the ground as if lamed, and Fintan with great round eyes crying and forgotten... The fire was the colour of dark rose and madder, climbing rose and gorse— all our Irish colours. And then—for it was our Ireland and our times—everything turned to ashes.’ Brendan is watching with his ‘best mate’ Padraig Aherne, the two boys learning early about British justice and the power wielded by distant, aristocratic landlords over their poor tenants. For the reader, the passage quoted above is an early lesson in Ray’s florid, heavy-handed ‘Irish’ style.

In the 1970s, long before Kalyan Ray had written a novel, before perhaps he even nurtured any ambition to write a novel, he knew he wanted to see the world. Born in Calcutta, “after 1947 to a family mourning their dispossession”, he says on the phone from New Jersey, where he spends a substantial part of the year as a professor of English Literature, there was little money to indulge such frippery; their stately house was lost to them, on the wrong side of a crude, arbitrarily scratched new border. “I knew,” Ray says, “that scholarships were escape routes.” Teaching at St Stephen’s College in Delhi on the strength of a Master’s degree, he published some articles on Dickens, attracting the attention of a professor in Rochester in upstate New York who took Ray on as a PhD student. The world had opened a door.

“I travelled whenever I could,” he remembers. “I would go to a bus station

in, say, Rome, and ask ‘When is the next bus?’ They would say ‘To where?’ But I didn’t care, I just wanted to get on a bus to anywhere. That’s how I ended up on one going to Bari and then worked my way up the Amalfi coast.” On a trip to Ireland, having run out of funds, he walked for days from County Sligo to Dublin. It’s a journey Padraig Aherne, one of his key characters, replicates: walking the 100 miles to Dublin to join the great Irish ‘Emancipator’ Daniel O’Connell in his agitation against the British in Clontarf, north of the city. The British shut the demonstration down, shipping in thousands of troops, forcing O’Connell—who, like Gandhi, prided his movement on its non-violence—to call his rally off for fear of mass slaughter.

Bookish Brendan grows up to live a quiet life assisting Mr O’Flaherty, the village schoolmaster, reciting multiplication tables and telling stories of Irish heroes. These mythical heroes, poet-warriors like Oisin and contemporary freedom fighters like Daniel O’Connell, have an entirely different effect on Padraig; where Brendan is content to imagine wondrous men and wondrous places, preferring the idea to the reality, Padraig is driven to join the Irish freedom struggle, to march to Clontarf. As Padraig says when he takes over the narrative: ‘Brendan loved stories for their own sake, savouring the sweet and sad pith of our Irish tales— but I longed for the sweat and gore of the strife itself. All our Irish songs moved my blood about, and I was so stirred.’ All Padraig’s feeling for Ireland, for national identity, should culminate in Clontarf but O’Connell’s demonstration is stillborn, the Irish voice strangled before any expression is possible, and Padraig finds himself drinking balefully in a Dublin pub instead. The result of those whiskeys is fatal violence, the assumption of another man’s identity and a hurried passage to Calcutta with the East India Company.

Meanwhile, in Mullaghmore, Padraig’s childhood sweetheart Brigid—forcibly taken away by her father, in part precipitating Padraig’s journey to Dublin—returns bearing his baby. She dies in childbirth and the baby is brought up by Maire, Padraig’s flamehaired mother, and breastfed by Odd Madgy Finn, a Faulknerian grotesque and the half-wit orphan of a local drunk, whose own baby, the result of rape, was pecked to death by birds while she begged for food and drink. Maire dies during the Famine and Padraig’s baby, Maeve, is entrusted to Brendan and Mr O’Flaherty, who become part of the desperate Irish exodus to the New World, boarding a ship

No Country, told in Ray’s florid ‘Irish’ style, is a nineteenth century novel with a huge, throbbing, international heart.

It is not, however, a literary simulacrum of reality

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and philosophical reflections (on identity, human connection, choice and family) to compensate for some of the clumsy shoehorning of history—particularly Jallianwala Bagh—into the novel.

R

ay and I spoke on the phone and emailed, and he sent me detailed responses to questions I had not asked.

