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Rabble Rousing Random Ramblings by S Jagadish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
A few days ago, I read a news report in 'The Hindu' about serious differences between India's defence forces and various other agencies, including the Urban Development Ministry, over construction of a dedicated war memorial for Indian soldiers.
Keep in mind that India Gate was built to commemorate martyrs of the British Indian Army. So really there's no memorial to honour soldiers who died fighting for independent India. The difference of opinion essentially centres around where the monument should be located.
The first thing that struck me after reading the report was why everyone was assuming that the monument needed to be in Delhi in the first place! It's not as though a majority of the martyrs were born in Delhi. Why couldn't the memorial be constructed in any other place in India? What's the need to be so Delhi-centric.
It's certainly not something new. With a few exceptions (the only two that come to mind are the Calcutta Metro and the frequency with which Delhi hosts international cricket), most events are Delhi-centric. Television in India started off in Delhi. The only 2 Asian Games in India (the inaugural one in 1951 & the 1982 one) have been held in Delhi. Ceremonies & parades during Independence day & Republic day are always held only in Delhi. In the last decade, India has played 11 Davis Cup ties at home, and 6 of these have been in Delhi when there are [probably] much better venues at other places, including Chennai & Bangalore.
The 2010 Commonwealth Games is in Delhi, and I shudder to think of infrastructure lying waste like it was after 1982. The first Formula One Grand Prix race in India will be in Delhi in 2011. India's venue proposed for the 2020 Olympics is Delhi.
Why can't we spread the love? Why should the Supreme Court only be in Delhi? Why should the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha sessions only be held in Delhi?
That said, sometimes it is useful. Imagine if, as an extension of this extreme Delhi-focus, the netas and the babus insisted on INS Arihant being rolled out from Delhi on the grounds that the submarine could go take a dip in the Yamuna!
Labels: commonwealth games, delhi, federalism, ins arihant, kargil, memorial, sports
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Pervez Musharraf's four point solution
In Indo-Pak relations, the term 'back-channel diplomacy' is heard very often. But Pervez Musharraf has evidently perfected the art of 'TV channel diplomacy'. In an interview to NDTV, Gen. Musharraf outlined his four-point solution for ever-lasting peace in Kashmir ™
- Kashmir will have the same borders but people will be allowed to move freely back and forth in the region
- The region will have self-governance or autonomy, but not independence
- Troops will be withdrawn from the region in a staggered manner
- A joint supervision mechanism will be set up, with India, Pakistan and Kashmir represented
I have just one issue with his 'four-point solution for ever-lasting peace in Kashmir ™': Why doesn't it say a single word about Pakistan agreeing to rein in the terrorists it foments, supports and sponsors?
Reactions from Nitin and Offstumped.
Previous posts on Musharraf & TISJaK: Joint anti-terror mechanism, Admitting that J & K was part of India, Pakistan and the earthquake: part 1, part 2 & part 3, Indian bloggers' protest against his visit in April 2005 to watch cricket, different democracy yardsticks in Iraq & J/K, Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service grounded, Manmohan rejects Pervez's three-point solution for ever-lasting peace in Kashmir ™, Musharraf's claims on Indian soldier deaths during the Kargil war, cuts in Pakistan armed forces announced, sabre-rattling over lack of progress in talks, Kashmir issue will be resolved by the end of 2004, among many others that I may not have trawled through!
Labels: jammu and kashmir, kargil, musharraf, pakistan
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Blast from the past: Kargil and the World Cup
Thanks to Pradeep, a friend from NTU who has since moved on to other pastures, I've rediscovered older writings of mine for IGNet, a site setup for the IG at NTU, Singapore. Thanks a lot to Srijith for hosting IGNet when its domain expired. Given that I've always had an opinion and have somehow or the other managed to find a way to express it, I'm totally delighted at locating these articles/opinions/write-ups. Mind you, these are rather dated, most of them written in 1999.
Normal blogging will also happen, but some of the next few entries (called "Blast from the past") will be a copy-and-paste effort, just to ensure there is some sort of 'permanent' record on this blog. It is tough for me to evaluate, but has the writing style changed in the last six years?
We start off with a comparison of Kargil and World Cup 1999.
Along with the fact that the Pakistani intrusion of Kashmir succeeded in exposing Pakistan's obvious military involvement with the Kashmir militants, the Kargil encounter showed us a facet of India we had seldom seen before, that as an aggressive, super patriotic nation.
At the forefront of this radical change was a septagenurian Prime Minister who was extremely forthright and clear in the way he handled the issue even though some of the ministers in his cabinet chose to expose themselves to be the idiots they really are. But what was even more amazing was the way all Indians responded to his call and rallied behind the soldiers. The "war" brought about a patriotic feeling in India on a massive scale. People from all walks of life wanted to contribute something for the jawans. More than a dozen funds sprung up from nowhere collecting money for the soldiers and their families. Requests to donate blood came by the gallons to the hospitals and the army camps. So much so that hospitals would probably be better off enlisting those volunteers to provide blood to needy civilians because the army generally has a fairly good stock of blood.
All this was so eerily similar to the frenzy we saw in the lead up to the Cricket World Cup. Companies piled on the World Cup bandwagon by the hundreds. If you bought a TV set you could actually get a chance to watch the World Cup on another TV, for free ! Scooters proclaimed themselves the official carriers of the Indian fan, although it is impossible to believe that Apple Singh or Sivamani went all the way to London on a Bajaj Chetak ! Need I expond on the way cricketers who we never knew existed and those who we thought couldnt say a word in English, were thrust into the limelight and they suddenly became the "experts" !
