The Chinese control of Aksai Chin was and is important to China’s control of Tibet. Indian control of the southern slope is important to its defense of the North- East. This was the geopolitical logic underlying the proposal of an east-west trade off between Chinese and Indian claims. China would abandon its claim to the southern slope, recognizing Indian sovereignty over that tract. In exchange, India would give up its claim to Aksai Chin, recognizing Chinese sovereignty over that area. Through such mutual compromise, each side would be able to protect their own vital security interests while conceding a similar right to the other. The Gordian knot of complex legal and historical arguments would be cut. Most importantly, the threat to each side’s territorial security posed by the claims of the other side would be eliminated.

China has twice proposed an east-west swap. The first time was in 1960 during the rule of Zhou Enlai in China and Jawaharlal Nehru in India. In 1980, Deng Xiaoping revived Zhou’s proposal. Deng explicitly suggested that the border issue could be solved. China would recognize the Mac Mohan line in the east, while India would respect the status quo in the west.

India was not interested in an east-west swap either in 1960 or in 1980. The perpetual gap between India and China on the issue of India’s rejection of the swap proposal remains huge.

It has been over thirty years since the border talks were started. While progress was made with every meet, an agreement is still an improbability. Hence, expectations were not high as the two countries met for the 13^th round of border talks on the 7th of August, 2009. There seem to be certain issues which are preventing the meets from bearing any fruitful result.

India’s inability to decode the Chinese grand strategy has been one of the outstanding reasons. China is a satisfied party in the border talks. It got what it wanted (the Aksai Chin corridor linking Xinjiang with Tibet), partially through discreet encroachment in the late 1950s and the rest through open capture in the 1962 War. China’s ‘swap proposal’ was an attempt to legitimize its occupation as such. When that did not work, they diverted the attention of New Delhi and asked them to focus on other aspects of bilateral relations.

Another reason is failure on the part of either country to develop an alternative future in case the border talks fail. This is sad since India is one of the six countries against whom China has used force in the past. A lot would depend on China’s opinion of India as a military power. Unfortunately, most Indian studies on China’s military modernization point out that it is aimed at Taiwan. Similarly, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) plays an important role in the Chinese decision-making process but it is yet to give India its due importance.

The third outstanding reason is the act of domestic consensus, both intellectual and political. In comparison to China’s successful policies with neighbouring countries, India has casual proposals such as ‘swap of territories’ or ‘status quo,’ which tend to validate China’s claims and violate the spirit of the Indian Parliament’s resolution of 1963.

Most political parties agree that fostering a harmonious relationship with China is important. However, hesitation is high in taking a public stand on this issue. The stand of the Indian Left on Sino-Indian relations or the border problem has been of little help. With both intellectuals and politicians shying away from actively shaping public opinion, the challenges for India’s negotiators rise high.

Negotiations with China have been a challenge for many countries. India is no exception. Successful negotiations assure greater involvement in Chinese history and culture, negotiating strategies and analyses. Domestically, India has the advantage of a stable government and brilliant, far-sighted leadership. Our strategies are in seasoned hands. All we need is an innovative idea that will be able to design a border package acceptable to popular aspirations. This might be a time-consuming process, but with patience and diligence, it is achievable and will be achieved.

The problem is: Indian foreign policy still is – beyond comprehension – influentially, if not largely,  wedded to the banner slogan “uphold high morality”. That was one of the reasons post independence, Jawaharlal Nehru confidently walked India into non-aligned movement during cold war as he though it was not good to align with either the US or the Soviets. Of course neutrality matters; it helped few European countries. However, this failed policy of Nehru even today influences the Indian foreign affairs establishment – i.e. to only think in terms of being pro-someone/anti-someone or neutral (unlike these select few European countries, Nehru made indefinable moral grounds as the anchor). Ironically, it ignores how such “real neutral” countries have, in a way, built their economies by selling arms and/or protecting inbound “savings” money that particularly fuel violent conflicts across the globe and/or help perpetuate corruption by providing safe havens for “safe banking”, all in the name of being neutral. At least, such countries thrive [at least in the past] economically by providing phenomenal socioeconomic structures for their citizens; for what reason does India “uphold high morality”, I wonder. Even worse, few among these few neutral countries claim (not restricted to Europe):

New Delhi, Nov 14 (ANI): Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said here on Saturday that his government is making all out efforts to control the price rise.

