Sunday, May 11, 2014

Is there a ‘winning formula’ for writing a novel?

Book Review

Singh, Soumitra. 2014. The Child Of Misfortune. Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd. New Delhi. Pages: 327. Price: `350/-

There is a belief that more people bought Stephen Hawking’s ‘A Brief History Of Time than read it. For although the good professor tried to simplify the mysteries of the universe as much as he could, there is so much science embedded in the subject that it is difficult for the ordinary reader to follow. Did the readers of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code (2003) read it through without skipping pages? Had the book become so popular because of the controversies it created?

Catch-22’ has become a catchphrase so much so, it is possible many people do not remember that it is a book title. How many of those who bought the book, which is hailed as a ‘classic bestseller’, were able to read through Captain Yossarian’s adventures? Those who read it through probably include literary geeks interested in writing itself. In his preface to the 1994 special edition Joseph Heller confesses that initially it ‘won no prizes and was not on any bestseller list’. Reviewing it in The New Yorker, Mitchell Goodman tore into it, saying ‘… what remains is a debris of sour jokes …’ and, [Heller] ‘wallows in his own laughter and finally drowns in it.’ But a year after its publication something strange seems to have happened.

In Tipping Point Malcom Gladwell tells the story of the shoe brand ‘Hush Puppies’. The brand was all but dead by 1994 and its makers were about to phase it out, when it suddenly perked up. A few New York kids who wore the shoes to the clubs and bars in downtown Manhattan set the trend. Why did they wear them? They wore them because no one else wore them. Something similar happened to Catch-22. The book sold 300,000 copies in 1963 and the publishers had to go to the press eleven times in all in that year.     

The moot question is, ‘is there a ‘winning formula’ that makes a novel or other literary work a success? It is difficult to answer the question. But even the most popular of writers were tempted to repeat a winning formula they stumbled upon. For example, thematically, Geoffrey Archer’s novels Kane and Abel (1979) and The Fourth Estate (1996) have many similarities, although their plots and settings were quite different. Novelists like P. G. Wodehouse, Harold Robbins and Irving Wallace replicated winning formulae of their earlier novels many times over. The same practice may be seen in the publication of non-fiction books too. Spurred by the success of Is Paris Burning (1965), Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins published two more books in the same vein, history told in an easy to read, casual style: O Jerusalem (1972) and Freedom at Midnight (1975).

A favourite theme of novelists from the 2000s is terrorism. The Child Of Misfortune deals with terrorism in its early stages, but moves on to internet hacking, drug running and money laundering. The whole plot is set with chess as a substrate with the two protagonists playing their moves and counter moves as in a chess game. However, dabbling in too many subjects makes the novel muddled and complex.

The novel centres on three schoolmates Amar Singh Rathore, Jonah Michel and Maansi Agarwal. Amar the son of a ruling politician and Jonah an orphan French expatriate have a running feud throughout their lives, playing moves and countermoves as in a chess match and with Jonah often besting Amar. Maansi who ends up as a journalist with The Times Of India, is in love with Amar. Jonah lures Amar to Ladakh, where he murders a Buddhist monk resulting in Buddhist–Muslim riots. The Al-Qaeda steps in to destabilise Kashmir assisted by Indian Mujahideen volunteers. There are quite a few terror groups operating in Kashmir, but Indian Mujahideen? The plot meanders from Ladakh to Srinagar to Seoul to London with Jonah playing advanced chess moves and Amar and Maansi who has by now expressed her love for him, following. In Seoul they pick up an ace internet hacker, Kang, who joins the plot. He can, not only hack into any computer and website in the world to steal data, but can photographically trace the movements of the villains on his laptop. It is as if the whole world is wired, something the dystopian world of Nineteen Eighty-Four did for sound!

The novel abounds in ‘computer typos’ like her for hair and principal for principle. What is dividistic? Did the author mean divisive? Surely, those who have the runs cannot go for jogging! Does a ‘grassroots example’ mean every day or commonplace example? Is a ‘debate opposition team’ an opposing team in a debating competition? What is ‘second-kinds’? After a time one gives up noting errors in language, grammar and syntax. The novel could do with editing and thorough rewriting.  

