Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Do Indians Take Things Lying Down?



Has anyone heard of Francois Gautier? He is a respected journalist and has worked for various newspapers and magazines, including ones in India. He has several books to his name and they are all about his perspective on India. François is now the editor in chief of the Paris-based La Revue de l’Inde and a director of a book collection on India with the same publisher. François, along with his wife Namrita, is also the trustee founder of FACT – India, which does exhibitions and commissions films documenting Human Rights abuse in South Asia. 

Amongst them:
·       an exhibition on the persecuted minorities of Bangladesh
·       one on the plight of Kashmiri Pandits (which was shown to the US Congress in 2005)
·       and another one on the testimonies of the Mumbai train bombings of 2006.

He obviously knows what he’s talking about when he writes on India. Take the following article Are Hindus Cowards? He wanted to make the point that Indians took things lying down. He spoke of Islamic militancy, Chinese bullying, the US not handing over the chap who master minded the Mumbai attacks, the Saudi Arabians giving shelter to Tiger Memon, the Kashmiri pundits... In Kashmir, the land of yogis, where Hindu sadhus and sages have meditated for 5000 years, Hindus have been chased out of their ancestral home by death, terror and intimidation: there were 25% of Hindus at the beginning of the century in the Kashmir valley… and hardly a handful today.

All of the above is definitely part of our history. It is something we know for a fact but Gautier suggests we prefer not to acknowledge it out loud. Our politicians don’t either. It is almost as if we are browbeaten and cowed into silence. And that makes us cowards. The only confusion I had was whether in the article he sometimes meant Indians instead of Hindus.

On going over my response to his article I now feel it simply proved his point even further. I spoke of individual freedom - the ability to think and decide for oneself - and the fact that more Indians are able to exercise that freedom than our Muslim counterparts.  

To be honest I believe this is only part of the solution. Why do we Indians generally prefer not to talk of the aggression committed by others on us? Why do we feel we shouldn't mention such things? I think it isn’t cowardice. It is the fact that we don’t have the stomach for a spat. We know that the others will start arguing and defending their actions loudly; that a war of words might ensue; that we don’t want to appear uncivil or to stir up a wasp’s nest. And perhaps, this war of words might escalate into something bigger. That is enough to subdue us. 

Is that cowardice? Or is that a desire for peace at any cost? 

Can we not have that peace if we state things as they are? As they happened? Or are we afraid that the others who we argue with won’t let us move on? That there will be some other, indirect, vengeful consequences? That, in order to win an argument we might get caught up in some bigger undefined threat?

Till we try learning to stand up to bullies and to state indisputable facts, perhaps quietly and civilly, we will never find out. We won’t be able to move on. And others will continue to play their little (or huge) games with us. 

What is heartening is that at least we’ve started speaking out against the wrong doings of our own politicians. Their appeal to our finer senses while ignoring their own lack thereof doesn’t work anymore. Their final trump card that we are being disloyal to India by speaking out against their individual excesses doesn't fool us anymore. That seems to us like the fudging of issues. They are not India. We all are. They are our representatives. Where is their loyalty to India and to us when they commit their excesses like dipping into the Indian treasury, indulging in bribery, corruption, land grabs etc is what we'd like to know. 

Change is definitely in the air. Wonder how Indians will vote in the 2014 elections. As Manu Joseph rightly said, All Indians, including voters, lament that corruption is destroying the nation, but again and again they return the corrupt to power. Wonder if we will have the guts to give the non-corrupt a chance this time.

Note: On Gautier’s blog the comments section deteriorated into a spat. Both arguers were right in their own way but each dug in, indulged in a lot of name-calling and refused to see the other’s point of view. What could have been a mature exchange of views became childish. We have a lot to learn about arguing civilly and effectively to arrive at a satisfying conclusion – to take the best from each point made and move on. 

Here's the link to the post on Gautier's blog again.

Nothing is ever black and white. For shades of grey read the comments, some measured, after the following post that outlines a few episodes where India could've reacted more strongly and a few examples of how other countries have behaved in the face of muscle flexing bullies. India never had guts; so will never be glorious
 


Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Jyoti's Rapist Dies. Should I Rejoice?

One of Jyoti's brutal rapists has committed suicide. His lawyer claims he was "happy" and couldn't have committed suicide; that there's more to this than meets the eye.

My first reaction was - good, I'm glad. As for his being "happy", it made me feel there was no repentance in this vile culprit for his ugly crime and I was glad he was dead. I also felt that for the first time, other rapists, not only the four plus one minor co-accused but any rapist, will be really afraid. I felt that a would-be rapist will think twice because of the possible consequences.

But on thinking about it I felt that the police either messed up or fouled up.

If what the lawyer and the accused's family say is true, it could've been either the inmates, an outsider who gained access or the police themselves who killed the rapist.

If it was  the other inmates or an outsider or, if it was a suicide, the police weren't effective in doing their job properly. If the police killed him, they took the law into their own hands. Dispensing justice isn't the job of the police.Their job is to protect the public and apprehend wrong doers.

