America and its war track record

Let me start off with saying, I am writing this without carrying out any research…no figures, no numbers and no dates. Just my impression on how successful they were in several of the "Wars" they have been involved in. A few that they have been involved is – Korea, Vietnam, star wars, drugs, illegal aliens and of course terror.

Verdict on each of them – resounding failure.

In Korea, US managed to keep the South and North isolated and it did not make much of a headway in getting the Kims to toe-the-line. North Koreans live disastrous lives and have managed very little beside pick up a nuclear capability from China and Pakistan. Now the South Koreans live in the shadow of this weapon and the world gets routinely blackmailed into providing food and medicines to the North. Not exactly my idea of a victorious end.

Vietnam was unnecessary, unending and unresolved. Today Vietnam is one country, and its capitalist outlook has as much to do with the success of the neighbourhood and the failure of Communism than a tribute to the US soldiers who laid down their lives for nothing. That Vietnam is now a large exporter to the US shows their maturity in managing their affairs.

Star Wars over nuclear weapon armaments in the US and the erstwhile USSR led to amassing of large numbers of weapons by both nations. Numbers are still debated but undoubtedly each country could end the world as we know, single handedly with a handful of them. Why they needed more probably has to do more with supporting the companies that were being paid by the exchequer than a real strategic need. All this brought about the Cuban crisis and major headache of keeping tabs of the warheads after the USSR dismantled. Hollywood probably thanks Reagan for given them this opportunity to presenting rogue nuclear sales in a hundred different ways. But then, that's not such a great thing either.

The drug wars are not yet over. Cartels from Central and South America source from Afghanistan via several known routes, process, package and smuggle them into the US with as much impunity as ever. Sure every few years you hear of a cartel being broken and heads rolling. But the menace is not gone. It has just gotten worse. There are new drugs being created, manufactured and distributed. The cash generated from these sales are possibly fuelling the global terror and more than one country is said to be in the clutches of these drug lords.

Watch any comedy show emanating from the US and the jokes about illegal aliens and more specifically of Mexicans is standard fodder. US has built miles and miles of fences, illuminated the borders, set up check points, tried everything on earth and yet they cannot stop Mexicans from entering their country by road or Cubans by boats. It has reached a state where people are questioning America's ability to survive as an economy if these aliens were not doing the menial jobs in the country. While one could debate how serious US is about stopping their entry, the fact is that a long shared border cannot be secured completely. This seems to be lost on all the Indians today baying for a secure border with Pakistan. If Mexico or Canada had been exporting terrorists, US could not have done much either. The 9/11 perpetrators came from thousands of miles, entered, settled, plotted and executed their plan with precision. They could not manage to stop that either.

The best is of course their "war on terror". Their partner in the war; the very country that fostered the terror. It took them close to six years to acknowledge there is no way to avoid acknowledging and two more to probably take more severe action. For sixty years they supported the various unelected governments in Pakistan unconditionally and did little to support the elected ones in the same way. They watched as guns and funds for the "afghan war" were diverted by Pakistan to its creation, Taliban and did little to stop Taliban from taking over Afghanistan when the Soviets left in defeat. Today with an ill designed plan on destroying terror in Afghanistan it is now letting Taliban take over parts of Pakistan. It is no where close to ending this war with its inability to find any of the following: WMD, al-Qaeda leaders, terror training camps, financing routes, anything that can actually be ended without finding new hydra heads emerging.

As for their role in the middle east goes, the lesser said the better. They have not managed to get Israel to agree to a true peace treaty that will allow Palestine to restart its life. They did not manage to 'get Saddam Hussein" for over a decade even after he tried capturing Kuwait and only caused major disaster for the Iraqi people through Sanctions. Their influence over Iran, Syria et al is less than mine over Indian foreign policy.

All they achieved through all these wars was a large fiscal deficit, an unmonitored economy, demise of manufacturing in the US and the current financial meltdown. A good lesson to learn for the rest of the world.

The "Simi Garewal" Syndrome

I was very very upset and angry after watching the "We the People" program on NDTV 24X7 on Sunday, November 30, 2008. For someone who normally just tells a couple of people, mainly family and friends, this time i actually spent time writing about it in several places on the web, asking for both Simi Garewal and Barkha Dutt's apology.