Interacting with school students at his Seven Race Cource Road residence on Children’s Day, Singh expressed hope that the price regime will be better in a year’s time.

Explaining the reasons for high price of food articles Singh said: “The government has substantially increased the MSP of wheat, rice and other items to increase the purchase power of the farming community.”

Replying to a question, Singh said there should not be any hasty decision on changing the pattern of the examination system in the country.

The Prime Minister also shared his views on inclusive growth in the country with children.

Commenting on reasons behind the increasing Naxal activities in the country Singh blamed it on the widening gap between the rich and the poor.

“Due to widening gap between the rich and poor, some people are induced to join the Naxalites.”

He also added that the law and order machinery does not reach out to all corners and pockets in the country and this was also a reason for Naxalism.

Dismissing the opposition allegation that he was a weak prime minister, Singh asserted that he was discharging his duties with sincerity and was focused on taking the country forward.

Dr. Singh also said the teachings of Gurus left a very deep impact on his thinking process and he is fond of listening to the Gurbani every morning apart from ghazals.

He also recalled his meeting with the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru during the Punjab University convocation in the 1950s. (ANI)

When A Mother’s Dream Came True
V. BALASUBRAMANIAN

If the art was mother’s gift, the title Bala Meera was given by Jawaharlal Nehru.

On a hot Sunday afternoon, Meera Grimes aka ‘Bala Meera’ Chandra receives you at the entrance of her spacious apartment on Poonamallee High Road, with a broad smile. For a moment, I remember those days when my family members would hurriedly complete the evening chores and rush to concerts and katha kalakshepams. One was child artist Bala Meera Chandra’s harikatha. I recall the discussions that would go on till late at night about her treatise on the subject that day, her charming looks, her abhinaya and her fantastic voice.

Over a hot cup of coffee, Bala Meera starts the conversation. “Harikatha encompasses storytelling, poetry, music, drama, dance and philosophy, and it is about God or about saints who had realised God. I owe it all to my mother Neela Balasubramaniam. She used to accompany my grandmother to Kadapa Lakshmi Amma to learn music, dance and harikatha. Lakshmi Amma is the first woman harikatha artist as far as I know. My grandmother and C. Saraswathi Bai provided her vocal support. Having lost her husband at an early age and due to the prevalent social stigma, Lakshmi Amma confined her performances to her house, and only women would be in attendance. My mother’s childhood dream of becoming a harikatha performer did not bear fruit. So, she was hell bent on making me one.”

Her arangetram

Bala Meera’s brothers were her accompanists and her cousins and aunts gave her vocal support. Her mother never missed her programmes.

Bala Meera’s voice sounds like the tinkle of a bell. She goes on “My mother taught music and dance to many children and as I watched them, it was but natural that I imbibed the art. Thuraiyur Rajagopala Sharma, an accomplished musician and harikatha exponent, volunteered to teach me the art of storytelling. His father Mahadeva Sharma had written a book on the various aspects of harikatha. The first piece I learnt was ‘Dhuruva Charithram’. My arangetram took place when I was 12. I was a student of Sarada Vidyalaya, T. Nagar, at that time. Offers started pouring in after that. Many sabhas, bhajan mandalis in the city and those in the districts provided plenty of opportunities. The training went on for about five years, and I learnt ‘Valli Kalyanam’, ‘Rukmini Kalyanam’ and many more pieces, expanding my repertoire in the process.”

Meeting a veteran

“Having heard about you, I wanted to see how a little girl in a skirt performs this art. That’s why I am here a day earlier. I am really proud of you and will help you hone your skills further,” was harikatha exponent Embar Vijayaraghavachariar’s comment when Bala Meera fell at his feet after her performance at Bangalore Ramani Ammal’s festival. Embar was to perform the next day. She reveres Embar a lot and values whatever she learnt from him.