Kargil wasnt too different in this respect too. Retired army generals, officers etc. were all in great demand with the various television channels eager to get their sound bytes before the others did. In much the same way as Harsha Bhogle went to England, just to interview the cricketers and the commentators there and also to present a daily report on what was happening where, NDTV sent Barkha Dutt and a few other reporters to the foothills of Tiger Hill during the daring raids. The reports from her were no less exciting than those from Bhogle, except possibly for the fact that Boycott wasnt around to say 'Mee moom would have climbed that hill bare footed'.
With a huge percentage of the population being in the youth bracket, it isnt difficult to see why Kargil suddenly became more important than the World Cup. (although admittedly by the time the Kargil conflict went into full blast, the World Cup dream was over for us) Any person born after 1970-71 or so would never have had the opportunity to have been in a 'warlike' atmosphere. On the other hand, he/she would have seen/followed at least 3-4 World Cups by now ! So the World Cup became 'just another event' while Kargil took centrestage. I wouldnt have been surprised if moms had chided their dissident children with words like 'Chup hoja bete warna 9 baje Star News dekhne nahin doongi' instead of the standard blackmail of not allowing him/her to watch the cricket match that day !
Things are a lot more saner now with definitely lot less excitement in the air. Perhaps it will stay so for a long time, for the Sahara Cup is unlikely to materialize, what with the fighting in the Pakistan cricket board now ! Life just isnt what it is when its India v Pakistan, either in cricket or in real life.
All the blasts: Kargil & WC 1999, Lata v Asha, Tam-Brahm wedding, Madras, Unglamourous Orissa, Idols and Bangalore.
Labels: jammu and kashmir, kargil
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In an interview to the Pakistani newspaper 'Dawn', Pervez Musharraf has theorized that more Indian soldiers died during Kargil than Pakistani soldiers. I actually support his theory. After all, they wouldn't have a count of how many Pakistani soldiers died because they never took back the bodies of those who were killed.
Labels: kargil, musharraf, pakistan
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Nawaz Sharif's exclusive interview to India Today reveals that:
So exactly, which of those assertions is unknown to people? Even Pakistanis know the truth. Nawaz Sharif has absolutely no chance of getting back to Pakistan before his exile ends in 2010, especially now that he says he's willing to team up with Benazir Bhutto!
Labels: aq khan, kargil, musharraf, nawaz sharif, pakistan, proliferation
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Movies
We watched the new JP Dutta release 'LoC Kargil' yesterday. It was quite an ok movie, except for the fact that it portrayed Indian soldiers as continuously abusing the enemy and dream about their wives/girlfriends when they weren't fighting the enemy. Dutta, the producer too, clearly tries to rely too much on his awesome starcast (Abhishek Bachchan, Ajay Devgan, Akshay Khanna, Sanjay Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Saif Ali Khan, Sunil Shetty, Nagarjuna, Manjoj Bajpai, Kareena Kapoor, Rani Mukherjee, Raveena Tandon) to carry the film. The ladies are more or less a waste of time. In fact I can't recall someone like Raveena Tandon having a single dialogue in the movie (unless of course she did have some, but they were snipped off so that the need for a second intermission was avoided!). The songs were a total waste of time. Why did such a serious war movie have songs?
The few positives were the acting by Manoj Bajpai and to some extent by Ajay Devgan and Sanjay Dutt. The other good aspect was the way the officers etc. questioned the need for moving so many regiments and artillery if, as the superiors claimed, the task was to drive out just a handful of mujahideens. Subtly, Dutta hints that there was a collossal intelligence failure. The cream of India's young officers and commanders was wiped out over the span of a couple of months and the defence minister still claims there was no intelligence failure!
Cricket
So the cricketing bandwagon moves to Sydney for Act IV of the Test series (and also the last act for Stephen Rodger Waugh). The momentum and the force currently seem to be with Australia, a far cry from how it was on 26th December when India were 270/1 with about an hour to go before stumps. More than Sehwag's slog down long-on's throat, I think it was Dravid's dismissal to Steve Waugh which gave Australia the belief that they had managed to put a foot in the door which was rapidly shutting them from the game (and the series). Another interesting point is that India seemed to be playing the game in the Australian way while Australia was aping India. In the 2nd Test, Ponting scored his double century at a strike-rate of 68 while at Sydney, he scored at 56 runs every 100 balls faced. Sehwag made his 195 at a strike-rate of 84 while Dravid's double century at Adelaide was made at 52 runs every 100 balls faced. India scored at 3.6 at Sydney but at 3.2 in Adelaide. In contrast, Australia scored at 3.7 at Melbourne compared to 4.4 at Adelaide. There seems to have been a deliberate attempt by Australia (and Ponting in particular) to defeat India at their own game. India had forgotten one cardinal rule. Instead of playing by their plan, they seemed to be eager to take on Australia at their own game. That came a cropper.
There're enough selection worries for the last Test. Kumble has now taken two 5fers and 12 wickets in the 2 Tests that he has played. Sydney may not necessarily be the raging turner that it used to be. Then again, this would be the second Test at Sydney this season, so the pitch would be more settled than it was when Australia whipped Zimbabwe earlier (spinners taking nearly 50% of the wickets - 6fers for Price and Katich and 3 for Hogg. Notice that they're all left-arm spinners. HINT HINT!). Should India play Murali Kartik? Now that Zaheer is ruled out, would we just revert to the winning combination of Adelaide? Should Nehra be dropped because he has just not looked penetrative at any point of time at all? Will the tail contribute again? Lots of questions, too few answers.
Labels: ind v aus 2003, kargil, movies, review
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