It illuminated his thought process: the snatches of poetry— William Blake’s ‘A Poison Tree’ and, of course, WB Yeats’ ‘Sailing to Byzantium’—which give Ray’s novel its title and epigraphs for each section and the historical immersion necessary (Ray spent six months reading nineteenthcentury Irish history and documents) to “earn the novel’s Irish voices”, those of “ordinary people caught up in grand arcs of history”. He wrote to say, ‘Our common histories are those of travel and hybridity.’ We are indeed peripatetic, migratory creatures carrying our histories and our ‘homes’ with us wherever we go. The results can be tragic, love lost and abandoned, but can Kalyan Roy at a launch also result in love found and perpetuated, his book implies. the hindu archive Italy-based English novelist, translaheaded for Canada. Rescued after a shipwreck, Brendan and tor and critic Tim Parks has a series of articles questioning Maeve (minus Mr O’Flaherty, who dies before the rescue) the new internationalism of the novel, a kind of ersatz coseventually make it to Canada and then, with the aid of a mopolitanism that does away with local complexity and the prize pig (don’t ask), to a farm in Lake Champlain, Vermont. particular intricacies of local language. In No Country, Ray It is among Padraig’s descendants—those of his lost daugh- makes the argument that our stories are remarkably similar, ter in Vermont, his Anglo-Indian family in Calcutta, and the that we all have access to and the rights to each others’ stoMitras of Barisal, with whom he becomes involved—that the ries. “The only stories worth telling,” he says, “are global.” novel plays out, its dénouement at once bloody and optimisNo Country is a migrant’s story and America is its natural tic. It is, as the partial summary above should indicate, a harbour; Ray is confident and ambitious enough to claim digressive, winding saga. Ray is prone to melodrama and every diaspora—whether Italian, Irish, Jewish, Indian or sentiment; No Country is a nineteenth century novel with a some hybrid of all those—as his own, to adopt each of their huge, throbbing heart. An all-encompassing one, marshalvoices. What do you do when you lose your country, lose ling history, mythology and the headwinds of fate to buffet your language, Ray asks of his characters; of Padraig, of its characters from one tragic circumstance to another, its Brendan, of Maeve. Some respond with fear, finding some characters are not so much fully realised people as symbols, small patch to call their own and sticking fast. Others adopt representations of the author’s ideas about identity, for new countries, new languages, form new alliances. Some instance, or destiny. The machinery of the plot is deliberate, pick a side; the Anglo-Indians in Ray’s novel, who pine all the ludicrous coincidences necessary; because, for all the for an England that is wholly constructed in their own prodigious research that has gone into the novel, all the use imaginations. Others refuse to choose. More alarming than of historical fact and incident, No Country is not realism, is losing your country, the novel suggests, is losing love, losing not a literary simulacrum of reality, as much as it is an illusempathy: that is the soil in which to root ourselves, rather trative fable. than some arbitrary landmass.

The reader must buy into the world of the story, must willIf, in the end, Ray’s story does not quite cohere as a novel, ingly accept the grinding machinations of the plot, the overits many-splendoured parts, its noble ambitions, are worth determination, the reliance on ludicrous coincidence; even your perseverance. n the most tenuous connection must appear predestined.

Shougat Dasgupta is a freelance journalist based in Delhi However, Ray is skilful enough with his beautiful imagery 22 september 2014

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books Kathmandu, Mon Amour A compelling love song for the author’s adoptive home, a city of multiple paradoxes Jug Suraiya kathmandu

Thomas Bell Random House India | 463 pages | Rs 599

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any great love affairs have humdrum beginnings.

This one began in a kitchen in Kew. The author, a Briton working as a call centre operator to pay off his student loan, wanted to be a foreign correspondent. The trouble was he didn’t know which country he would like to correspond from.

Then someone in a suburban kitchen suggested Nepal.

Thomas Bell writes: ‘It seemed a good idea. There were Maoist rebels, getting in the news with growing frequency.

Earlier that year the crown prince had massacred the royal family, proving what a big story Nepal could be if something crazy happens. Crazy things seemed to be the Nepali style.’

That was how what seems to be a life-long love affair began between the then 23-year-old Bell and the city of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, where the author did a five-year stint as a foreign correspondent, and where he currently lives with his Nepali wife and his two children.

All cities worth the name are in search of lovers who will write about their ensnarement. What was then called Calcutta found a lover in Geoffrey Moorhouse, who wrote one of the best books on that city of ‘strange and sublime address’ that I have read. Delhi has had many lovers, including Khushwant Singh and William Dalrymple, and the erstwhile Bombay has had its Nissim Ezekiel and Rohinton Mistry.