A large photograph of a sanyasi in her drawing room attracts your attention. She explains, “That is Swami Remaji (Vaidyanathan) who was introduced to me by my mother when I had just finished SSLC. He taught me several bhajans of Surdas and Meerabai that he had set to music. He was an expert in all genres of music, be it Carnatic, Hindustani or Western classical. A nuclear physicist at the Cambridge University, he renounced life to propound a new philosophy. He was my spiritual guru. Before he passed away, he bequeathed to me all his writings running to several thousands of pages. I am in the process of bringing them out as a book.”

The prefix ‘Bala Meera’ got attached to her name when she performed Meera bhajans in the presence of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in a village in Rajasthan. A large number of people had gathered there to donate gold equivalent to the weight of Nehruji for the National Defence Fund. “Patting my cheek and appreciating my performance, Nehruji said, ‘So you are the Bala Meera performing Meera bhajans.’ That was in 1963, and from then on I came to be known as ‘Bala Meera’ Chandra.”

She rates her harikatha performance on the 30 saints in 30 days at Sai Samaj, Mylapore, as one of her best. ‘Krishna Rathna Thrayam’ taught to her by Swami Remaji was another pet subject.

Performing alongside the women trinity M.S., MLV and DKP at a Tiruttani festival got her an opportunity to perform at The Music Academy, on the request of T.L. Venkatrama Iyer. Dr. V. Raghavan helped her get a scholarship from the Academy to learn Lalithopakyanam under the tutelage of Mahadeva Bhagavatar. In the process, she learnt many Dikshitar kritis.

Academic life

“As I was busy with my concerts, harikatha and dance programmes, I did B.A. privately. After obtaining a Diploma in music and dance, I went on to do my Masters at the University of Madras. That’s where I met John Grimes of the U.S., who was doing research. He was deeply into Indian philosophy and wanted to marry an Indian who would help him in his journey. That’s how we got married, with the blessings of the elders and Sri Sathya Sai Baba of whom he was an ardent devotee.” The bookshelf in their house is full of John’s books on Indian philosophy, including a treatise on Adi Sankara’s Viveka Choodamani.

Shifting base to the U.S. after her marriage, Bala Meera continued her performances there. Due to ill health, she cut down on the number of performances. Unable to bear her daughter’s ill health, her mother Neela passed away suddenly. “I never thought that I would be able to perform again. But by God’s Grace, I am still performing, but am limiting it to chambers and smaller crowds.”

Her book ‘Harikatha’, that covers Samartha Ramadas’ contribution to art of spiritual story telling, is what she considers her best contribution to this art. She says Samartha Ramadas is the father of harikatha for it was he who codified it logically into a structure. The spiritual guru of Chatrapathi Shivaji, he travelled to South India and established maths in Thanjavur when it was ruled by Shivaji’s step brother Ekoji. That’s how harikatha spread in the South.

Bala Meera also hails Thanjavur Krishna Bhagavathar, who was a violin vidwan for harikatha performances then, as the father of harikatha kalakshepam, for he adopted it to suit this part of the country. “Nonetheless, Samartha Ramadas’ ‘Dasa Bhodha’ is the ultimate book on harikatha and its grammar,” she says assertively.

As I take leave, “Harikatha is a sugar coated pill,” she sums up.

The Hindu Reference

Mrs Gandhi electioneering in 1971

An era had ended. One of India’s most notable politicians and strongest leaders was dead, shot by her Sikh security guards, leaving a legacy that will long be debated but is generally regarded more negatively than positively.

Mrs Gandhi increased socialist economic controls started by her father Jawaharlal Nehru, and opened the doors to widespread corruption that leading politicians and bureaucrats now routinely practice day by day by.

She also sowed the seeds for both her own death and that of her son, Rajiv Gandhi, by encouraging a militant Sikh leader in Punjab and separatist Tamil activity in Sri Lanka. She also increased separatist sentiments in Kashmir.

If Nehru was greater than his deeds, as many people say, Indira was not as great as she should have been, and her deeds were more damaging than she probably intended.

Nehru’s controversial post-independence policies of economic centralism and peaceful relations with China are now generally regarded as well-meaning but misguided. Mrs Gandhi’s mistakes however are generally seen less charitably as the actions of an insecure woman, desperate to build power and relying too much on her malevolent power-hungry younger son, Sanjay Gandhi, who encouraged her to declare a two-year State of Emergency in 1975.

