Whither Us?

This is a short one, limited to my profession, but significant nevertheless.

Three episodes this past week – a starlet’s tiff with The Times of India; heckling of Rajdeep Sardesai in New York; and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s radio address on the lines of Roosevelt’s fireside chats of 1933-44 – have underscored the crossroads media finds itself standing at.

The first incident was symptomatic of what has gone wrong with the media in general – of the impulse to cater to the lowest common denominator. Lest the onus be thrust on the easy scapegoat of media ownership, it was an editorial call and the locus of responsibility remains firmly with the editorial community, flagged as much by an editor from within the organization.

The second reflected an increasing disconnect between media and society. Without nitpicking into who was at greater fault, the episode showed the mistrust of the profession, and the flippancy it attracts now. Just as the crowd did not understand – much less appreciate – the concept of a contrarian press, the editor too got carried away with the activist streak in him.

And the third episode only draws attention to mainstream media’s irrelevance, brutally rubbed in by a sharp politician. In reaching his audience over the head of the self obsessed editor, Modi perhaps rang a loud warning bell. Shape up or ship out. A cribbing note by a restless Editors’ Guild demanding greater access to the establishment is no answer.

In response to a question asked to him by the author at an IIM-Ahmedabad talk about a year ago, Sardesai had admitted that news television’s path today had become a race to the bottom. It came from someone well placed to at least influence the momentum of that race. Sadly, newsmen have become prisoners of their own celebrity. Anonymity – once a weapon in the hands of the faceless editor is now an even more potent missile of the netizen. Television’s basic need of a face to connect means the benefit of distance too has gone. We are in the muck of our own making.

In the Bond movie “Tomorrow never Dies” media mogul Elliot Carver claims he is not interested in a war he did not start, after having plotted the third world war by triggering a military exchange between China and not so great Britain. Clearly, agenda setting has its glamour. It’s pro-ambition. It attracts raw energy. It gives aura of wielding power. Also, like Carver, it attracts self-destruct, a state our profession finds itself in.

So what can be done? A long answer would need a thesis. In a short one, we need to discern the difference between being a watchdog and a hound dog, and try to reinvent ourselves as the former; of being only a mirror to the society rather than trying to be the celebrity in front of it; of giving up the grandeur of power. Or the hubris would get back at us like a Greek tragedy.

Thimphu diary

THE radio voice of captain crackles to inform that the snow capped peak to the far left is Everest. Little right of it is Kanchenjunga. As you soak in the sight excitedly, begins the most jaw dropping descent of one’s life. The plane goes into the clouds and then swings left and then right and then left. Both sides are mountains and the plane approaches the Paro valley through sharp turning ridges. The quaint mountain villages and perched monasteries greet with their dragon architecture. If the plane does not swerve the wing span might hit the hills. Or so it seems. The landing at Paro International Airport makes one say wow and aww in the same breath! Only eight pilots are trained to land here. Even the craft carrying Indian Prime Minister’s entourage is given a Druk Air co-pilot.

***

Mountains and myths go together, be it Alps or Himalayas. If it is the dragon legend of Mount Pilatus in Switzerland, Bhutan has its demons that had to be cowed down. One of the oldest monasteries, the Semtokha Dzong on the outskirts of Thimphu, was built in 1629 after a monk Zhabdrung Namgyal subdued dragons atop the mountain and laid the foundations for Thimphu. Then there is something about mountain architecture which connects the regions – from square homes with inclined roofs to the flower arrangements in the balconies. The dragon motifs are the only differentiators. The landscape ranges from breathtaking to out-of-this-world to spectacular. You can make your choice. With only cars on the roads, Thimphu has a very European feel.

***

The mountain kingdom is a young democracy. And a reluctant one at that. In a mock poll before actual elections in 2007, hundred per cent of the populace voted for the monarchy. The king is still loved. Sanctum-sanctorums of all temples have his picture along with the deities. The present king, 34 year old, India educated, Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuk has a commoner’s touch. People can approach him directly once a week; he mingles with them often, lives in a small house, and has married a commoner. His father the fourth king Jigme Singhe Wangchuk abdicated in favour of his son in 2008. The occasion was marked by both the transition to democracy and a special blend of coronation whisky, aptly called K5. Wangchuk senior has four wives and commoners believe this gives the king long life. Clearly kings are divine.

