Rediff blog

I started blogging on Rediff. Today, I just visited that site and it showed June 9, 2006 as the date when my first blog post was created. When Google started providing the facility to its account holders, I switched over to it. I found a post in Rediff written in Oct 2006 against the government's proposed decision to effect strict measures on the functioning of cyber cafes, which is attached below. This was in the aftermath of a guy sending threatening letters to the President of India to implicate his lover who deserted him.

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Kerala proposes law against cyber cafes

The Government of Kerala plans to introduce a new law curbing the operating freedom of internet cafes in the state, as reported by The Hindu on Oct 28, 2006. The finer details are being worked out, but the salient provisions are

1. The browsers have to produce a photo identity card or be willing to be video-graphed.

2. Children should be accompanied by an adult

3. A register containing the details of customers should be maintained by the establishment

4. An operating license from the City Police Commissioner to be mandatory

5. The Commissioner will have the right to impose any condition on the cafe owner, subject to changing circumstances and development of technology.

6. The cubicles to customers should not be more than 4 feet high

7. The computer screen should face the common area inside the cafe

8. No cyber cafe would be allowed within 500 metres of an educational institution

9. Customers would not be allowed to attach any device brought from outside (such as pen drives)

One might wonder if these provisions will safeguard the country from seditious and anti-national elements! The provisions are ridiculous in the least, if not outright lunatic. How can a democratic government impose restrictions on its free citizens in sending and receiving data? What purpose would it serve to demand photo ID cards just for sending e-mail? Under the pretext of a prankster sending threatening mails to the heads of state and government, the bureaucracy is trying to stifle the freedom of thought and expression as enshrined in the Constitution of India. Consider the scenario for example, that this prankster, instead of sending e-mails, decided to send threatening letters. Will the government then bring in a law which would make it mandatory to show photo ID cards to post a letter at the post office? The post office, in fact provides far greater anonymity than the cafe! The post boxes are located in an outside public place and the postal staff have no clue about the customers, where as in an internet cafe, you are likely to be remembered and identified later by the staff. 

Thinking about mail warnings and threats, how many of it would prove to be harbingers of actual events? As far as I know, there were no warnings about the attack on parliament, the Mumbai bombings, Rajiv Gandhi assassination, 9/11 attacks, 7/7 attacks etc etc. Actually, the investigating agencies can glean valuable information from anonymous e-mails claiming moral responsibility about events afterwards. In internet, you can't be anonymous and most of the people don't realize this fact. Why the Police should fear e-mails when they can easily go through ISP logs, traces of IP numbers and home in on the cafe in a matter of hours, if not minutes? 

The attempt to impose restrictions on the usage of internet is a clear attack against freedom of expression and thought. The internet has been a head ache to authoritarian governments world wide. Now the government of Kerala is also going the same way. There are some more options it can contemplate to eliminate such nuisance, such as

1. The postal mail boxes would be placed in the clear view of the postal staff and all outside boxes would be removed

2. Photo ID cards would be required to post a letter

3. The postal staff shall maintain a register of the customers buying stamps and posting letter

4. In order to post a letter to a government official, a sanction from the police commissioner is necessary

5. The people would not be allowed to write mail in public. All mails should be certified by the notary. If notary is too busy, giving 500 bucks to his office staff will not harm you.

6. The police commissioner has the right to open any letter and peruse its contents

Think it over, political fools and bureaucratic rogues! You can at last curtail those freedoms which constitute the other nuisance that is overarching above your stubborn heads - Democracy!!!

Reply to Anti-Reservationists

The following is the reply I gave to a friend's comments in Facebook opposing caste-based reservations.

First of all, a friendly reminder to Mr. P not to take anything I am going to say on a personal level. What we are discussing here is a matter of general interest only.

The comment from Mr. P is shocking and needs to be countered. Even though I had suspicions that this is exactly the kind of thinking nurtured by many upper castes, this was the first time I saw it crystal clear. The essence of the argument is that even in this 21^st century, people should follow their hereditary vocation adjusted to modern requirements. As you say, “a blacksmith’s son should become a mechanical engineer and a carpenter’s son should be a civil engineer because that is in their genes”. If everybody followed this ‘nugget of wisdom’, Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam would have been a fisherman, Dr. C V Raman would have a become a priest in the local temple and Gandhiji would be nothing more than a market trader. And no, the Germans are not crazy enough to follow this system. This attitude is simply racist and far from the truth. Albert Einstein’s father was a businessman, Max Planck’s father was a lawyer and though not a German, Isaac Newton’s father was a farmer! Caste is not in the genes. It was this same argument that squeezed the majority of Indian people dry in its vice-like grip for centuries.

And what profession should the sons of Brahmins follow? Teaching and priestcraft are prescribed for them and they are not allowed to cross the seas. Does it mean that those Brahmins who excelled in management, administration or commerce are incompatible with the ideas of good behaviour? And what vocation should the Dalits follow?