Like a promiscuous courtesan, Kathmandu has had many lovers who have written about it, in tones of wonder, rapture, rage, grief, and finally a bemused resignation, acknowledging an elusiveness of their subject, which the subtlest web of words can’t hope to entrap. Notable among Kathmandu’s many lovers was my former boss, journalist, artist and editor Desmond Doig, who lived there for many years, weaving himself into the city’s paradoxical narrative of ageless myth and manic modernity.

With a frieze of snow peaks veiled with smog as a backdrop, in the city’s streets centuries jostle for space along with the bumper-to-bumper cars. In a gloom of gullies interspersed with the sudden sunlight of squares, bulls of midnight black slouch like temple statues brought to life.

Beside the grimace of a glass-fronted shopping mall, decaying before it has finished being built, is an age-old shrine in which a pre-pubescent Living Goddess plays with a pink plastic helicopter made in China.

What’s real, what’s unreal? In Kathmandu, it’s difficult,

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maybe impossible, to tell. As Bell writes: ‘Thousands of years ago, in legend and in reality, the Kathmandu Valley was a lake, coursing with serpents… a Buddha came and sowed a lotus seed in the ancient lake. From the flower a beam of light appeared… the self-created god Swayambhu… Another enlightened one, called Manjusri used his sword… to drain the lake… (and) brought people to the Valley.’

Legend and history merge, with no discernible dividing line. ‘Until 1951 foreigners were mostly excluded from the country, which was ruled as a kind of feudal theocracy.

The first motorable road to Kathmandu was completed in 1956… Television arrived in 1985… Five years later the absolute monarchy yielded to parliamentary democracy, under pressure from massive street protests.’

The result of ‘this shrinking time lag’ writes Bell: ‘is a city that feels at once abandoned by the modern world and buffeted by it. The failed introduction of democracy, the failure of foreign aid, the crisis of social values, the environmental catastrophe… probably no other city was woken so rudely from medieval sleep, to find itself exposed in the electric light of the later twentieth century.’

Impressively researched, with a bibliography running to 17 pages, the book is saved from pedantry by the author’s brisk, journalistic style which uses the immediacy of personalised vignettes to bring to life the complex, often contradictory, human kaleidoscope of Kathmandu.

In two short paragraphs Bell captures the tragi-comedy of the Maoist misadventure: ‘Comrade Prabin was a teenage kid… He told me ‘The Maoist soldiers came to my village…

I felt courageous and I joined’… After fifteen days with the Maoists he deserted them and went to his brother, who was a member of the Armed Police… (and) sent him away to try for army recruitment… but he fought with his parents again, ran away a second time and rejoined the rebels… Then he started crying. ‘If I go home my parents would just bother me and I would come away again.’ Since he was a child he had wanted to be a soldier.’

In a scenario that could have been jointly scripted by Kafka and Joseph Heller, Bell explores Kathmandu’s many paradoxes, as labyrinthine as its unnumbered alleyways: how political impasse has become the only guarantee of political stability; how foreign aid which enriches only middlemen is the country’s biggest revenue earner; how a spew of construction has spread like concrete vomit over vanished paddy fields despite the looming threat of a longimpending earthquake which will reduce it all to rubble.

So why make the Valley of a doom foretold your adoptive home? That’s a secret between the city and her neither naive nor sentimental lover. n Jug Suraiya is a writer and columnist 22 september 2014

rough cut

Bored of Censors In film censorship, it’s the man or woman on top that matters Mayank Shekhar

U

nless you’re a certified alcoholic or someone deal-

officer from the Customs. The Censor Board CEO and ing with anger management issues, booze generalregional officers are bureaucrats who report to the chairperly brings out a cooler, better version of yourself. This son, who is usually a person from film, letter or arts. Actor was no different for Vinayak Azad, who I was meeting for Sharmila Tagore used to be Vinayak’s boss. Danseuse Leela the first time outside his uptight work-space, at a party in Samson was Pankaja’s.