***

It’s a nation engrossed in prayers. You breathe holiness here – monasteries, monks, prayer flags, even a holy tap on the way to Dochsla pass that does not dry up even in snowy winters. Like in Hinduism, figure 108 is sacred. So you have 108 stupas at a monastery, 108 beads in the rosaries for the monks, 108 volumes of Buddha’s teachings, 108 prayer flags that dot the landscape. Monks and nuns constitute over ten per cent of Bhutan’s population. Frame your camera anywhere and one can not miss the red robe. That's why perhaps a monks-only washroom as well! And though Buddhism is the State religion, monks are not supposed to vote as a marker of separation of politics and religion. Bhutan is perhaps the only country in the world where while the population of men (and women) of religion is increasing, that of its defence forces is decreasing. At its peak in 2003 when the mountain kingdom assisted India in chasing out north-eastern insurgents from its forests, it had 5,000 men in uniform including army and police. It has now come down to four thousand.

***

Like the Himalayas, India looms large in Bhutan. It was an Indian Brahmin turned Buddhist monk Guru Padma Sambhava alias Guru Rinpoche who brought Buddhism to Bhutan in the 8^th century CE. He is revered next only to the Avalokiteshwara himself, and forms the huge Thangka backdrop at the reception of Prime Minister Narendra Modi inside Tashichho Dzong, the central government’s administrative headquarters. In the present, from the roads built by Border Roads Organization to the Hema Malini named bus riding on it – India can not be missed. Their new Supreme Court is through an Indian grant. We bank roll up to 60 per cent of their annual plan size, and yet somehow the results are better this side. May be the execution is more honest. It is an all weather friendship as high as the Himalayas (to borrow from the Pak-China cliché!) But it is no favor. China should be ready to flush Bhutan with funds and more the moment India tightens its purse strings, and that would be dangerous. So even if the relationship is not exactly bought, the money flow does keep it greased.

***

Only one moment worth quoting from the official part of the visit. Prime Minister Tsering Tobgay interacts with a delegation of Indian journalists. I introduce myself as representative of Times Now. His eyes dilate as he comments he would be scared of us like every politician should be. That’s some complement to my Editor-in-Chief. Only question is why a Bhutanese Prime Minister should worry about an Indian anti-establishment channel. Next is Doordarshan journalist who adds he should be safe as he is from the national broadcaster. Tobgay is in good mood so rebuts by saying not if its the Bhutanese television. Nevertheless. Now I can claim to have shaken hands with at least two Prime Ministers of the world.

***

Youth in their national dress – the Gho – play dart game Khuru in the meadows. Every hit of the Bull’s eye is a cause for celebration with singing and dancing. People walk a lot. They also laugh a lot. They even age slowly. They are really happy. Just one marker of how they do it – no one is allowed to buy more than 3,500 shares in any incorporated company, so that wealth is equitably distributed. Bhutan markets itself as a place called happiness. In reality it’s even subtler than idyll. From the graceful innocence of monks to the joviality of its people, the world can learn a lot from this little mountain kingdom. Shangri-La after all is no fiction.

Me Modi, Not Hindutva

WOULD it not make breaking news if Narendra Modi gave a sound bite saying he felt like an outsider in the RSS? That he failed to connect with them intellectually? That he had nothing to do with the Ram temple movement? Well, he did that in this campaign, and we missed it!

As journalists and editors, many times our self-absorbed opinion making is self-serving too. So the only point that made news out of British author Andy Marino’s political biography of Modi was his sadness on 2002 riots. Political observers did not bother to look beyond that in the book.

“Most of the time I found that they could not understand me,” says Modi of his disconnect with the RSS on page sixty-two. During brainstorming sessions, “I would always sit on the last bench, preferring to listen than to participate,” is another quote.

Marino builds a narrative – with Modi’s due sanction it seems – where the BJP's Prime Ministerial nominee is at odds with the Sangh Parivar on both legs of its ideological moorings: economic and religious.