Strangely, Mrs Gandhi is seen more favourably abroad as a great though flawed leader who did her best to manage a massive poverty-stricken fractured country.

It is easy to catalogue her failings and the damage that she did to the country that she undoubtedly loved. Maybe she did not realise the long-term impact of actions that she took for short-term political reasons – more often than not stemming from her paranoia and concern about her power base.

But there was more to her than that. She tried more than any government before or since to protect India’s environment, which has been progressively plundered since independence in 1947, most recently by a series of corrupt environment ministers (until the current minister, Jairam Ramesh, was appointed in May).

A picture on the BBC website today captioned “Indira Gandhi remains very popular among many Indians”

She is also remembered for strengthening the confidence of Indian women, and for her ability to reach out to people and to care – a gift that her daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi, and her grandchildren Rahul and Priyanka, now display.

In her final years, she started tentative reforms to open up the economy and unravel the central controls that Nehru and she had put in place. These reforms were continued hesitatingly by Rajiv, who succeeded her as prime minister and was killed in 1991, and then by the 1991-96 Congress government led by Narasimha Rao (with Manmohan Singh as finance minister), and by subsequent administrations.

She also initiated (after a disastrous false start by Sanjay Gandhi) a very successful small car joint venture, Maruti, with Suzuki of Japan, which triggered a gradual modernisation of India’s engineering industry that is paying dividends now with the country’s internationally competitive auto companies.

Her legacy also lives on in other ways, 25 years after her assassination.

Internal and regional problems of the sort that Mrs Gandhi dabbled in for short-term political gain have expanded enormously and, judging by recent Naxalite developments in West Bengal, some politicians still play her dangerous game of trying to capitalise on the ambitions of rebel movements.

In foreign relations, India has moved on from its reliance on the old Soviet Union, which Mrs Gandhi described as a friend that had never let the country down. As was illustrated by a speech made in Delhi this morning by former president George W.Bush, India now straddles wider international relationships, especially with the US that has recognised its nuclear weapon status. Speaking at a Hindustan Times conference, Bush described that agreement, perhaps a little euphorically, as India’s “passport to the world”.

But India’s regional relationships have not grown out of the hegemony practised by Mrs Gandhi in South Asia. Here it is being outgunned by China, which is exacerbating border disputes between the two countries and raising the spectre of a short border war in 1962 that India lost.

Finally, the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty is firmly entrenched – a fact that was reflected in the vast number of large sycophantic advertisements placed in newspapers today by government ministries to mark the anniversary.

Sonia Gandhi controls both the Congress Party and the current government, and Rahul is preparing to take over. Such dynastic succession brings a form of political stability to India’s turbulent and fractured politics, but it also blocks the emergence of other leaders at the top.

Even worse, it has now spawned a cascade of dynasties across the country involving families that rarely have the Nehru-Gandhi family’s sense of service, but instead are primarily interested in maintaining wealth that comes from prestige, patronage and corruption.

This dynastic surge is partly both the cause and effect of a sharp decline in the standards of Indian politics that began in Mrs Gandhi’s time. Standards  have worsened enormously in recent years as personal greed has replaced politicians’ concern for the country – especially in regional parties, whose role expanded dramatically after the 1980s as Congress declined.

Book : Letters From A Father To His Daughter

Author : Jawaharlal Nehru

Publisher: Puffin Books

Pages :154 pgs

Category : Non Fiction, History

My grandfather was a very avid reader. He was the one who recommended books to me when I would spend hours just surfing bookshelves in our local library. It was through him that I got familiar with the works of Tolstoy , Pearl S Buck , Charles Dickens and some great Indian authors like Mulk Raj Anand , K.M.Munshi and Jawaharlal Nehru. I had read Glimpses Of World History by Nehru and loved it but somehow never read this beautiful little collection of letters Jawaharlal Nehru sent his 10 yrs old daughter Indira ( later known as Indira Gandhi ) when she was spending her summer at Mussorie , a hill station and Nehru himself was busy working in his home town Allahabad.

This set of letters he sent , tell the story of creation of Earth and its evolution. Nehru covers them chronologically with letters on First Living Things , Early Men , Civilizations , Trade, Great Cities and many more. Such is  the lucidity of his writing that at one point I felt , wish all books were written in this way.