Isn’t it a given that a novelist should not name existing political parties in the interest of strict political neutrality? 

This review is part of the Book Reviews programme at Blogadda.com

Friday, May 09, 2014

Blogadda Interview

Following the award of Blogadda’s best political blog of the year (Win14) to VOXINDICA Blogadda interviewed me. Here is the transcript of the interview:

Q: From where did your interest in Politics generate?

A: As a college student, I used to assist my father who was a ‘newspaperman’. In those days, the dominant themes of newspapers were politics, followed by sports and culture. For youngsters like me there was another attraction, of course: ‘wanted columns’. I could have probably followed in my father’s footsteps, but circumstances determined I choose another career. But the urge to write was there; it never dried up. A few years after I could find a firm foothold in the chosen profession, I tried my hand at writing and began submitting pieces to newspapers, but the pressures of work had a limiting effect. Writing remained at a hobby level.

The first pieces I tried my hand at were not political articles, but what in the Indian newspaper parlance are called ‘middles’. The idea of the pieces is to rib human foibles and tickle the funny bone. Emery Kelen and Art Buchwald were masters of the genre also known as ‘loose sally’. The genre is probably less read than political opinion pieces, but writing them involved a lot of creativity. It appears, today space is at a premium and you rarely come across a loose sally that has the quaint Kelen or Buchwald quality.

They were probably an inspiration, but the inspiration was rather limited to the format. My early pieces, which were in the loose sally format, though, had politics as an underlying theme. The editors of The City Tab, a Bengaluru tabloid which published them gently reminded me to move away from politics as it was not essentially a political paper. In that phase, I have also contributed a piece or two to The Indian Express. For a time I edited a house magazine for a local chapter of the Indian Junior Chamber (then known simply as JC or Jaycees). I titled it Credo and it was a hit.

The answer to your first question has probably become too long, but I must mention about the next phase of my writing, which too had nothing to do with politics at all. I came back to writing after I quit a regular job. This time I was into academic writing. I wrote in various disciplines including sociology; literature and language teaching; management and marketing. I have also for a time edited AIDS-Bridge, a magazine for HIV-AIDS professionals. It was a science magazine, published by a reputed pharmaceutical company for medical doctors, paramedics and counselling staff.

Finally, although a major part of VOXINDICA’s content is political, there are other subjects in it including creative pieces and book reviews.

Q: Presently, how would you summarize the political condition of India on the whole?

A: Today politics is at its lowest ebb. The independence struggle attracted the cream of our society. People joined the struggle with an altruistic motive. For them, politics was a noble pursuit. For leaders in the post-independent India, power has become an end in itself. The high ideals of the freedom fighters have evaporated.

Q: What is it that inspired you to start a blog with politics as its backbone?

A: If there is a monumental failure of the Indian polity – it includes the political class, the intelligentsia and the media – it is its inability to bring about national unity, forge a national spirit and inculcate a national pride. It is a misfortune of this nation that even sixty years after independence, we still think of ourselves as belonging to a caste, creed or linguistic group and not as Indians.

A nation that does not have pride in its ancestry and achievements will be doomed to fall. During their 250-year rule, the British did their best not just to downplay the splendour and grandeur of our civilisation, but to ridicule it and negate it. The achievements of our ancient civilisation were portrayed as external imports. The Aryan Invasion Theory was invented and all achievements are credited to it. Only negatives – social ills – were credited to us.

First the Brits and then the left-liberal social thinkers who came to dominate opinion-making bodies were/are responsible for this. Other nations have recognized the greatness of our civilisation, but it cannot be whispered here in India. There is a concerted effort to transpose a fabricated construct called the composite culture. All this is to placate one section of our people who vote en bloc. In the end, it is down to vote banks and electoral politics; the pursuit of power. Nothing else matters! VOXINDICA is a small attempt to correct the imbalance. See Why VOXINDICA and FirstPersonSingular: ‘Thank You!’ (The latter was a thanks-giving piece written after winning the Blog Adda award.)