In this part of the book Marino is writing of a time when Modi was yet to arrive in the BJP, so if he, with his economic thought, felt like a misfit, clearly it must have been with the Sangh. Here’s what Marino writes: “…the solution was to produce more wealth…that would entail an alternative economic model…a free market economy…that this put him in opposition to Congress was obvious, but this placed him in opposition to his own colleagues in the RSS whose outlook was equally conventional...Modi’s economic thinking in this phase gave him a career full of friction with his colleagues it seems, whom he attempted to persuade to accept new ideas.” This is backed by a Modi quote: “Not a single proposal, not a single initiative was appreciated…always there was resistance, always there were questions.” The author adds Modi’s experience in the parivar, because of his alternative views, his own way of looking at and approaching problems, was that of an outsider.

On the other leg of the ideological diad – Hindutva and the Ayodhya movement, Modi’s distancing is even more dramatic. When the Advani led BJP was busy in the Ram temple movement, Modi on a sabbatical was setting up his co-ed model school – Sanskardham – on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. Marino pleads that an objective and balanced assessment of Modi’s life must take note of this. As ironies go, the book underscores that while Modi remained a mere spectator, his arch rival and now Congress’ top leader in Gujarat, Shankarsinh Vaghela was present in Ayodhya and is one of the 68 people indicted by the Liberhan Commission.

Now why is this narrative important? Of whatever I know about Marino’s book, it is by all accounts a sanitized biography. The kind of access the author has been given is incomparable and decidedly deliberate. What can be safely concluded is that contents of the book have clear sanction from the Modi team. The narrative is what Modi wants to be known.

So this is the picture of his that Modi wants the world to know: Yes, he is a product of the RSS, but he does not carry the baggage of Sangh’s thinking on two of its most important moorings. On economics he is going to be a free-marketeer, not a Swadeshi wonk. Comparison is drawn with Margaret Thatcher on page 235. Page 193 mentions how Manmohanomics has impressed Modi, despite the jibes the two have shared in the campaign. And on Ayodhya it’s an arms length. The lesson Modi drew from Ayodhya was that India could be governed from the centre…not the extremes. It is clear someone in Modi team told the author this. On page 211, Marino says as much. Modi’s right wing route was by now a reference not to chauvinistic Hindutva – distant, irrelevant – but to the idea of the free market and innovative governance.

If in a week’s time Narendra Modi is India’s next Prime Minister, this is how he would want himself to be seen. India's Thatcher. Period.

Milky Way diary

FROM under the halogen cover of city, one can easily count the stars in the sky. The scattering of light makes sure that much of the night sky remains invisible. Away from urban lights the picture changes however. We choose the Little Rann of Kutch – LRK. By early evening this wilderness reveals the Milky Way in all its glory – star lit night sky that is so cold and clear that one knows for sure there are billions of stars above and the world beyond. The LRK sky makes even tiny man-made satellites crawling through their trajectories visible dime a dozen. To the naked eye!

Rann is featureless. And consequently leaves one directionless. It is perhaps this feature of Rann that might have turned stars – and the night sky – into a source of directions – and time. For anyone crossing the Rann, Polestar is north; Jupiter at the horizon is east; which also means the evening is young; the rise of constellations a give away of how mature the night is. If the Saturn is already visible, it must be past midnight. If Mars is past the zenith, it is probably couple of hours before day break.

Long before it became science that Moon’s luminosity is reflected sun-light, our ancestors had called Chandra the son-in-law of Surya! As it turns out a philandering one, for Moon eloped with the wife of Brihaspati – Jupiter. Is it that smoldering anger that gives the Jupiter the red stripes? I wonder. But Moon would not be the same again. At 250x magnification it unravels warts and all. Any lady who has seen the moon through a scope would cringe at being a muse akin to the Earth’s satellite. Everyone agrees.

As the evening progresses post dinner, it is the turn of chief priest of the gods to shine brightest in the sky. Jupiter – Brihaspati in Hindu myth – little stocky, bulging in the middle, the harbinger of prosperity is up above us. As Zeus from Greek fable, he has been the philandering one, raping Europa, who twinkles by its side. Other three moons of Jupiter – Ganymede, Io, Callisto – become visible with a little focus, though which one is which is not possible to identify. Nevertheless, it makes for a great picture.