For those who did not see the episode, amongst several luminaries invited to debate, India's options post the Mumbai Siege that began on 26th November, was Simi Garewal. She is an actress from an era gone by and then had a couple of stints on television imitating Barbara Walters. prominent resident of Mumbai though she may be, the person to ask advice on security matters, i thought not. But considering the english news channels had desisted from calling in known faces from the political arena, they obviously ran out of ideas and thought we would all enjoy the views of a Arjun Rampal, Shefali Chhaya, et al. Any way coming back to the event, after the panel made sweeping suggestions about not paying taxes for a year, bombing Pakistan etc. Garewal said, "go to a floor above the sixth in any five star hotel, four seasons or any other, look out and in the slums nearby you would see many more pakistani flags than Indian. We have to show them their place." A gentleman, totally agitated, got up and yelled at her that she was the enemy not Pakistan or the terrorist for making these outrageous remarks. Garewal responded saying "but there are, go and see for yourself". Barkha Dutt had no clue whether or not such flags flew. So she went off on the tangent of saying " they have done it. the terrorists have managed to divide us here." The program went into a break and on return Dutt had managed to get the gentleman to apologize to Garewal. Passionate but nevertheless stupid. (Imam Siddique got in touch with me on facebook after i wrote praising him).

The recount is not the point of this blog. It is the feeling of despair that if Imam had not yelled right then and there, plenty of people in the world would have ended the evening thinking there are pakistani flags flying in the slums of India. they are in fact "islamic flags" found a top muslim institutions. Think of the amount of trouble this could have caused next time communal passions rise in the country.

The things that worry me most is that Simi Garewal and heaven knows how many more people looked out a window in a high rise and thought Mumbai was becoming a part of Pakistan, all these days. If she is a representative of all of them, we are talking of literate, rich, responsible, socialising with muslim colleagues (co-actors), articulate in speech and yet completely clueless. I shudder to think what the rest who depend only on word of mouth and rumours for their information think about the society and its structure.

I am not a poster girl for secularism. I have very few friends from religions and cultures other than mine whom i meet regularly. But most people who know me know that i have very few friends. I discriminate majorly about letting people into my life irrespective of religion, caste and creed. Yet I have read books and watched movies to understand basics like what is the month of Lent, Kosher Food, the difference between the two eids, significance of the 5Ks and such stuff. But such ignorance with arrogance on national television is not only unacceptable but extremely dangerous.

My next concern is how are we going to get the message to people who saw the program but did not read the debates and anguish and anger that followed it. Simi Garewal's PR machinery got into action and got NDTV to say, that she had sent in an apology (did not have the nerve to actually come on television i guess) and an interview in the Times of India saying she stood by what she said except for the flag bit, where she accepts she was wrong. Did all who saw the program, read the interview? Did some people who saw and read, think she was retracting under pressure and had actually said the truth on air? Did some people decide they don't care what is true, i now know where i can find these flags ? How will we ever clear this mess, she created?

Forget about conversions, Hindus are apparently so close minded in parts of the country that they refuse to learn about any other culture. Latika Gupta wrote a very telling piece in the Sunday magazine of the newspaper Hindu http://www.hindu.com/mag/2008/11/30/stories/2008113050120400.htm about how Hindu Kids don't seem to know the basics of the Islam religion despite living in close proximity while Muslim Kids do about Hinduism. When Ramayana and Mahabharatha were of the rage in the 90s on television, media had covered enough muslim families that watched the shows with more passion and regularity than my family did.

For all the demands that Muslims and Christians in the country should acknowledge that they belong to the same culture, i think they have. they just don't want to carry it on their sleeves. A article in the magazine Manushi once mentioned that Iranians think their version of Islam is the best and the version in India is extremely diluted. Many converts find that even after several generations the Hindu class divisions don't leave them and they are discriminated against within their community itself . Terms like Brahmin Christians (the first set of people converted in Kerala by St.Thomas were apparently Brahmins and they still call themselves such) and Dalit Christians are completely unknown in most of the Christian World. there is no need for them to call themselves Hindu Christians as was suggested by some luminary from the Sangh Parivar, they are living it.

A start would be for all of us to understand what each of us, our cultures, our interpretation of our religions are and judge each other by that. For that we need to know what the cultures that exist are. Not misrepresentations of the same.

Mumbai and the follow up

I purposely took several days to write this blog. I did not want to jump into conclusions, in a highly emotional response to something that is so serious. My conclusion - we as a country never learn from our mistakes. and this is neither in prevention, action or reaction to any incident.