Q: You have been blogging for almost a decade now. Tell us your whole experience and let us know 5 things about blogging that are most beneficial according to you.

A: I am aware of my limitations as a blogger. For one, I cannot compete with the mainstream print medium. Therefore, I have to be choosy about what I write. Then, I remember my father’s advice to writers: ‘read more; write less and write only when the urge to write is overwhelming’. 

There would be no point in writing about a subject that is thrashed threadbare in yesterday's newspapers. Your readers would be interested in what you write only if you have something new to tell them. So I research and try to find evidence that supports my viewpoint to present it to the reader in an angle he hasn't already viewed elsewhere. 

As an example, please see my articles on the subject of ‘freedom of expression. I critiqued both the issue of ‘freedom of expression’ and court judgements in the M. F. Hussain case. When I researched the subject, I've found a similar case that was adjudged by the Austrian courts and which went up to the European Council of Human Rights.

While on the subject of ‘freedom of expression’, I haven’t seen any other writer point out that while the American First Amendment strengthened freedom of speech the first amendment to the Indian Constitution did the opposite: placed limitations on the ‘freedom of speech’. The amendment was piloted by Jawaharlal Nehru just eighteen months after the Constitution was adopted.

Similarly, while researching on some subject for an article I was writing for a newspaper, I thought I would look up to find out, which article in the Constitution enabled the institution of the Planning Commission. To my surprise, I found that it is not there in the Constitution at all. It is another of Jawaharlal Nehru’s quirky imports from the erstwhile Soviet Union, along with its Five Year Plans. Has anybody in the mainstream media mentioned that the Planning Commission is an extra-constitutional body? I don’t mean to say that I am the first person to discover the fact, but just that nobody mentioned it earlier. If Jawaharlal Nehru himself instituted an extra-constitutional body that diminished the stature of the Union Finance Minister, can anyone blame the present political leaders for instituting the office of the Chairperson of the UPA and the NAC?

In my various pieces on the Gujarat riots of 2002, on how the Gulmarg Society seize came to a head where there was no turning back, on the Naroda Patiya case judgement et al., I have brought to light details which were not discussed elsewhere in the mainstream media.

In my latest piece, I have panned Congress party’s 2014 election manifesto. I felt it my duty to point out to my readers that for a party that boasts of a 125 year history, terrorism was no issue at all!  

Q: What are three important changes that you wish to see in India's political scenario at the earliest?

A: The Constituent Assembly which was responsible for writing the Constitution envisaged reservations and Article 370 as temporary measures. Similarly very few people today remember that ‘Uniform Civil Code’ is a part of the Directive Principles of State Policy of the Constitution. Addressing these issues will go a long way in fostering national integration. The UCC is unfortunately viewed as a religious issue, but bringing it about will be in the interest of gender equality.

Minimum government; maximum governance. The government should exit business and focus on administering. The polity should work for the eradication of corruption and crony capitalism. Parliamentary oversight committees should be appointed to monitor the performance of industries.  

Most important, we must find ways and means to do away with dynastic rule in politics. A family (the definition of HUF as clarified by the Supreme Court should be the unit for this) should not have more than one member at a time in public office. And limit the tenure of public office. No person should be allowed to more than two terms in public office.     

Q: Tell our readers 5 things that they can do on a personal level to improvise the present situation in India.

A: Take politics seriously; don’t fail to vote. Vote for the right candidate.

Don’t tolerate corruption in public life.

Demand accountability from governments and government servants. It is your right. Remember Mahatma Gandhi’s dictum that you are not dependent on a business or government; on the other hand, they depend on you. They exist to serve you. Government servants are paid to serve you. They are your servants.

Express your views as vigorously and often as possible. Writing letters to newspapers is not enough. Even the most liberal newspapers screen them and publish them only if they suit their political philosophy. Organise local committees to voice public opinion.

The only way we can make the media accountable is by withdrawing patronage. Social media has done much to tame wayward, self-centred commerce-oriented media.

Q: For all the wrongs happening in the nation, the blame is conveniently put on the politicians. Is this right? What are your thoughts on this?