Blue Frog in Mumbai. As the evening progressed, Vinayak While interviewing for the position, Pankaja told me she and his friend, both Customs officers from the Indian had even made a short film to prove her interest in cinema. A Revenue Service, regaled me with stories of narcotics raids major problem she faced in her job was from rag-tag groups in Goa. They both wore the same tattoo—fish skeletons— and NGOs that could get offended by any content and they on their arm and generally seemed like regular fun people had to be heard. If you leave censorship to the public at large, to be with. there will be little left of art itself. Television currently folThe reason I knew Vinayak, a major film buff with a keen lows that model. Censorship on it borders on the ridiculous. interest in the arts and other humanist things in life, is that Pankaja’s bosses in the Government, she said, hardly interhe was the regional officer of India’s film Censor Board. fered with her work, but for once when a joint secretary was During his term, the English press had rightly upset because the grotesquely funny adult comedy Delhi Belly noted a decline in the Censor Board’s draconian ways. Vishal had been cleared without cuts. The State was more Bhardwaj’s Omkara was a good example, where the charconcerned with content being generated on the internet. Be acters could talk like dacoits without the dialogue getting that as it may, according to rumours, Pankaja was apparentbeeped to protect adults from foul language of ly thrown out by the Congress Government, their own street. Vinayak had asked me to be right before elections, for passing a film, on the advisory panel of the Board. I suspected Punjab 1984, on Delhi’s anti-Sikh riots.

If you leave he knew what he was getting into.

Pankaja’s replacement, one Rakesh Kumar censorship to the The cultural commissars on the Censor from the Indian Railways, right after assumpublic at large, Board, much like juries in the US, are supposed ing charge, announced in Mumbai Mirror there will be to be regular citizens called upon to certify (Bollywood’s best-read paper) that he was little left of art films as and when the State requires them to. going to clean up all the mess being created in itself. Television My strategy while participating in post-screenthe name of film entertainment that he could ing discussions was to simply jump in first and currently follows no longer enjoy with his family and kids. The argue for a ‘U’ (Universal) certificate with no Censor Board went back to roughly how it that model cuts, regardless of the film’s content. Having used to be in the 80s or 90s. started the conversation thus, one hoped the In line with India’s knack for hypocrisy, the group (of three or four, usually) would at least arrive at a ‘U/A’ morally upright Kumar sahib was caught with, well, not lots or an ‘A (Adult), with no cuts’. of porn stashed in his computer (although someone should In any case the job of the Censor Board, as per its official have checked), but with bundles of notes amassed while title—Central Board of Film Certification—is merely to doing the job of certifying films. He was booked on bribery classify films rather than censor them. The Government’s charges. His legacy continued. regional officer, while supposedly an observer at post-screenHis office secretary, certifying films thereafter, asked the ing discussions, inevitably influences the final call. Although makers of Finding Fanny to delete the word ‘virgin’ from the cautious to a fault, as most civil servants are, Vinayak would film. Vishal Bhardwaj’s Haider had to go through 41 cuts. inevitably be the voice of reason. The other group memThe Censor Board’s rules, based on a 1952 Cinematograph bers I came across, besides some sensible ones (like Nandini Act, hadn’t changed. Only the people had. Going by the same Sardesai), were generally bureaucrats’ wives or ‘social workguidelines and regulations, Vinayak once told me, you can ers’ (a euphemism for political activists or party hacks). ban Tom & Jerry if you like. It only depends on the man or After Vinayak left, the position of the Censor Board CEO woman on top. n that had been lying defunct for years was reinstated. His Mayank Shekhar runs the pop culture website TheW14.com successor Pankaja Thakur, who became the CEO, was also an

22 september 2014

open www.openthemagazine.com 59

potassium adequacy The US Department of Agriculture recommends that women get at least 4,700 mg of potassium daily. TheWHO’s recommendation is lower, at 3,510 mg or more

The Genetics of Taming Domestication involves small changes in many genes and not drastic changes in a few

Potassium for the Heart

moment open/getty images

science

S

omewhere between 9,000 and 15,000 years ago, human beings began domesticating animals like dogs, cattle, sheep, goats and pigs. This, along with learning to grow crops, has been one of the most important technological breakthroughs, as it allowed agriculture to develop. But what genetic changes occurred in wild animals that made them conducive to taming has long baffled the scientific community.

A new study, for the first time, has spotted the genetic variation that occurs when wild animals become tame. The researchers found that there are no specific ‘domestication genes’ that are critical for domestication, but that a diversity of gene variants affecting the brain and nervous system are important for it.