Saturn loves physical activity and discipline. Astrology says it is the planet of hard work, renunciation, and the rhythms of life. Again, much before science calculated that Saturn takes 30 years to make one round of Sun, our seers had termed it the slow one – Shani means the slow moving! But our Saturn does not look like angry – the Rudra – destructive Shani deva it is made out to be. In fact it even manages to look cool, prancing with its rings, for the kids to go up in excitement and give a second life to the evening.

Women are from Venus became a cliché recently, but the planet was termed as having feminine energies ages ago. As we wait for Venus in the morning sky, men become excited to watch Mars. For the same cliche! Is it the misogyny of scientists that all of them are after Mars and not Venus? Again, long long ago and certainly much before science termed it as twin planet of Earth with possibility of life, Mangal was termed the son of Prithvi…Bhumiputra! The redness of Mars at its edges makes it look like a distinctly red ball in the sky.

The night sky by this time is choc-a-block with stories. Of the ever changing pole star – Polaris now, it was Theban 10,000 years ago, and would be Vega similar years hence. Orion, the hunter, stands with Sirius the dog in position, being watched by Castor and Pollox – the sons of Jupiter and two faces of Gemini constellation. Sage Vashishta along with wife Arundhati – Mizar and Alcor from Greek legend – twinkle as part of the Big Dipper. Even up to the medieval times, only those were trained as archers in armies who could identify a twin-star like Vashishta-Arundhati.

Along the way we see galaxies and nebulas…millions of stars that are being born…millions that have crossed middle age by the time their first light touches us…stars that are dying…and of course stars that break and fall on earth, making everyone wish for something before the streak of light disappears. Is there are star for each one of us in this world? Makes me recall Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s Jo Beet Gayi, So Baat Gayi. But that’s for another day.

Tulsidas' If

Today is the birthday of Rama, so I recall a bunch of Chaupais from Tulsi’s Ramcharita Manas that I read in class X, and have stayed with me since. The source is religious, but the message is secular. It is like the poem ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling. Ever a contemporary weapon in the battle called Life. Have attempted a translation below despite the handicap of limited Hindi vocabulary. Here it goes:

रावनु रथि बिरथि  रघुवीरा, देखि विभीषण भयहु अधीरा।
अधिक प्रीति मन भा संदेहा, बंदि चरण कह सखा सनेहा।।

Ravana has arrived at the battlefront, decked up in full glory atop his well endowed chariot. Rama is standing on the ground, barefoot, only his bow in hand. Vibhishan knows Ravana’s might. He gets disturbed at this unequal battle and cannot stop himself from asking Rama, which he does with folded hands.

नाथ न रथ नहि तन पद त्राना, केहि बिधि जितब बीर बलवाना।
सुनहु सखा कह कृपा निधाना, जेहि जई होई सो स्यंदन आना।।

Lord, you have no chariot, no body armour. How then would you win this mighty hero? Understanding Vibhishan’s discomfiture, Rama responds: Dear friend, the chariot that leads to victory is quite another.

सौरज धीरज तेहि रथ चाका, सत्य सील दृढ़ ध्वजा पताका।
बल बिबेक दम परहित घोरे, क्षमा कृपा समता रजू जोरे।।

Valour and fortitude are its two wheels; truthfulness and good conduct are its banner and standard. Strength, discretion, self-control, and benevolence are its four horses; harnessed with the ropes of forgiveness, compassion, and evenness of mind.

ईस भजनु सारथी सुजाना, बिरति चर्म संतोष कृपाना।
दान परसु बुधि सक्ति प्रचंडा, बर बिज्ञान कदिन को दंडा।।

Prayer to Almighty is the charioteer of that chariot; while dispassion is the shield, contentment the sword. Again, charity is the Axe, reason the fierce lance; and the highest wisdom, the relentless bow.

अमल अचल मन त्रोन समाना, सम जम नियम सिलीमुख नाना।
कवच अभेद विप्र गुरु पूजा, एहि सम विजय उपाय न दूजा।।

A pure and steady mind is like a quiver; while quietude and various forms of abstinence (Yamas) and religious observances (Niyamas) are a sheaf of arrows. Homage to one's teacher is an impenetrable coat of mail; there is no other equipment for victory as efficacious as this.