A: The politicians are only a part – although a major part – of the problem. It is the society that throws up the politicians. There is truth in the adage that a ‘people get a government they deserve’.

It is for the society to reform itself. There must be an overhaul of our education system.

Q: Do you agree that Social Media would be able to play an important role in the change that India requires since it gives freedom of speech a whole new meaning?

A: The social media plays an important role in bringing social transformation. I have written about it: Are Sonia & Rahul more venerable than Sita &Saraswathi?

Q: Do you think newspapers and other media channels are becoming biased, vehicles for advertising, etc. forgoing their main duty of providing credible news? What is your take on this?

A: Absolutely. This is VOXINDICA’s raison d’etre!

Q: What is the funniest thing or comment you have heard about politics and from whom?

A: The left hemisphere of the brain helps us to think logically and the right brain about the artistic/emotional parts of our thinking. I have heard this quip about the leftists/communists: ‘For the leftists there is nothing right in the left and nothing left in the right!’

Q: Do you agree that blogging as an important communication tool should be used more effectively by the political parties? Not many politicians are willing to come out and talk to the common people. What do you have to say about this? 

A: No. I don’t want the blogosphere to become the propaganda arm of political parties. Let blogs and bloggers be!

Q: What other genres do you like to experiment writing about?

A: I have experimented in the following genres: biographies, book reviews and creative fiction. There is an indexed list of posts on the left of my blog. At the moment I am writing two non-fiction books, one educational and another, a biography.

Q: What according to you is the future of politics based blogging in India?

A: There will be politics based blogging as long as there are politics! J

Q: You won the Best Blog Award for the Politics Category by BlogAdda at WIN. How did you and your loved ones react to this?

A: It was a very happy and proud moment to win the award. I have written about it, as I have mentioned above.

Q: What new and special can we expect from your blog in the near future?

A: I strive to bring novelty in every post of mine.

Hey, this is for us. We would love to have your feedback about BlogAdda.

Q. How would you rate BlogAdda in terms of design, usability and features?

A: It is quite reader-friendly and informative. It’s a great idea to bring bloggers in various categories from across the country onto a common platform where they can interact and improve their work.

Q. We are not sure if you know that BlogAdda.com lists all blogs that update every hour. What other features will make you visit BlogAdda often?

A: Yes. I have seen that.

Q. Any other suggestions/feedback/criticism or something good about BlogAdda? 

A:  You may consider publishing a compilation of articles from various blogs.  

Q. Your feedback on the interviews we had till now, your interview and the format of questions. We would love to have your suggestions on it and do let us know if you would like us to interview any particular blogger(s). We do not promise we will interview them, but will surely consider! :)

A: I have read some of the interviews you have published and quite like them. They are not only informative but educative. 

Thursday, March 27, 2014

First Person Singular: ‘Thank You!’

This is to say ‘Thank you!’

VOXINDICA was voted BlogAdda’s ‘BEST POLITICAL BLOG IN INDIA’ in the Win14 contest.

This is to say ‘Thank you!’ to the eminent jury that voted VOXINDICA. 

This is to say ‘Thank you!’ to Blog Adda.  

But first and foremost, I would like to say ‘Thank you!’ to you, ‘Dear reader’, for your patience and patronage over the years.

A prime reason for starting VOXINDICA was the negation of space for the ‘right of centre’ views in the mainstream media.

As an aside, the word ‘mainstream’ is perhaps a misnomer. Indian Media, both electronic and print, is highly fragmented. Consider these statistics: India has 825 television channels which together command a television viewing universe of 500 million at an average of 6,06,060. Similarly, India has 82,237 newspapers, with a combined circulation of 329 million (2010-11) with a per capita of 4003. Each fraction of the MSM, at best, represents a partisan view, defined by a certain commerce-driven social and political code of conduct.

The reasons for the media to be dominated by the left-liberal crowd can only be surmised. John Storey’s observation that cultural studies’ is itself grounded in Marxism might be true even in the Indian context.     