Another intresting  point to be noted is that Nehru didnt spoon feed his daughter with all  the facts . He just told enough to make her curoius , so that she was initiated in to the quest of knowing more about them. Now, that is what process of learning is all about.

Here is my fav part of the book

Boys and girls, even grown ups are are often taught history in a peculiar way. They learn the names of the kings and others , and dates of battle and like. But surely history does not consist of battle and few persons who became kings and generals. History should tell us of the people of the country , how they lived , what they did and what they thought .It should tell us of their joys and sorrows , of their difficulties and how they overcame them..

With some really great illustrations , it makes a wonderful read not just for kids but also for adults. I can say its a refresher course on things we should know but hardly make an effort to think about..

Highly recommended..

I started a new blog with all best wishes from WordPress. My previous blog is also managed by this website, but I didn’t want to continue with it any further because of the mere fact that it looks boring. So I tried created another blog with my same email address which I have been working with in my previous blog, but that didn’t work. So here I am with another blog with another email address.

I don’t know why I put the title as “Day 1″. I am not a daily blogger. But I am hoping to be one. Hopefully!!

Half an hour ago, I had started reading “The Alchemist”. I am not much of a book worm but I love to read books that are easy to understand, with rare instances of tough words here and there, just to serve as a vocabulary bonus and not a burden to carry a dictionary along with the book I am reading – seriously I had to do that with “An Autobiography” by Jawaharlal Nehru. And I had to do that several times with many books mostly written by Indian authors except Aravind Adiga’s “White Tiger”. My favorite author is Sydney Sheldon. He is one such author according to my taste. His style of writing is impressive as well. Dan Brown is good too.

Fortunately “The Alchemist” doesn’t require that extra bit of awareness in English language as in “An Autobiography”.

Good night.

எனக்கு பிடித்த இந்திய non-fiction எழுத்தாளர்களில் ராமச்சந்திர குஹாவுக்கு பெரிய இடம் உண்டு. அவரது “A Corner of the Foreign Field” கிரிக்கெட் பற்றி எழுதப்பட்ட மிக சிறந்த புத்தகங்களில் ஒன்று.

ஜெயமோகன் சமீபத்தில் இந்திய வரலாறு பற்றி படிக்க வேண்டிய புத்தகங்கள் என்று “காந்திக்கு பிந்திய இந்தியா” புத்தகத்தை சிபாரிசு செய்திருந்தார். ஃப்ரீமான்ட் நூலகத்தில் கிடைத்தது. இப்போது கிழக்கு பதிப்பகம் தமிழ் மொழிபெயர்ப்பு ஒன்றை வெளியிட்டிருக்கிறதாம்.

புத்தகம் மிக நன்றாக இருந்தது. சுலபமான நடையில் சுவாரசியமாக எழுதப்பட்ட புத்தகம். காஷ்மீர், இந்திய-சீன எல்லை தகராறு, மொழிவாரி மாநில சீரமைப்பு போன்ற பல விஷயங்களை பற்றி அருமையாக எழுதப்பட்டிருக்கிறது. பல (எனக்கு) தெரியாத விஷயங்களை போகிற போக்கில் சொல்கிறார். உதாரணமாக ஆந்திர மாநிலம் அமையவேண்டும் என்று உண்ணாவிரதம் இருந்து இறந்த பொட்டி ஸ்ரீராமுலு பற்றி – ஐம்பது நாளாக அவர் உண்ணாவிரதம் இருந்த பிறகுதான் ராஜாஜி அவரை அணுக முயற்சி செய்திருக்கிறார். ஆனானப்பட்ட ராஜாஜியே கோட்டை விட்ட விஷயம் இது. நேரு இறப்பதற்கு முன் ராஜாஜி காஷ்மீர் பிரச்சினையை தீர்க்க முன் வைத்த ஒரு வழி மிக தீவிரமாக பரிசீலனை செய்யப்பட்டிருக்கிறது – ஜம்மு, லடாக் இந்தியாவுக்கு; “ஆசாத் காஷ்மீர்” பாகிஸ்தானுக்கு; காஷ்மீர் பள்ளத்தாக்கு “சுதந்திர” நாடு, ஆனால் வெளிநாட்டு உறவும், ராணுவமும் இந்தியா-பாகிஸ்தான் இரு நாடுகளும் கூட்டாக பொறுப்பு எடுத்துக்கொள்ளும். அன்டோரா (விகி குறிப்பு) என்று ஒரு இத்துனூண்டு நாடு இப்படித்தான் ஸ்பெய்ன், ஃப்ரான்ஸ் நடுவில் இருக்கிறதாம். நேரு இறந்ததால் இதை மறந்துவிட்டார்கள்.