Either way, the police have let Indians down by allowing or committing this suicide or murder. Whoever commited this crime are vigilantes taking the dispensation of justice into their own hands. What if this happens to someone who is genuinely innocent and in jail while awaiting justice?

Let's see what happens with the other accused in their custody.  Indians want justice - not more proof of either police brutality or police ineffective laxity. Indians want a police force that makes them feel more safe than unsafe.

Let's also see what the verdict is for the co-accused. Hope it is what civil society expects - life imprisonment, severe punishment, no visits from families, hard labour and no comforts but NO death penalty.


Note: Feelings about these rapists and what they did to Jyoti are still running understandably high. But this post is about the police failing in their duty to protect a prisoner - any prisoner - in their custody. What do you think are the long term consequences of that?

Friday, March 8, 2013

Putting Theory Into Practice

Today, thanks to many resources, especially the internet, there's a lot of information available at our fingertips. For example, let me tell you why I decided I’d cook parsnips (image of the raw vegetable on wiki) which belong to the carrot family. They are richer in vitamins and minerals than even carrots and they taste like, and have slightly less calories than, potatoes. Cooked parsnips, Indian style, is easy to mistake for a potato dish but tastes less dense and sweeter. I also decided on daal as parsnips have carbohydrates and daal is protein.

My (wishful) thought process? Over another ten years if I don’t have large portions, generally avoid desserts, chocs, fast foods and potato chips, if I exercise and most of all, if I continue planning meals to include the healthy food pyramid I might see my waist again and be able to run and jump again. Ah, to be able to do that. And cycle!

Being ambitious, by itself, is not enough. And yet it has taken me years to put what I knew in theory, into practice. So, here’s my million dollar question.

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 Why are we ground in inertia even when we have the knowledge in theory?
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Why don’t we apply what we know in theory, to our day to day activities? Take me and two of my pet hates, as an example.
  1. I know the consequences of not exercising for twenty minutes a day – only twenty minutes out of the approximately sixteen hours I am awake in a day (come ON!). To my mind it is a boring, mindless activity.
  2. In school and college, I didn’t like studying topics that didn't interest me. I knew I needed to, in order to pass. Come exam time I knew the consequences of being distracted by other activities – add online activities for today’s students - the fear, the tension of having very little time and too much to go through. Yet I gave in to those distractions. I had to pick what I read and omit the rest, praying that I'd made the right choice. I resolved to do better next time (but not this time.)
For some driven and self motivated people the solution is obvious. There are no short cuts. Just do it. This post is for the rest of us utterly frail willed humans.

One of the reasons for our lack of input is obvious. We go for activities that interest us and are fun. If exercising and studying are absorbing and fun activities for us, well and good. If not, we have a problem. So it stands to reason that when we do have the opportunity to choose a career or an exercise regime we should choose the ones that satisfy this basic human trait.

Choose something that is interesting and fun.

Humans are social animals. They like interaction with other humans. To align this trait with boring exercises or studies we have various options.

One, we interact on a social level with others for some time and go back refreshed, to overcome inertia with renewed energy. Two, we choose a companion to either exercise or study with. But choose as early as possible and choose with care.

Try activities  with a companion

And three, we might try distracting ourselves while we exercise. Audio books are my thing.

When I was training to be an airhostess a long time ago, I remember we had wet runs. I don’t know what you think that means but at our training centre it meant an elaborate, first class, 5-course dinner service with real food and artificial wine (water) that flowed out of wine bottles. The idea was to put what we’d learnt in theory into practice. Only two of us would do the actual service. The rest sat in a mock up of a first class cabin pretending to be passengers. Our job was to observe the entire procedure. Most of us ended up being thoroughly distracted by the soup, salad, hors doevres, main entree, dessert, cheeses and tea-coffee put before us. What an education that would’ve been for the two who did the actual wet run. The rest of us had to wait till our training was complete and we were in flight with a senior air hostess and sixteen first class passengers watching our every move like hawks and making us very nervous before we could put our theory into practice.

Wherever and whenever possible put theory into practice.

Imagine what an effective tool this would be in schools, colleges or if we were learning a trade or service. (Many of our businesses do take part in schemes providing internships to student learners but compared to the number of students we churn out each year they are too few and too far between.)

Group discussions and Communication skills: This is a greatly neglected area in Indian education. Group discussions have huge benefits. For example they teach us to
  • gather relevant information
  • present the information well, in the time allotted.
  • focus on what others are saying
  • understand other points of view and realise there are many answers (not just mine!) to a question.
With a trained teacher’s guidance we also learn not to squabble, dig in or score points off each other.In short we improve our listening and speaking skills - communication skills.

Finally, one way to remain motivated that needs a definite mention is to use outside help. For our exercise regime and studies, the outside help is personal trainers and tutors who keep us on the straight and narrow on a regular basis. We might end up being lighter of pocket but the results are very rewarding.

I am sure there are more strategies to help us convert our theoretical knowledge into practice. I, for one, would really appreciate any new pointers as I know the value of chipping away, of eating well, of regular exercise and of studying everyday. That is, I know the benefits in theory.