Here is an instance of how intolerant can the mainstream media be: During late 2011 and early 2012, I was contributing a series of articles for an English language daily. The Op-Ed page editor was all praise for my work and was insisting that I should contribute at least one piece every week. Indeed, he had published 12 of my articles in about three months, between October 11, 2011 and January 8, 2012. However, realization dawned on him that I was not one of those card carrying members of the left-liberal club, when I submitted an article on the plight of the Kashmiri Pandits. It was in the third week of January 1989 that the systematic cleansing of the Pandits in the Kashmir valley began. Therefore, I thought it would be appropriate to write a piece on their plight in the third week of January (2012). In my piece, I suggested that the humanitarian disaster that befell the Pandits was a genuine example of genocide, although the term genocide was used, abused and misused over and over again during the last decade with reference to the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat. This was what I wrote:

Our intellectuals and media crib and caw about the settlements in West Bank and Gaza and the injustices done to the Palestinians, but not a whisper from them about the fate of the exiled Kashmiri Pandits. No group of prominent public figures had petitioned on their behalf; no celebrity authors cried in their defence. They were once the elite of the Kashmiri society. The community produced artistes and artisans, poets and musicians, doctors and lawyers of amazing wisdom. At the turn of the century there were about a million Kashmiri Hindus in the state of Jammu & Kashmir. At the time of independence the proportion of Hindus in the Kashmir valley was 15% of the population. By 1991 it came down to less than 1%. 

The word “genocide” has been worn out in popular usage during the last decade. It has been so freely bandied about in public discourse that it lost its original meaning. If ever there was a context for it to be justifiably applied, it was in the case of the Kashmiri PanditsGenocide’ means, the systematic and widespread extermination or attempted extermination of an entire national, racial, religious, or ethnic group’. This is what happened to the ethnic identity called the Kashmiri Pandits. 

I could not make out whether it was the first paragraph or the second or both that got the editor’s goat, but after the submission of the article he bluntly informed me that he would no longer publish my articles. He gave me some specious explanation as to why he would not accept the piece: ‘schools and colleges are reopening in Kashmir and the situation is returning to normal.’ Schools and colleges might be reopening, and the situation might be returning to normal but wasn’t it with an important segment of the society completely ostracized? I tried to explain the topicality and the human interest involved in the story, but he would not give me a chance to get in a word edgewise. He had already made up his mind. He dismissed me with the usual anodyne.

The newspaper later commissioned one of those dyed-in-the-wool left-liberal writers to write a weekly column on minority affairs. Aren’t Hindus a minority in Kashmir? Well, that is India’s mainstream media!

In his eponymous title, ‘Can We Trust The BBC?’, Roger Aitken pointed out that there is a tendency on the part of the mainstream media to screen out ‘inconvenient other versions of the truth’. This is what India’s mainstream media did in its coverage of the Gujarat riots of 2002. Quite a few readers of VOXINDICA were surprised to read in Gujarat riots and the ‘secular’ Galahads of justice that it was Eqbal Ishan Jaffri who precipitated the Gulmarg society seize by opening fire with his licensed revolver, killing two and injuring thirteen people.

VOXINIDICA debuted on June 30, 2005. Over the decade, a spectrum of issues and various genres were covered. It has a small, dedicated and - going by the comments posted on the articles - intelligent readership, not necessarily always agreeing with the viewpoints presented. Here is a comment posted anonymously by a reader. It points to the direction of reader expectations, especially from VOXINDICA.        

“I normally refrain myself from commenting on blogs … … … I am afraid I can’t hide my disappointment anymore over the fact that you have, of late, inclined more towards book reviews than commenting on current affairs.

At a time when there is a dying need for the articulation of the centre-of-the-right’s views on every issue, especially in the English language, we cannot afford to … digress and take the easier route of book reviews. I hope you find your zest once again … … … [to write] commentary on current media/political affairs … … …”

 

The comment was posted on June 7, 2012 on the article, Lies, Damn Lies & Reporting Gujarat.


I have posted several articles on the issue of M. F. Hussain’s paintings, which discussed the limits to freedom of expression and the secular polity’s selective demand for its application.