They argue that a similar diversity of gene variants affecting the brain and the nervous system occurs in humans as well, and contributes to the differences in our behaviour and personalities.

For the study, which was published in Science, the researchers studied the rabbit. Unlike other animals that were domesticated thousands of years ago, the rabbit was domesticated only about 1,400 60 open

years ago in France. It is claimed that the animal was domesticated at Catholic monasteries, as the Church had declared that young rabbits were not considered meat, but fish, and hence its flesh could be consumed during Lent.

After sequencing the entire genome of a domestic rabbit to develop a reference genome assembly, the researchers then sequenced entire genomes of domestic rabbits representing six different breeds and wild rabbits sampled at 14 different places across the Iberian Peninsula and southern France.

The researchers found that the domestication of rabbits had occurred with alterations in the frequencies of gene variants that were already present in the wild ancestor. They found that domestication involves small changes in many genes and not drastic changes in a few. They also found that very rarely do the gene variants common in domestic rabbits completely replace the gene variants present in wild rabbits. Hence, if a domestic rabbit is released into the wild, there is the possibility for back selection involving genes that have been altered during domestication. n

According to a new study published in Stroke, postmenopausal women who eat foods higher in potassium are less likely to have strokes and die than women who eat less potassium-rich foods. Researchers studied 90,137 postmenopausal women, ages 50 to 79, for an average 11 years. Women in the study were stroke-free at the start and their average dietary potassium intake was 2,611 mg/day. They found that women who ate the most potassium were 12 per cent less likely to suffer stroke in general and 16 per cent less likely to suffer an ischemic stroke than women who ate the least. The researchers, however, warn that some people can already have too much potassium in their blood, so medical advice should be sought. n

No Link Between Bra and Cancer

There is no association between bra wearing and increased breast cancer risk among postmenopausal women, according to a study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. “Breast cancer risk was similar no matter how many hours per day women wore a bra, whether they wore a bra with an underwire, or at what age they first began wearing a bra,” says Lu Chen, a researcher at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The study’s subjects were 454 women with invasive ductal carcinoma and 590 with invasive lobular carcinoma, the two most common subtypes of breast cancer; 469 women with no breast cancer served as controls. All women were postmenopausal, ages 55 to 74. n

22 september 2014

mp4 format The rise of video on mobile devices has popularised this file format for sharing video clips online. For the most part, Adobe Flash content on websites isn’t available on mobile devices.

For video that can be viewed anywhere, on any device, the MP4 format has become the latest standard

tech&style

Bublcam Its 360° technology means that this novel spherical camera has no blind spot gagandeep Singh Sapra

Parmigiani Tonda w Metrographe Steel Abyss & Black LVR

Price on request

$579

Created by Parmigiani in partnership with Luisa Via Roma, this model for men sports a masculine design. The timepiece features a 40 mm wide steel case and a repeating triangle motif of deep shades of blue, and a strap of woven black and blue calf leather. Inside this watch is the in-house caliber PF315 automatic chronograph movement. n

W

e all love taking pictures

and our cellphones are making things easier, but they can only capture what you are looking at, and fall short of framing the overall environment you are in.

Enter the Bublcam, which can shoot a 360° picture or video with a single click. There is no blind spot for this spherical camera.

The Bublcam uses four 1.6 megapixel cameras with a 190° field of view. The software inside the Bublcam stitches the images and videos together, giving you in the end a 14 megapixel 360° image.

There is a provision for a tripod mount, but even if you place the Bublcam on your palm, you can shoot without fear of blurred images; it has a tri-axial accelerometer that stabilises images. So whether it is a video of your friends and you having a great time on the beach or a walk through a town, the Bublcam’s 360° technology will let your other friends and family get an immersive experience as if they were there.

22 september 2014

The Bublcam weighs just 280 gm, but its solid aluminium die-cast construction is robust. It can shoot videos in 720p at 30 frames per second or full high definition 1080p at 15 frames per second. The videos are in MP4 format and can be played on smart TVs as well as tablets. Bublcam also comes with an app for your iPad and will eventually have apps for most platforms to zoom, pan, tilt and turn around within the images.