புத்தகத்தில் எனக்கு குறையாக படுவது டெல்லியின் கோணத்திலிருந்தே இந்திய வரலாற்றை பார்ப்பதுதான். இருந்தாலும் நல்ல புத்தகம், படிக்கலாம் என்று சிபாரிசு செய்கிறேன்.

தொடர்புடைய பதிவுகள்:
ஜெயமோகனின் “வரலாற்றை வாசிக்க” பதிவு – முக்கியமான இந்திய வரலாற்று நூல்களை பற்றி.
ஜெயமோகனின் முக்கிய இந்திய வரலாற்று நூல் லிஸ்டில் இன்னொன்று – ராஜேந்திர பிரசாத்தின் At the Feet of Mahatma Gandhi
2009 பத்மஸ்ரீ, பத்மபூஷன், பத்மவிபூஷன் விருதுகள் (குஹாவுக்கு பத்மபூஷன்)

I’m starting off a new section called ‘Stuff the government does that it shouldn’t be doing’.

First up, writing film plots.

Indian Summer, the much-hyped Hollywood project about the alleged romance between Edwina Mountbatten and Jawaharlal Nehru, has been cancelled with the director blaming the wrangling between the Indian Government and the studio as the reason.

“We were in between a rock and a hard place. The Indian government wanted us to make less of the love story while the studio wanted us to make more of the love story,” said director Joe Wright.

I’m all for free speech and expression, so the government interfering in a film that probably won’t even be released in India is rather annoying. Further, it hurts the businesses that would’ve benefited had the crew shot in India, and hurts India’s image in movie-making tourism.

Stupid government. If you really want to write a movie, go $!#!@# yourself.

P.S. : $!#!@# = write.

Hungry in the capital city? Thankfully, there is opportunity in such adversity.

And to seize on that opportunity, all you need to do is head to Old Delhi. Besides being home to a World Heritage site and a centuries-old marketplace, this area is often visited to check out the Red Fort and the Chandni Chowk. But if these attractions still give you time to address your hunger pangs, there are three distinct options that have to be checked out. These are no less attractions in their own right. And absolutely finger lickin’ good ones, at that!

First up is the historic Paranthe Wali Gali. This is one walk no food-respecting gourmet would want to miss out on. Off Chandni Chowk, this nondescript bylane is a veritable treasure trove of paranthas of every conceivable type. Said to have been visited by legendary names like Jawaharlal Nehru to the modern day celebrities, the no fuss eatery joints here offer over 50 different types of paranthas – and it’s an all vegetarian affair. The humble paranthas that are found widely elsewhere take on a multitude of interesting avatars – potatoes, cauliflower, radish, paneer, dal, pudina and many more…hotter, tastier and ever so popular.

The second stop has to be the most historic. Ever wondered what the Mughal emperors had for lunch and dinner? Now, how about tasting that very same fare? Yes, one of the most popular spots in the walled city has to be Karim’s. Just behind the imposing Jama Masjid is this age-old favourite of Dilliwalas. Started by a descendant of the chef to the Mughal emperor, Karim’s is truly a non-vegetarian’s paradise. With chicken and mutton dishes named tastefully after the Mughal rulers, the flavour is unbeatable. Such is the fan following of Karim’s that the outlet could not help opening 3 more branches in Delhi.

Last, but not the least, is a perennial favourite of the Delhi palate. The best of North Indian cuisine is what Moti Mahal stands for. From the ethnically turned out, turban and Pathani suit wearing waiters to the delectable range of food from the Dal to the Tandoori items, this is one restaurant that has been a part of over five generations of Dilliwalas. Situated in Daryaganj main road, this too has seen many legendary names dining here. And Kundan Lal Gujral, the man behind Moti Mahal, is no less a legend than this famed landmark.