The articles, which quite a few readers disagreed with were, quite predictably, Indo-US Nuclear Deal Demystified, Foreign investment in retail, boon or bane?, Federalism and National Security and Temples, Toilets & Minority Politics. The four articles on the formation of Telangana, Telangana & Political Ploys, Formation of Telangana, Claims & Counterclaims, Murder of Democracy and Congress And BJP Gang Up To Derail Democracy, Shame Parliament quite appropriately evoked mixed responses depending on which side of the divide a reader is.

I take this opportunity to thank Mr. S. Kiran Kumar for contributing Gujarat riots saw many bloodier riots before 2002, the only article that was not written by me and one of the most popular posts on this blog.


U. Narayana Das

Friday, March 21, 2014

Asymmetric Warfare

Book Review

Someshwar, Manreet Sodhi. (2013). The Hunt For Kohinoor. Westland Ltd. Chennai. Pages: 425.  Price Rs. 295/-

In the aftermath of the event which has come to be known as 9/11 since then, the phrase ‘asymmetric warfare’ was popular and in vogue for about a decade. If for Carl von Clausewitz warfare was an extension of politics by ‘other means’, for the terrorist, asymmetric warfare was the policy. But there is a difference. For von Clausewitz politics was for national interest and nation building. For the terrorist, asymmetric warfare was a means to achieve an ill-defined cause, religion for example.  

Other nations like Israel, and India had been victims of terror. But till 9/11, the US has been oblivious to the threat and convinced of its own invincibility might have been a tad patronizing to the victims of terror. By the time the US woke up to realize it was not immune to the terror threat after all, India had had several bouts of it, including separatist insurgencies in the northeastern states, Naxalite insurgency in the east-central corridor, the Khalistani movement and lastly the violence in Kashmir that forced 500000 Hindus into ‘internal exile’. In most cases the insurgencies were externally engineered and fuelled by exploiting internal fault lines but Kashmir was different.

Montgomery Meigs, a retired General of the US Army, reviewing ten centuries of jehadi terrorism, wrote in 2003 that “Actually, al Qaeda’s overall strategy is not new. … Today, only the mechanism of attack has changed. The mechanism of attack has indeed changed. It is to deliver a spectacular blow to the perceived common enemy designated as the kaffir (infidel). The destruction of the World Trade Centre in 2001 falls in the category.

Saudi Arabia, home to the most radicalized form of Islam, known as Wahabism is generally known to be the financier of international terrorism, and Pakistan the supplier of operatives. However the nineteen member team that brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in 2001 was drawn from nine nations.

When Frederick Forsyth wrote The Afghan (2006), a second spectacular strike (after 9/11) was only in the realm of speculation. But it did take place, not in the west as everyone supposed it might be attempted, but on India. The attack on Mumbai, India’s financial capital in 2008 was achieved with the help of a number of ‘sleeper modules’.

Youngsters are indoctrinated to such an extreme degree of hatred (of the infidel) that they not only perpetrate mass murder without the slightest of qualms but are willing to self-destruct themselves in the process. These youngsters are infiltrated into the unsuspecting enemy nation where they merge into the mosaic of society so unobtrusively that it is impossible to detect. They lay in wait like a snake ready to strike when called to so. In intelligence parlance, they are known as sleeper modules. In his The Kill List (2013) Forsyth portrayed the indoctrination of ‘waiting snakes’ and how they were deployed to cause havoc among unsuspecting societies.  

It is not even whispered due to a skewed sense of political correctness, but Indian intelligence agencies are aware of the sleeper cells that exist in India and the availability of potential candidates to carry out terror operations.  

Apart from the international terror matrix that bedevils the world, there is an India specific threat that resides in its neighbourhood and engineered by its sworn enemy, Pakistan. The threat is ever present. It has been ‘bleeding India through a thousand cuts’. Deciding that it cannot wrest Kashmir through warfare, Pakistan has resorted to the more insidious mode of asymmetric warfare. The Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the deadly India-specific terrorist organisation is a creation of its intelligence agency, the ISI. However, as Hillary Clinton, the American Secretary of State advised Pakistan, she could not harbour a snake hoping it would bite only her enemies. While the asymmetric warfare unleashed against India is denting the economic progress of Jammu & Kashmir, which Pakistan, ostensibly professes to rescue, it is bleeding itself out.