A microSD card slot allows you to use a 32 gigabyte card to record images and videos, and you can also store them directly on a cloud as long as your bublcam is connected to the internet via its WiFi. The images come in a dimension of 3,840 x 3,840 pixels as a 14 megapixel JPEG, while the video takes about 1 megabyte of storage per second. So shoot family moments and travel outings, monitor your babies, or catch action sports, and relive the moments. The only thing is, you need to order now and wait for winter to set in before you get your Bublcam. n

MapMyIndia UHMP 900

Rs 16,990

The UHMP 900 from MapMyIndia is a handy entertainment unit that can easily be retrofittted to your car. This audio-video set comes with 2 x 9-inch TFT screen that support an 800x480 pixel resolution with a 16:9 aspect ratio, a built-in DVD player that also plays VCD, SVCD, CD, MMC and MS, and USB slot. It sells as a headrest pillow in grey, beige and black colour options with an adjustable headrest pole diameter, so fitting them in most cars is easy. All it requires is a bit of cabling to your car’s power supply. n Gagandeep Singh Sapra is The Big Geek at System3. He can be reached at gadgets@openmedianetwork.in

open www.openthemagazine.com 61

CINEMA

nepal’s darling brute Sunil Thapa, who plays Priyanka Chopra’s boxing coach in Mary Kom, is a popular figure in the Nepali film industry, well known for essaying negative roles.

He, however, started his acting career in Bollywood with the 1981 film Ek Duuje Ke Liye

Mary Kom Devoid of authenticity and political depth, this biopic disappoints on many levels ajit duara

current

o n scr een

Life of Crime Director Daniel Schechter cast Jennifer Aniston, Mos Def,

Isla Fisher

Score ★★★★★

a OPRA , sunil thap Cast Priyanka CH r ma Ku g un Director Om

O

ne of the finest Hindi films on women in sport was Chak De! India.

Among the hockey players Kabir Khan (Shah Rukh Khan) coaches in that film is a girl from Mizoram (Kimi Laldawla) and a girl from Manipur (Masochon Zimik). They look particularly convincing in a crucial scene when teased about their looks by leering men at a restaurant. That’s when the whole team gets together to give the harassers a thrashing.

In similar vein, there is a dramatic scene in Mary Kom about boxing and regional politics. After a match at a national competition, Mary (Priyanka Chopra) screams at Federation officials about ethnic prejudice against herself, a Manipuri boxer, and is promptly banned for her outburst. But the set-up is not believable because Priyanka looks distinctly more North Indian than the girl she claims unfairly beat her.

True, Ms Chopra does a terrific job of playing a woman boxer and a mother— and the never-ending conflict that arises 62 open

while doing these two herculean tasks simultaneously. But it’s just not enough.

Mary Kom, the boxer, has an identity in time, outside of international sports and motherhood, and had she been a character from the early 19 century (before photography), this casting might have worked. But as the contemporary celebrity she is, the ontology of the photographic image denies our imagination the remoulding of her facial features into those of Ms Chopra.

Director Omung Kumar has made a well-shot film on a violent contact sport, but he runs out of interesting biographical material very quickly.

Connecting Mary Kom to the complex ethnic mix of hill and plains people in Manipur—and the volatile politics that it results in—is clearly beyond his ken.

Finally, patriotism fills in the blanks.

Wrapping itself in the flag, the film forces the audience to stand up while the national anthem is played, start to finish. Apparently, that’s the only substance left over in this biopic. n

Based on a 1978 Elmore Leonard novel called The Switch, this film is a matter-of-fact thriller that shows you crime as a profession and lifestyle like any other. The crooks (John Hawkes and Mos Def) have human foibles that are equalled, if not bettered, by people in conventional middle-class suburbia.

These bungling ex convicts who kidnap a housewife for ransom are as noncommittal as the kidnapped woman (Jennifer Aniston), her rich husband (Tim Robbins) or his mistress (Isla Fisher).

The woman is hanging on to a dead marriage, the husband is two-timing her, and his mistress will switch sides instantly, depending on which side she sees her bread buttered. Each one of the characters could easily lead the other one’s life if that life is perceived as more comfortable. The switch would be easy.

Novelist Leonard’s sharp ear for conversation comes off well, but Life of Crime falls short in painting the bigger picture.

Period setting tells you that this is the 1970s, but other than that there is no description of an interesting social milieu. If you changed the costumes, cars, phones and hairstyles, you could set the story in contemporary America.