So, the next time you are in the Old Delhi area (or for that matter, anywhere in Delhi) and are famished, you know where to head for.

Indian Summer (Estate Indiana), il progetto per l’attesissimo film di Hollywood basato sulla presunta storia d’amore tra Edwina Mountbatten, moglie dell’ultimo vicere’ inglese in India e Jawaharlal Nehru, il primo premier indiano, e’ stato cancellato. La ragione, stando a quanto ha fatto sapere il regista, starebbe nel mancato accordo tra gli studi e il governo indiano. Lo riporta l’agenzia di stampa indiana Press Trust of India. ”Il governo indiano – ha spiegato il regista Joe Wright – voleva che ci occupassimo meno della storia d’amore, al contrario gli studios volevano incentrare il film soprattutto su questa”. Il film, che avrebbe avuto come protagonisti Hugh Grant e Kate Blanchett nei ruoli di Lord e Edwina Mountbatten, ha avuto problemi sin dall’inizio. Il governo indiano infatti aveva chiesto di poter visionare la sceneggiatura riservandosi di dare eventualmente semaforo verde al progetto solo in un secondo momento. Basato sul romanzo di Alex von Tunzelmann intitolato ”Estate Indiana: la storia segreta della fine di un impero”, il film avrebbe dovuto ripercorrere i piu’ importanti eventi della storia dell’India al tempo della conquista dell’indipendenza, focalizzando l’attenzione sulla caduta dell’ultimo vicere’, Lord Mountbatten nel 1947 e sull’ascesa al potere di Nehru. Ma il fulcro del film, nelle intenzioni della produzione, avrebbe dovuto essere proprio la passione tra la moglie del vicere’ e Nehru. Le riprese del film, destinato ad uscire nelle sale nel 2011, avrebbero dovuto cominciare il prossimo anno. Della storia d’amore tra Nehru ed Edwina Mountbatten si e’ occupata anche la figlia di quest’ultima, Pamela, nel suo romanzo ”l’India ricordata”.

Less than an year to go for Commonwealth Games 2010 and we are way short of the “World Class City” status. It’s the same story today as it was about 2 years or maybe even 10 years back, same broken roads, same potholes, same tobacco stained spit marks on the walls, children throwing wrappers on the road, women disposing garbage openly and people urinating openly in public.

Some times I feel are we really the same country that fought for our independence with amazing vigor, for which we are praised around the globe. Did Bhagat Singh, Rani Lakshmi Bai, Tantya Tope, Chandrashekhar Azad, etc, lay their lives for the country just for us to spit on the walls, did the Mahatma went on hunger strike just so that we can pay bribes to corrupt officials who in reality are public servants, did Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru dream of a nation where Goonda Raj is more effective than Democracy?

I don’t think so!

If you have a small bit of patriotism and love for OUR COUNTRY, stop the next guy you see urinating openly, stop the next man to spit on the floor or walls, stop you kids from throwing empty wrappers on the roads, stop your friends from paying or taking bribes, stop your wives from throwing garbage out of the house in open, most of all motivate your self to make these changes.

Internal change is required to instigate external change.So – YOU BE THE CHANGE

sonia e rajiv gandhi

Lo scrittore Javier Moro:«è curioso che in Italia sia conosciuta solo come la vedova di Rajiv Gandhi. In pochi sanno che ha sulle spalle le aspirazioni di una sesta parte dell’umanità»