It was in the reign of Atal Behari Vajpayee that an attempt to bring about a rapprochment between India and Pakistan was mooted. His opposite number in Pakistan at the time was General Musharaf. The aborted Agra summit (2001) between Vajpayee and Musharaf is too well-known.

In her novel, Manreet Sodhi Someshwar sets the summit in Kargil instead of in Agra. It was the culmination of ‘Operation Karakoram’ a series of high level talks designed to find a solution to the vexed, decades-old problem. As proof of his bona fides Gen. Zaidi, the Pakistani President was to hand over secret documents (which he codenamed Kohinoor) that would help the Indian Prime Minister avert the next big terror attack on India. However the summit was sabotaged from the Pakistani side and the general assassinated as he descended from his helicopter. In the attack, an ace Indian Intelligence agent, Harinder Singh Khosa, popularly known as Harry was seriously wounded.

Harry, an undercover agent of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) was tasked to halt ISI patronage to Khalistani terrorists. As head of the CIT-Z (counter intelligence team Z, where ‘Z’ means Zamzama the large bore cannon mentioned by Rudyard Kipling in his Kim) team, he brilliantly carried out the operation forcing the ISI to call for a meeting with RAW. A little after the operation, as Harry was in a joint operation with the Afghan intelligence agency KHAD, he was wounded in the head by a rock splintered and dislodged by a mortar shell. The knock made him unconscious for several days, but when he woke up, he lost a part of his memory. He forgot about his family of wife and daughter. Harry regained the memory when he was wounded in the head for a second time at the sabotaged summit meeting between the Indian Prime Minister and the Pakistani President Gen. Zaidi. Although he regained his memory, he was critically wounded and in no fit condition to travel for a while and undertake a mission.

Jag Misra, head of the Pakistan desk in RAW and Harry’s boss recruits his daughter Mehrunnisa, an art historian by profession to stand in to finish the mission. Mehrunnisa born to a Sikh husband and his Iranian Muslim wife has drop-dead looks and is fluent in several languages. Eventually, consumed as much by patriotic zeal as he was by fatherly love, Harry overcomes the anguish of a pain-wracked body to join the ‘hunt for Kohinoor’. What follows is, as the blurb says ‘a spine-chilling ninety-six hour hunt through the world’s most dangerous terrain’.

The Hunt For Kohinoor portrays a diabolical plot that is far more deadly in its sweep than the WTC bombing or even the 2008 attack on Mumbai.


Sunday, February 23, 2014

Congress And BJP Gang Up To Derail Democracy, Shame Parliament

When the last article on this site was titled Murder of Democracy, it was not foreseen that worse was to come yet.

The new state of Telangana (तेलॅनगाणा) is about to be born. Let’s us wish it and all its inhabitants all the best! The division of Andhra Pradesh is now a fait accompli. Therefore, this is not about the split. It is about the manner in which the exercise was conducted. The proceedings of the Lok Sabha were almost a throwback to the days of the infamous emergency. The only difference, perhaps, was that, during the emergency, Indira had sent all her opponents to prison, while her daughter-in-law Sonia had the opponents of the bill ejected from parliament. When the Lok Sabha met last week to pass the ‘Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill’, the Speaker used her powers selectively to suspend the bill’s opponents and barred them from entering the house.

During the emergency, quite a few bills were passed in parliament without following any procedure, discussion or debate. Legislators glorified themselves by their decibel power to say ‘aye’ vying with each other to shout the loudest hoping the Empress would notice! It was in such an atmosphere that even the Constitution was amended to insert two political clichés, ‘secular’ and ‘socialist’ in its preamble. The amendment was perhaps a smokescreen to enact the other, notorious amendment (the thirty-ninth Constitutional amendment) that gave retroactive immunity from legal proceedings to Indira herself, which was enacted on August 10, 1975.