But, as it is, the traditional three-act structure of this film gives you the feeling of watching a play. n AD

22 september 2014

Not People Like Us

R aj e e v M asa n d

How to Alienate People

Saif Ali Khan sure isn’t making many fans with his recent behaviour. First he pissed off industrywalas when he publicly denounced Sajid Khan after the failure of Humshakals.

Now, a week before the release of Finding Fanny, he gave an interview announcing that he was parting ways with his producing partner of five years, Dinesh Vijan, because Saif didn’t want his name on projects that he didn’t believe in.

Although a clarification was issued the following day, explaining that Saif and Dinesh would still keep the Illuminati Films banner alive to produce any films that they both may feel strongly about, that statement felt more like a face-saving opportunity for poor Dinesh. After all, Saif hadn’t minced any words while explaining that he wasn’t happy with the movies Dinesh had chosen to produce under their joint banner, particularly Lekar Hum Deewana Dil, which starred—ahem—the actor’s wife Kareena’s first cousin Armaan Jain in his debut.

Expectedly, the Kapoors aren’t exactly thrilled with Saif’s admission, pretty much disowning the film. Reportedly this incident has strained the already delicate relationship between the Kapoors and Kareena’s side of the family.

But wait! What’s still worse is that Saif has apparently walked out of Dinesh’s directorial venture, a romantic comedy co-starring Parineeti Chopra that was meant to go into production in October. The official word is that the film is on hold till Saif completes Talaash director Reema Kagti’s film with Kangana Ranaut, but insiders say he is no longer attached to the project. His abandoning of the film has left Parineeti with an empty schedule starting October, and Dinesh with sleepless nights.

Not given to Filmi Airs

Aditya Roy Kapoor is coming off two blockbusters—Aashiqui 2 and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani—but if his Daawat-e-Ishq co-star Parineeti Chopra is to be believed, he still doesn’t know how to handle all the attention. Interestingly, that’s exactly what his Yeh Jawaani co-star Ranbir Kapoor had said while they were promoting that film last year. Hot off the success of Aashiqui 2, Aditya was reportedly shy and awkward and had no idea how to respond to fans that were literally throwing themselves at him while 22 september 2014

he toured the country with Ranbir and Deepika.

Not much has changed since then, Parineeti insists. She claims he’s still painfully shy and usually at a loss of words when the attention becomes intense. Aditya, for his own part, says he’s become a little bit more confident but still hasn’t mastered the art of waving moviestar-like to the crowds.

Also, he doesn’t seem like he’s in a hurry to change old habits.

He’ll still ride into a movie set or even a film premiere on his trusted motorbike, he continues to be criticised for dressing down at major occasions, and his tendency to not shave before making public appearances is routinely frowned upon. “I can’t change who I am,” he says, shrugging his shoulders helplessly, a little smile escaping his lips as he considers the long list of complaints. “But I’m trying not to disappoint people,” he quickly adds.

After Dawaat-e-Ishq, he begins filming Kai Po Che director Abhishek Kapoor’s Great Expectations adap Fitoor, which is set in Kashmir and will also star Katrina Kaif and Rekha.

He hasn’t signed any new films but says he’s hoping his luck doesn’t run out anytime soon.

Of Extravagant Stinginess

A Richie Rich producer and heir to a multi-crore film empire has gotten a bad name for reportedly trying to cut corners and pinch pennies.

The young ‘un visited a leading Bollywood starproducer not long ago on the set of one of his films, and urged him, during a meeting in his vanity van, to write off the Rs 11 lakh that the moghul owed him on their last project together, a box-office blockbuster.

The moghul insisted that he had lost money on the project—a claim that the superstar refused to buy—and was hoping he could be excused from coughing up the money he owed the star. While dropping him off to his car, the actor—known to put people in their place—couldn’t resist pointing out to the moghul, in full earshot of dozens of unitwalas who were gathered around, that the hotshot producer could afford to zip about in a fancy Lamborghini but was being miserly about a few lakh rupees. n Rajeev Masand is entertainment editor and film critic at CNN-IBN open www.openthemagazine.com 63

open space

Caught in the Deluge Yawar Nazir/Getty Images

A man carries a woman to a safer place in a flooded residential area in Srinagar on 7 September.

The floods in the Himalayan region of Kashmir are believed to be the worst in decades, having left over 150 people dead and severely disrupted the lives of more than 80,000 families

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22 september 2014

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