सखा धर्ममय अस रथ जाके, जीतन कह न कतहु रिपु ताके।
महा अजय संसार रिपु जीति सकइ सो बीर, जाके अस रथ होई दृढ़ सुनहु सखा मति धीर।।

My friend, he who owns such a chariot of piety shall have no enemy to conquer anywhere. The hero who happens to be in possession of such a strong chariot can conquer even that mighty and invincible foe, attachment to the world.

Bending Over Wendy

AS the Pandavas ascend to heaven, a dog leads the way. Why of all animals a dog? Before this scene in the Mahabharata there is no mention of Pandavas’ love for dogs. My curiosity led me to some bookshops catering to religious tastes, but I did not succeed. My interactions with elders and family pundits too did not yield results. May be I should have searched more, but before that a bureaucrat friend gifted me this book by Wendy Doniger – The Hindus, An Alternative History (THAAH). And my search ended. The dog was Dharma incarnate, the father of Yudhishthir, leading his son to high heavens. I was hooked. This was two years ago.

Wendy is now accused of demeaning Hinduism, of disparaging its gods, of belittling the heritage of this great religion through the very same book. May be she intended all of the above. In the book she is cheeky of the kind to juxtapose Draupadi and Sita; comes out as sex-obsessed (Freudian would be a mild description); and even BBC has called her crude, rude, and lewd. If one believes her opponents, much like the Russians in Goa, Wendy has colonized the territory of Hindu studies outside of India, and is the reigning mafia queen of that terra firma.

Or may be she did not. Breathtaking is inadequate to explain the sweep of the Hindu dharmashashtras contained in the book. THAAH is a tome spilling over 750 pages covering a span from pre-history to Hindus in the present day America. Each page contains mythological stories with a meticulous cross reference of multiple Hindu texts. For example she traces Radha from Bhagvata Purana to Gita Govinda to the Bhakti era. While writing on Ramayana, she weaves in details from the Brahmavaivarta Purana that it was an illusory Sita that was abducted by Ravana and not the real Sita, something we do not get to read in both Tulsi and Valmiki versions. She locates satire in Upanishads and finds it bolshie (revealing her left orientation?), obviously something the Brahmins won’t do. To that extent she rescues the religion from the tyranny of the Brahmin clique. She seems to be on a mission to focus on the Hinduism narrative minus the Brahmin Sanskritists. Need we object? Has it not been attempted many times earlier from within? After all Buddha and Mahavir were not Jews.

So far so good.

Wendy declares her beef is with the privileged Hindu male who gets to construct, deconstruct, and guide the Hindu narrative, and hence her agenda of focusing on alternative people whom she defines as all those who are not high caste males. She believes and writes that Hindus seldom drew a sharp line between secular and religious? Well, does the Hebrew Bible not do the same? Was Moses not a king, a doctor, a judge, a priest, all rolled into one? Is it not the Levite male that constructs, deconstructs, and guides the narrative of her religion? Do not Paul and Mohammed guide Christianity and Islam respectively?

In her search of the alternative she meets adventurous, feisty, and intellectually sharp women in Draupadi, Gargi, Kunti, and Maitreya. In contrast, the only adventurous woman that comes out of Bible was an Egyptian queen from Sheba. Though Esther was Hebrew, she blossomed only as a Persian queen.

She gets it awfully wrong at places like when she claims that Hindus developed respect for the Gita only after the British and the Americans found and praised it. She is even more perplexed that a book written in the context of war can be a weapon of non-violence of equal measure in the hands of a Gandhi. So much for five decades of scholarship!

So the larger question is how we deal with her and her work. Is pulping the best option? This kind of counter attack renders us susceptible to be labeled as bigots. It's a trap we can well avoid. THAAH is not a thesis. It’s an encyclopedia on Hinduism with an ethnocentric spin. But it does narrate a story one would not get to hear easily from mainstream sources as a Hindu. I would wager we take it in stride. The religion of the Hindus survived the Charvakas who called Vedas full of internal contradictions and useless repetition. I am sure it would survive Wendy. If anything we should see this as an opportunity to make our religion’s intellectual heritage more accessible – a sort of taking it away from the snooty Brahmins. We don’t need less Wendy; we need more of her, but from within our own stables. I know it is easier said than done in the context of the contested domain of history studies in our country with the dominance of the Left. But that's the only way to go.