This time around, the issue at hand is not about making laws that would place an individual above judicial scrutiny or inserting political clichés in the Constitution. How did the clichéd, ‘world’s largest democracy’ go about legislative business that would have far reaching consequences? The legislation under ‘debate’ would affect a population of 8.5 crore of its citizens or, 7% of India’s population. The point is it was not debated at all!

The Bill No. 8 of 2014 as it was introduced in the Lok Sabha runs to seventy six pages, and has one hundred and nine clauses and thirteen schedules. The government itself has proposed thirty six amendments to the bill. What was the time allotted to discuss such lengthy legislation of a momentous and irreversible nature? It was allotted four hours for discussion in the Lok Sabha and all of two hours in the Rajya Sabha. Just to put things in perspective, reading the seventy six pages at the slow pace required to digest its contents would need at least six hours and twenty minutes.

Legislative business involves a rather lengthy process and it may be several months before a bill becomes an act. A bill is a draft proposal placed before parliament. It has to pass through several stages before it gets the parliament’s stamp of approval to become an act. Whereas a proposed legislation can be introduced in either house of the parliament, a bill that seeks to levy or waive off taxes (known as a ‘Money Bill’) could only be introduced in the Lok Sabha first. A private member (whether he is a member of the ruling party or the opposition) can introduce a bill. A bill so introduced is known as a ‘Private Member’s Bill’.

Here, in brief, are the stages that a bill passes through before becoming an act:

First Reading: Introduction in the parliament. It requires permission of the presiding officer, and the legislature. Ascertaining the will of the members may entail in voting.

Gazette Notification: A bill introduced in parliament is notified in the official gazette.

Reference to a Standing Committee: The presiding officer has the discretion to refer the bill to a Standing Committee either on her own volition or on the demand of a majority of members. Ascertaining the will of the members may entail in voting. The voting may be by ‘voice vote’ but if a member demands a ‘division’ the presiding officer is obliged to conduct a poll.

Second Reading: This implies a general discussion on the bill, but it has two or three sub-stages including reference to a Select Committee / Joint Parliamentary Committee of the two houses of parliament. Ascertaining the will of the members may entail in voting. The voting may be by voice vote, but if a member demands ‘division’ the presiding officer is obliged to conduct a poll.

First Stage: If the bill is not referred to the Select Committee / Joint Parliamentary Committee, it is generally discussed, debated and voted upon if a member seeks ‘division’.

Second Stage: In this stage a clause by clause discussion of the bill takes place. Each clause is discussed and debated upon. Amendments could be moved. Each clause is voted upon before being accepted either through a voice vote or by a ballot if a member demands a ‘division’. Similarly, any amendments moved should be accepted or negated by a voice vote or by a ballot if a member demands a ‘division’

Third Reading: The member who proposed the original bill moves the bill. The house then debates it. The bill requires parliamentary approval, which is sought either through a voice vote or a ballot if a member demands ‘division’.

Reference to the other house: A bill introduced in one house is sent to the other house for consideration and approval. It follows the same procedure there expect the introduction stage or First Reading. If the other house makes any amendments to the bill, which are at variance with the clauses approved in the first house, it will have to be sent to the first house again for re-consideration of the amended clauses and approval.

After a bill passes through the stages detailed above and after it satisfies the conditions set for approval of both the houses, it is referred to the President for approval and later a Gazette Notification is published again, this time notifying that the bill became an act.

How did our parliament go about enacting one of the most important legislations that would have far reaching and irreversible consequences? It gave a go-by to all established rules, norms and procedures and steamrolled its way in both the houses of parliament. And the principal opposition party, the BJP entered into an unholy nexus with the government in its act of daylight murder of democracy!

The ‘monumental’ exercise was finished in just twenty three – yes, twenty three – minutes in the Lok Sabha. The upper house or the house of elders, the Rajya Sabha went beyond the allotted two hours not because of any zealousness or propriety our legislators had for parliamentary etiquette, rules and procedures, but because the government wanted the business to be finished and done with.

By being receptive only to those ‘ayes’ and ‘noes’ which suited the government’s political agenda and screening out the others, the Presiding Officers did not cover themselves with glory.