My disgust in the state of affairs stems more from my absolute rock bottom opinion of the bureaucrats in this country. i wrote a blog way earlier on the issue of setting the bureaucracy right. the level of apathy, corruption and arrogance that they have is amazing and i think any country that tolerates that, is doomed. Politicians are definitely culpable but take into consideration that they are only work for maybe three years in each of their terms. also most of them have little clue on what they are upto...looking for clues and suggestions from the bureaucracy. why would i expect that a A Raja would know the ins and outs of spectrum auctions. I only want him to be smart enough to recognize who does know the ins and outs and get help to make up his mind.

We have seen again and again the bureaucrats sitting on files of importance until they are pushed to a corner where there is no option but to act. we saw it in kargil, when information on incursions were not followed through and today a decade later we see them not acting on information, infrastructure, any thing. only thing they worked hard on was to ensure that the defence, paramilitary and police services get paid lower than they do. if they are that worried about the chain of command, let them come forward today and take the flak also.

If the politicians do not want Police Reforms, i am reasonable sure that a large part of the police don't want it too. cases like Arushi Talwar's clearly show how the UP police, so used to sitting around taking bribes had no clue on how to conduct a murder investigation. in numerous riots, they have shown themselves to be partisan. So much so that a national political ty cannot recognize a non-partisan investigation conducted by Hemant Karkare and labelled him as politically motivated. it took his death to show them otherwise but i am yet to hear an apology from them. But in some ways i don't blame them. they are probably used to meeting with the corrupt ones because the others have little need to meet and socialize with their political bosses. A police officer who attends a party in an illegal pub and then says he left it before a gruesome murder occured in the public view can become the commissioner of the police of major city, only in India. A police officer who refuses to follow the political diktat is hounded for life only in India.

The same is true of the rest of the country. with the civil bureaucracy getting away with all but murder, the rest of them start to believe that they need not follow separate set of rules. so you have a "ketchup" colonel, a fanatic colonel, a spying general and so on. I have seen middle level defence officers sit in my parent's drawing room defending Bindranwale and his followers. It was only time that a Purohit had to happen who possibly did more than talk.

we as a civil society are also culpable. In a country that finds it difficult to find good candidates for the police force we create circumstances where the requirement for traffic policemen is as high as the need for NSG. After all road accidents are india's largest killer not terrorism. if each of us kept to our lanes, waited for pedestrians to cross, crossed roads as pedestrians at the zebra crossing, did not over load our trucks, or travelled in trios on two wheelers, we would need lesser cops on the road monitoring us. For heavens sakes, we need a cop to tell us to wear helmets which is meant to protect our brains not his.

we are happy to circumvent every law when it suits us. i have had colleagues who say, if you reach an airport with minimum time gap, you don't have to go through the security procedures. when a flight gets delayed, we all believe that no terrorist could wait for a delayed flight and hence carry out a farce as a security check. When you hate a new neighbour, you think nothing of calling the cops to say he abused your wife/daughter. I have heard of cops getting paid off to continue to participate in such harassment until the person leaves the neighbourhood.

While politicians may want to control the electoral rolls, all the mischief in this end is from bureaucrats. if they carried it out honestly and efficiently there would be no need for people to go and submit their voter id forms several times. after three attempts at getting it, i have decided to give up my voting rights until the PAN card becomes my voter id. each time i try an idiot sitting at the other end decides that a single woman cannot possible be owning a house and hence changes the gender to male. i am reasonable sure that the local mla and mp were not involved in this. i am sure they don't even know i exist, and i prefer it that way most of the times.

this whole inefficient system of bureaucrats briefing the politician inadequately leading to inaction, paralysis and a constant draining of the economy of funds has to stop. politicians come and go. the common link is the bureaucrat. i think we should target them and shake them out of their peaceful slumber.

If we want change, we need to change all aspects of our current system.

We need to stop misusing the systems.

We need to question and refine the systems.

We need to participate and make all parties accountable for what they are responsible.

lets all use the Right to Information Act to see how long the defence secretary and the finance secretary sat on files of national importance and urgency and how long the respective ministers did. let us force the local authorities to perform. let us keep tabs on how often the local police carry out their strategic exercises and practice new strategies. until they practice they won't even know what they need. let us push for them to actually get more equipment. let make sure they get it at the right price at the right time. let us force them into action.

India, News Channels and American Elections

Congratulations Obama. You did good. Of course until 3 months ago i was sure that Americans will refuse to vote in a woman or a black. Turn of events especially the financial crisis pushed people over completely. Good for them.

But i still see that women are not free to become the leader of the free world. So one can be a governor or a senator but the moment you want to be the pres/VP your clothes are a question, your background is a question, your kids are analysed, your beer drinking style questioned, your laugh mocked.

