American elementary and secondary schools show India in a bad light!

USA is home to some strong 80,000 odd Indian students, some 20 lakh well-earning Indian families. Every other American worker or an expert must know how the Indian brainpower moves some of the biggest American enterpprises. So, the current negative perceptions of Indians taught in American schools could at best be only a short-lived phenomenon.

It looks that when the whole world is feeling the impact of globalisation and the peoples of the world are waking up to new realities in the emerging world, when old equations drastically change, some countries  seem to live in a more prejudiced cocoons.

A recent report that a study shows that American elementary and secondary school textbooks show India not in true light!

Asia Society is a well-known society that gives more academic and other scholarly pursuits to enhance the understanding of Asia and Asian countries and their cultures.

A 1976 survey by the Society, we are told, did cover some 306 books in 50 states and these books were studied by a team of some 103 experts and the findings were very blatantly wrong.
The picture of India seems negative from these books. So, says Prof.Arthur Rubinoff of the Toranto University, the outcome is that the American politicians, the Congressmen and the Senators, have wrong perceptions of India. John W.Mellor, the author of one book, India: A rising middle power says that US policy towards India is a product of some stereotypes, the popular and uncritical and much prejudiced views of India being a country of snake charmers and  Hindu sanyasis, caste, Dalits etc have give some wrong messages.

It is natural for a powerful country like America and more so for a highly materialistic and highly hedonistic modern culture like that of Americans, is very likely to get put off by the age-old customs and practices of a millennium-old Hindu civilisation and history. India after all is an ancient civilisation as the Christian and Jewish civilisations. Any developed and old religion is likely to be misunderstood for outsiders. Even when the Muslims and their Islamic religion is now misunderstood by the West, the Samuel Huntington’s thesis is so blatantly flawed and  for Americans to expect to approach such theme like Hinduism and its tenets in a spirit of  open mind is not easy.

A state department (Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs) study in 1982 found that “American attitudes about India focus on disease, death and illiteracy”.

It is not surprising. If only we Indians can retort:” You, Americans, how would you feel if we take America as a society where the black Americans are being treated as we once treated the Dalits in India, where in American the plight of single mothers, the deprived underclass live in such squalor and neglect, where to get any health benefit is next to impossible…You face the entire world’s hatred as to American approach to world affairs…”

Read the rest of this entry »

Indo-US nuclear deal going nowhere?
Is it not time for an experts vs common man debate?

As I write, our negotiators in the Indo-US nuclear deal are packing their bags to board the plane for Washington. The deal first proposed, the “historic agreement between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George Bush on July 18,2005″ when the US President visited India, is now, after two years of  thought negotiations, facing the choppy waters, according to the Reuters report from Washington.

Only last week the Indian Prime Minister talked to the US President over the phone and before that last month the PM also did meet the President briefly in Germany at the G-8 meet. Yet, we, the general public in India, don’t have a clue as to what is the outcome of these two latest personal one- to-one encounters between the two authors of this deal.

Nuclear deal with the US is a serious matter and as such responsible comments and also responsible roles by the star players would be in order. But as things are being debated, right now, it looks; the Prime Minister seems to stand alone or getting isolated from the other core players. The foreign minister Mr.Pranab Mukerjee maintains a studied silence. This is intriguing and the same time gives room for much unease. For Mr.Mukerjee is known for his wisdom and articulation. To keep him out of the picture, as it seems, gives room for much disquiet about the strategy on the part of the Indian Prime Minister. We should also know that the American President stands on a different plane than the Indian Prime Minister who is accountable to Parliament. It is in this context we have to see the shifting strategies, by adding one or two more new members in the negotiating team at the last minute and also keeping out the more mature people. Also, the thoughts of Opposition leaders like the former Prime Minister from the decision-making process in a democracy like ours, is also not meant to add more legitimacy to the deal. The Left is also silent and not rising up to the seriousness of the issue. What new constructive inputs the Left have brought to the table?

Read the rest of this entry »

Compassion vs insensitivity or truth vs hypocrisy?

L.K.Advani is the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha. As such he is a very important person in the  democratic politics.
Advani has taken up the job of criticising the government whenever he thinks fit. It is his legitimate role.

Unfortunately, in India  it is still not a fully understood role, that of the role of the Opposition in a democracy. Only rarely we find Opposition leaders rising above the din and noise and make sense and give a direction and a purpose for the Opposition the role it deserves.
Is Advani discharging his duties well?

Such a question arises in the context of his present  role of describing the Prime Minister as the weakest one among the other weak Prime Ministers. He has named them also. It requires some courage and even guts to openly call the Prime Ministers weak as such. For the popular perception is that the Prime Minister whoever he or she is, given the Indian psyche, is always a person larger than life. That is how we have seen the Prime Ministers, from Pandi Nehru down to the present incumbent.

But times change and the perceptions change, the public mood changes and we come across a different type of  politics in the country.

In the wake of Dr.Manmohan Singh becoming the Prime Minister the office is certainly downgraded in public perceptions.

Dr.Singh was never a politician, no one has a clue as to his actually joining the Congress party as a member, he was all his life a low-profile and yet a very competent administrator and that shows his longevity in the government. Now, he is Prime Minister  and that is all. The name board is changed but he for all practical purposes remains and conducts himself as a disciplined government servant.
Read the rest of this entry »

As I know him
An idealist and non-conformist in Indian politics

The passing away of Chandrashekhar, the former Prime Minister, is a personal loss to me. I couldn’t do anything a whole day as I was so sad and so many memories rushed through my mind all the day. The days I spent with Chandrashekhar and his devoted band of friends, colleagues and admirers.
The last time I saw him was on the third day of my visit to his Prime Ministerial residence on the Race Course Road in New Delhi and on the last day in the morning I told him; “I must see you today as I am leaving for Madras in the evening! “To which he called Gautam, his secretary and shadow: “Fix a time for ……..”and by then someone, an admirer of course, caught him by his shoulders and stopped him to talk to him. It was the janata darshan!