Once again, caste does not run in the genes. What good were the Kshatriyas in battles that raged for a thousand years? They lost their land and wealth in battles. The Rajputs proudly guarded the entrances of Mughal forts where their women were shared as slaves. Do you want those Kshatriyas to run the army now? It may be remembered that the first major war won by India was in 1971, after a gap of nearly 1500 years. The victory came only because the Kshatriyas’ share in the army came down greatly.

Caste does not run in the genes. Any downtrodden person, with sufficient talent and attitude can attain any position he seeks – with a little support from the society. You can’t expect an illiterate farm hand’s son to excel on the same level as the son of an educated government official. That’s where the need of reservation arises. It is not for all eternity. After 3-4 generations, the downtrodden people will be absorbed into the main stream and reservations may be revoked, but not till that great dawn arrives!

In the meantime, let no false notions of dharma stifle the nascent talent in children. I am reminded of a famous song by Vayalar Ramavarma, penned in 1973.

പ്രപഞ്ചസത്യം ചിതയിൽ കരിയും ബ്രഹ്മസ്വങ്ങൾക്കുള്ളിൽ
ദ്രവിച്ച പൂണൂൽ ചുറ്റി മരിക്കും ധർമാധർമങ്ങൾ
ചിറകു മുറിച്ചൊരു ഭാരതജീവിതമുണരാൻ
പ്രകൃതിച്ചുമരുകളോളം സർഗപ്രതിഭ പറന്നു നടക്കാൻ
പദ്മതീർഥമേ ഉണരൂ, മാനസപദ്മതീർഥമേ ഉണരൂ .....

Suggestion to William Dalrymple

Dalrymple should choose Tipu Sultan for his next book

Reading William Dalrymple is a delightful experience. As a writer who has mastered the rhythm of Indian social life and felt the heartbeats of the country, his extraordinary faculty for historical narration with the right amount of pot-pourri ensures wholehearted acceptance of his works in any corner of the subcontinent, not just India alone. I’ve just completed his ‘Return of a King’ which details the First Afghan War (1839 – 42) and the disastrous British effort to hoist a puppet king, Shah Shuja on the throne in Kabul. The author gives a vivid account of life, for the royals and camp followers in India in the first half of 19^th century as the management of the war was handled from the newly built hill station of Shimla, the East India Company’s summer capital.

I felt really sad after completing this book. Not that it was disappointing – on the contrary, it is an enchanting work, as usual. But what dampened my spirits was the realization that I had gone through all of Dalrymple’s books by now. It was an eye opener to read ‘The Last Mughal’, the first book I read a few years back and instantly became his fan. Then came White Mughals, another influential work. After that, The City of Djinns, The Age of Kali, From the Holy Mountain, Nine Lives and In Xanadu came one by one. Of these, only Nine Lives was a disappointment and those who cherish Dalrymple’s syle need not look further to see where it flopped. Return of a King came out last, in 2013 and I was on the lookout for it from the day I saw it announced. When the book presented itself quite unexpectedly in the Public Library, I jumped on it and it provided a few days of very happy reading.

Return of a King took nearly three years of research and publishing chores to see the light of day. It does mean that for at least two more years to come, no new book might be coming out of the author’s deft pen. And what will he write about next? The author had made India his home for most of the year, staying near Delhi – understandably, he spends the summer back home in Scotland – and prefers the Islamic tradition which forms a main stream of the country’s historical past to pick his subjects from. Indian heritage is really like an occasionally malfunctioning zipper where the slider sometimes fail to properly align the Hindu and Muslim teeth.

I would suggest Tipu Sultan, also called the Tiger of Mysore, to Dalrymple as the focus for his next work. Tipu, and his father Hyder Ali were two great rulers of Mysore in the 18^th century. Tipu was the last of Indian kings who could dictate terms to the British. He still evokes currents of hatred or admiration in the populace, whose opinion is divided on religious lines. He defied the British and hence sometimes termed a freedom fighter. But he strived hard for an alliance with Napoleon and the French as a junior partner, but that power couldn’t save him from disaster in the end. He is sometimes called a secularist, pointing out the temples in his fort complex and the peaceful lives of his subjects of which Hindus formed the majority, as also many of his military leaders who were Hindus. But there is no denying that he attacked temples and employed forced conversions on his invasion of Kerala. People behave like the scars have still not healed completely which is conceivable as South India had not witnessed massacre, plunder and rape in the scale it accompanied wars in the North waged over differences in religion of the concerned parties. As a consequence people love to hate him to the core – still many a house dog in Kerala is named after him. Others find in him attributes worthy of adulation like his drive for social reforms, aversion to foreign intervention and adoption of new technologies in warfare like rockets. To add colour to the already vivid picture, the full implications of the issue could be comprehended only when it is examined in the backdrop of the rivalry between the French and English back home and in their colonies in the second half of 18^th century. South India was the battleground to stage the war between two foreign powers and its rulers were often caught in the diplomatic crossfire. So, Tipu Sultan would be a fitting subject for Dalrymple’s deep and profound research which will end up in a fine historical narrative.