I would be less concerned about it if Indian television news channels did not ape the american ones blindly. Why do they believe that i am interested in Hillary Clinton's laugh? or why would i be upset that Sarah Palin spent 150,000 dollars on clothes. Given that Obama has spent 530 million and McCain 250 millionon the campaign, this sounds like a paltry sum. If it were India the next few years of the government would be spent by the MPs and Ministers looting the country to make good this amount. hopefully that is not going to happen in the US.

News channels in india spent much of 4th and 5th November tracking the american elections. Was is paucity of news or their impression of how indian public looks at the event, that drove them to do this?

my own impression, nothing that Obama does for the next few months is going to pay off, if they ever do. Its pretty much going to be each country for its own. And when people are used to the new economic situation, they will care for a different set of things and the muck will never be cleaned up completely. only get a new paint of coat or a carpet over it.

I am sure the news channels will spend tons of time telling us what they believe he should do. That is going to be another bunch of waste of time i am not looking forward to.

nuclear deal and fallouts

best time to see opportunism at play.

the congress believes in it, mostly
the bjp will believe in it, if it were signing
the upa partners believe in staying in power, the deal can go any which way
the left can only see US as a evil power. All else is relevant
the bsp cannot see a way to take credit, so lets get out
the sp can see a way to take credit, so lets get in

Grow up guys.

Marketing lessons for religion

A major issue that I have had debates on with two sets of people is "religious conversions".

The argument usually made against religious conversions is that while Hinduism does not allow for conversions, Christian missionaries with deep pockets are making serious inroads by converting tribals in India to Christianity. This, coupled with Muslim boys and girls who "bewitch"Hindus to fall in love with them and force them to convert before marrying, will lead to Hindus becoming minorities in this land where Hinduism was born.

There are several arguments against this but i will keep to the logical ones not based on emotions.

First, Hindus in modern India like to co-opt religions as part of the uber-umbrella that is Hinduism when they like. So suddenly Buddha (who was against idol worship and ritualism and priests) is considered a reincarnation of Vishnu; Animists who pray only to nature are Hindus because amongst the thousands of gods and godesses Hindus pray to, there are also fire, earth, wind, peepul tree and so on. So while a person who is an Animist may not think of himself as a Hindu, a Hindu looks on him as a co-follower. While converting, the Animist is now taking to a god with a human interface for the first time. To the onlooking Hindu, he has betrayed Hinduism.

Hinduism believes you can only be born a Hindu never become one. The Puri Jagannath temple even believes that a Hindu can only be born in India and hence recently disallowed i think Hindus from Malaysia to enter the temple. There are tons of examples of some classes of the society still being unable to enter most temples in the country. So on the one hand you want the purity of the Upper Caste Hindu genes to be preserved exclusively. On the other, you want those whom you keep at a distance by brute force or extreme rudeness, to accept the treatment unquestioningly. Is this possible in an enlightened world? Or is that why you would prefer for some people to remain uneducated, unenlightened and oppressed?

Thirdly, the debate is still on about whether the "Varnas" in Hindu society were meant to be permeable or not. Could a Vaishya's son become a warrior and be called a Kshatriya? Did it start that way but then become impermeable? Did the "upper" castes prefer it to be impermeable so that their children could inherit the benefits that accrue to them? Banished people constituted the "untouchables" but did it necessarily mean that their kids would have such bad genes that it would be better to assume he/she should also be banished from the day they were born? If one had to change that aspect of Hinduism, how would one do it? In today's world why does it suit people to continue with these classifications? if one can answer these questions honestly, maybe one could work towards making it a more equitable society.

Fourth, is brute force is an answer at all to stopping conversions? Will some one seeing his or his neighbour's home being burnt down, move from ambivalence to pro-hindu or anti-hindu? Or do such acts just satisfy the hunger for violence in a bunch of people who have adopted this as their pet issue.

I think Hindus should look at this from a brand managers point of view. You had a great brand. Monopoly share - mind share and market share. But now the share is eroding. It is not yet reached serious proportions but the erosion is visible. So what do you do? Run to the government saying stop imports, increase duties, make it essential for government agencies to buy my product or burn down your competitors warehouse or kill your competitors sales man.... or do you relook at the product and say why are people rejecting it? How do I improve it to make it attractive to more people. How do I retain my customers if converting new customers is not an option? Or should i relook at the various segments and decide that the 80% who are happy with the product are better than the 20% who crib the most and let them switch.

What ever the solution, introspection is the first step. If Hindus don't have the courage to do that, they will become minorities in this land in the next 3-5 centuries and will deserve it.