Why the third day? There is a story behind this and I would narrate it some other time! I was at that point of time a bit detached form active politics and as soon as reached Delhi and I went to his old residence,3,Southern Lane, and left a note that I was in Delhi and if he so desire he could call me! My son (he was then at the Delhi School of Economics, studying) said: “No, you can’t say this to a Prime Minister! After all he is the PM and you can’t imagine your old days of friendship with him and say this…”

So, I was persuaded by my son and so we went to see him at his official residence. Every time I met him there was some interruption or other and he gave me his ears but we couldn’t meet him properly. So, the final request and the final pleading of Gautam (I knew Gautam for long):”No, sir, you shouldn’t leave Delhi without seeing Saab. This evening at six you are seeing him for sure…”

So, this time at the same time another unexpected visitor dropped by. This visitor was none other than Dhirubhai Amabani himself! So, this time also we missed seeing the PM, so too many others, Governors and, if I remember correctly, even Dr.Verghese Kurien! So, instead of seeing the PM we saw him engaged with Ambani and we, I and my son were left with Mukesh Ambani for company!

Anyway, my association with Chandrashkekhar goes back to the early 60s when I was very much in Delhi, as a budding and activist Congressman!
I came back from Oxford at the end of 1961.As soon as I landed in Coimbatore I went straight to the local Congress office and enrolled myself as a Congressman!
At that point of time, I was very much a Nehru man, having come into close contact with him for many years when I was studying at Santiniketan where Nehru was an annual visitor as the acharya (chancellor) of Visva Bharati. There were so many memorable moments in my life when I personally interacted with the great man.
Read the rest of this entry »

Why West Bengal and Kerala lag behind other states?

Bengal wooes Ratan Tata, Kerala removes Tata Tea Board!
West Bengal agri/rural sector continues to boil!

The CPM is finding itself  at a receiving end. Jyoti Basu, the veteran is called out from his retirement and he is batting for the Chief Minister, Budhdeb Bhattacharya who is at his wit’s end, it seems!

Jyoti Basu wondered whether the PM knows the ground realities in Nandigram where there is a continuing battle between Mamata Banerji-led opposition agitations against acquiring agricultural land for industry. The CPM cadres, says Basu, numbering about two thousand are living outside Nandigram, in fear, in refugee camps and what the Central government is doing, is the tone of Basu’s speech.

The truth is somewhere else!
Mamata Banerjee is the Opposition leader in the state and she is handicapped by lack of numbers in the Assembly. So, she knows one tactics and that is to resort to direct action and block the progress of any work at Nandigram. She has succeeded in the manner she wants and the comrades, long used to their tactics, are now feeling helpless when events took a different shape.

Read the rest of this entry »

Environment, energy, infrastructure issues might impact Indian agriculture’s long -term prospects

India continues with its short-term strategies. It resorts to import of wheat for the second year. And at such high prices.
The Prime Minister, after a long interval, is  undertaking a tour of six states to over-see the agriculture developments. Fine! If only the PM knows what to look for in Indian agriculture!
There is so much in store for agriculture sector. Both long -term as well as short-term issues.
The long seem to be full of challenges. The International climate change issues. The energy issues, the infrastructure issues that are all likely to directly affect Indian agriculture sector’s future prospects. One wonders whether the PM is fully aware of these grave issues of the future.
Let us hopes the message reaches the government at the top.
First, the government is yet to come to grips with the  strategy to accelerate growth in the agriculture sector. There is not yet any concrete policy as such in sight.
But then there are only short-sighted policies in sight!
This is July and you see what the government has done in the last two months. Just among ago, the government cancelled a wheat tender for importing 1 million tonnes of wheat. The wheat prices quoted in Chicago, the nerve centre of wheat trade prices, was high and so the government cancelled the tender. Within a month, the very same tender was revived and a quote was asked and the decision to import now has cost the government a cool 12 per cent jump that is an extra 22 million dollars. Last year also the same blunder was committed.
The government has an elaborate system at work. Procurement, stocking and distribution and to maintain the required minimum stocks, also resort to import so that the stocks are adequate to meet the PDS and also any other contigencies. Fine.

Read the rest of this entry »

When British authors write of India

Indians have to take it with a pinch of salt!

India’s unending Journey

by Mark Tully,2007,pp 278 Rider,London

This is a book by the famous BBC Chief of Bureau for some 22 years and an much-admired writer and presenter of programmes on the BBC. Sir Mark Tully,born in Kolkatta in 1935, has made his home in India and is an authority on Indian affairs.Tully has a large fan- following and much decorated personality,Indian government awarded him the Padma Bhushan and the UK govt,a kinghthood.

Read the rest of this entry »

The ADMK chief and one of the Third Front leaders,Ms Jayalalitha has come out with the view that the Third Front,consisting of eight parties, would abstain from voting in the Presidential election.This is an absurd political stand!
After having constituted the Front in a hastily called meeting in Hyderabad and also in Chennai and after taking the bold step of meeting the incumbent President Abdul Kalam to change his mind and making him agree to context and thereby causing irreparable damage to his reputation as well as creating a piquant situation,now to say that the Third Front would abstain from voting is the very height of a moral bankruptcy!Let us hope that the other leaders of the Front,of the stature of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Chndrababu Naidu and others dont fall for this line.

Read the rest of this entry »