Raghu Karnad's blog

Congratulations, Abhinav Bindra. India has won its first Olympic gold medal in an individual event. Field hockey used to be the only Olympic sport in which India was a contender, but this year the national team failed to even qualify. In the six Olympics prior, the hockey team hadn't made it as far as the semi-finals. Now, it seems, Indians are finally good at something again: short-range shooting.

Which brings me to the second item on the front page of the broadsheets: police shot at unarmed protest-marchers in Kashmir, killing five people, including a member of the Hurriyat Conference. Eight more protestors have been shot dead today.

This is a response by George Fitzherbert, a DPhil in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford University, to an editorial in the Hindu extending N Ram's attack on the campaign for Tibetan autonomy. The editorial is here. The Hindu did not carry the letter. George specializes in Tibetan culture and language.

Sir,

Your misleading editorial on "The Question of Tibet" (26 March 2008) cannot go unanswered.

1. You throw scorn on the notion that Tibet is in the throes of a democratic uprising against Chinese rule. As anyone who has been to Tibet well knows, that country has been in a state of simmering unrest for the past 50 years, during which time it has experienced no form of consensual government. The current unrest is a rare moment when this discontent has become visible. To dismiss it so flippantly is to completely misunderstand the Tibetan situation.

Northrop Grumman, the aeronautics and weapons manufacturer, takes out a full backpage advertisement in the Indian Express. "The launch of a new era in battlespace dominance," it says about its E2-D Hawkeye recon aircraft, which possesses "a new generation of radar systems, integrated communications and cutting edge tools". Alright - but are we supposed to rush out and buy one, to assemble on the living room floor?

I've never seen anything of this sort before: military manufacturers grabbing for eyeballs in the media. I'd understand if it were a newsletter for procurement agents and MoD senior bureaucrats, but I don't see how it profits NG to get the general public pepped up about 'battlespace dominance.'

The English press in India has been playing this story in a muted, cautious manner. Strong statements are only coming from the most improbable quarter.

The Hindu gave it four-inches on Pg 12, where they reprinted a newswire report. The Hindustan Times ran their own story on Pg 13, emphasizing that "Tehelka says... but we don't." The Indian Express gave it the most inches on Pg 1, under the header: "Sting traps footsoldiers of Gujarat riots boasting about killings with state support," but made no editorial statements.

Who would have guessed that it would be the Times of India that, under the header "Guj Rioters Brag About Killings," actually had the guts to say this: "Indeed the phrase "state-sponsored genocide," often bandied about by activists, may not be an exaggeration if these claims of rioters are correct."

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So whats with the print media's limp response? Why would the Hindu - the most pointedly anti-Hindutva English broadsheet - squash the story, preferring to focus on new rules to regulate hot money and Sanjay Dutt's appeal?

Because - the thinking in the media has already reached this consensus - the sting operation is going to help Modi win.

The word began to filter around in the afternoon that Tehelka, whose 2001 hidden-camera expose of Bangaru Laxman introduced the phrase 'sting operation' to India, was about to break The Most Important Story of Our Time. Sabrang sent an email alerting the national media that the target of the operation were senior Sangh Parivar officers in Gujarat. It sounded like a zinger.

It has turned out to be more than a zinger - this is an explosive story. Ashish Khaitan infiltrated the VHP of Gujarat for 6 months, and emerged with video recordings of highly incriminating statements made by key people in the VHP, Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena about their roles - and the role of the state apparatus at large - in manufacturing the 2002 massacres.

The Truth About Gujarat 2002: In the Words of the Men Who Did It: Tehelka's Full Story Here

It took an army of vanar to build the Ram Sethu bridge between Mannar Island (Sri Lanka) and Rameshwaram (India), but it has taken less than a barrel full of monkeys to propose, re-propose, retract, litigate and leave at an awkward standstill the project to cut a naval passage through it.

Naturally, the UPA - thronging with Communists, p-secs and followers of non-Indian religions - were keen to pulverize our marine mytho-historical heritage. But the UPA has only been in power for three years now. Which anti-Hindu vandals guided this project through its early policy approvals?

Can you guess who received credit, in a recent session of Parliament, from the Minister of Shipping, TR Baalu?

Fill in the blanks!

Shinzo Abe's sudden resignation is a good opportunity for me to post this editorial I wrote, and then forgot about, after his visit to India in August. Japan is the ideal case study of the tension between pacifist ideological commitments and militant strategic commitment, and the potential damage that tension can do to the guts of a country's character.

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Speaking to Indian parliamentarians on August 24th, Shinzo Abe recalled the warm meeting between Jawaharlal Nehru and Nobosuke Kishi, the Prime Ministers of India and Japan fifty years ago. Abe proposed that we should resume building the "arc of freedom" between Asia’s two most prominent democracies. Nostalgia about Mr Kishi, who was Mr Abe’s own grandfather, is a historical keystone in this vision of an Asian axis of democracy.

Kishi’s legacy is, in fact, monumental, but it has little to do with reinforcing the democratic tradition in Japan.

In 2003, a federal bench reviewed evidence and found that the state of Iran and its Ministry of Information and Security were "legally responsible for providing material, financial and logistical support [to Hizbullah] to help carry out [the] tragic attack on the 241 servicemen in Beirut in 1983."

This Friday, a federal judge ordered Iran to pay compensation to a group of nearly one thousand plaintiffs, mostly those injured and the relatives of those killed in the embassy bombing.

The plaintiffs brought charges on three counts: wrongful death (representatives of 128 killed), battery (26 survivors) and intentional infliction of emotional distress (753 relatives). Injured survivors received pain and suffering awards up to $12 million. Those who lost a spouse were awarded $8 mn, a parent or child $5 mn, and a sibling $2.5 mn. Total award: $2.65 billion.

Secular observers within the state of Gujarat had largely given up hope of the BJP being unseated by the next election, or anytime in the near future. But in recent weeks, the base of the looming political idol that is Narendra Modi has sunk by several inches - an indication that it may be growing too heavy to be borne by the shfting sands of local politics.

A multi-pronged attack from within the Sangh Parivar suggests - now that Vajpayee, Advani and Shekhawat are over the hill - that the second-tier leaders have fixed scythes in their chariot-wheels before the rath-race to the top.

Now they aim to cut Modi's feet out from underneath him.

From our Bureau of Ironic Affairs:

It should come as some relief that the Bajrang Dal in Bhopal has changed its views on the paramountcy of religious sentiment over free speech and artistic expression. BD members reportedly turned out in large numbers to appreciate Kailash Tiwari's exhibit of his paintings, titled The Face of Terror, in Bhopal. In terms of technique, Tiwari's art relies heavily on bold, solid colours and unorthodox use of perspective and proportions, common in the "Un"-school of painting. Thematically his message is multi-layered but strongly articulated: Muslim men are murderers, gang-rapists, arsonists, traitors, harem-keepers, cow-slaughterers, defilers of the flag, self-flagellants and perverts. Osama Bin Laden embodies these character flaws. In order to illustrate this, Tiwari likes painting him naked. Pubes included.