di Simona Maggiorelli

Nel 1965 quando Sonia Maino andò a Cambridge per imparare l’inglese, di certo, non avrebbe mai immaginato di entrare nella politica indiana ai più alti ranghi, come presidente del Partito del congresso fondato da Gandhi e Nerhu. Ma nella fredda e inospitale cittadina inglese, fra gli studenti fuori sede che facevano gruppo, la bella ragazza di Orbassano, per caso, incontrò un giovane, come lei, molto timido e dal sorriso seducente. Era Rajiv Gandhi. E anche se lei pensava un futuro da interprete e lui da pilota, la storia tormentata dell’India e la lotta intrapresa da Jawaharlal Nehru e poi da sua figlia Indira Nehru-Gandhi per la democrazia cambiò completamente le loro vite.
«Ero in India nel 1991 quando Rajiv fu assassinato – racconta il giornalista spagnolo Javier Moro -. In tv vidi la cerimonia di cremazione e rimasi molto colpito dal dolore e dal coraggio di Sonia mentre tutta la sua vita andava in fumo insieme alle ceneri del suo uomo». Fu in quel momento che Moro decise di scrivere una storia dell’India attraverso la vicenda di Sonia Maino. Prima però sarebbero venuti altri libri come Mezzanotte e cinque a Bhopal (scritto nel 2001 con lo zio Dominique Lapierre e Passione indiana (Mondadori, 2006). Dopo tre anni di ricerche l’anno scorso Javier Moro è riuscito finalmente a portare a termine il suo lavoro che ora esce in Italia per la casa editrice Il Saggiatore. «Io non volevo scrivere una biografia romanzata di Sonia – spiega Moro che in questi giorni è in Italia per presentare il libro -. Ma raccontare, attraverso lei la complessità di un Paese-continente come l’India». Ne è uscito un grande affresco di storia, ma anche un affascinante tentativo di capire più a fondo la personalità di questa donna che dal 2004 ha portato due volte il Partito del congresso a vincere le elezioni. «Volevo capire come questa donna timida che non aveva ambizioni pubbliche sia riuscita – per passione democratica, per lealtà verso Rajiv – a vincere le proprie riluttanze accettando di entrare in politica. Oggi – sottolinea Moro – secondo la rivista Forbes, Sonia Gandhi è una delle tre donne più potenti al mondo. Io volevo scoprire come sia stata possibile questa trasformazione e raccontarla.
In India Sonia Maino Gandhi guida il partito di governo. Noi non abbiamo mai avuto né un premier né un presidente donna. E intanto, grazie a Berlusconi, non si parla che di escort e veline. Come vede la situazione italiana?
Problematica. Per essere diplomatico. Ciò che mi sorprende è che in Italia nessuno sappia chi è realmente Sonia Gandhi. Qui è conosciuta come una povera vedova. Una ragazza di provincia che diventò indiana. Ma in pochi sanno cosa rappresenti davvero questa donna che ha sulle sue spalle le aspirazioni di una sesta parte dell’umanità. Non si conoscono i problemi con cui si confronta, i conflitti che si trova a dirimere, le sfide continue. Io ho fatto il lavoro che un giornalista italiano avrebbe dovuto fare. Insomma vorrei dire al pubblico italiano che non esiste solo Berlusconi come politico, che c’è una donna come Sonia Gandhi che sta facendo un lavoro importante per cercare di rispondere all’ingiustizia e alla povertà che affliggono l’India.
L’ateismo di Nerhu e le idee progressiste e cosmopolite d Indira l’hanno influenzata?
Con Indira c’era un rapporto di profondo affetto. Sonia ne ha assorbito il pensiero politico. In più non ha mai dimenticato le sue radici povere. Questo è ammirevole perché sposando Rajiv avrebbe potuto diventare la grande borghese che a Delhi riceve Mandela o Mick Jagger. è molto consapevole che il cognome Gandhi si lega a una storia importante. E non vuole che nessuno se ne approfitti.
La non violenza gandiana l’ha guidata in politica?
Molto ma l’India non è un Paese omogeneo. Ci sono ben 4.635 comunità diverse, un mondo di religioni e di culture differenti e le tensioni sono fortissime. Il popolo indiano è, al fondo, pacifico. Se guardiamo alla storia, l’India non ha mai invaso un altro Paese. Ma questo non vuol dire che le tensioni fra le comunità non possano diventare pericolose. Le relazioni fra musulmani e induisti sono difficili e complesse. Ma da quando Sonia ha vinto per la prima volta le elezioni nel 2004 si sono placate. L’India ha un grande partito democratico al governo; un partito che difende gli ideali di Nerhu, ovvero ideali di laicità e di uguaglianza di fronte alla legge. Ma deve fronteggiare un partito religioso induista che non vuole un’India in cui si integrino molteplici identità. I fondamentalisti indiani, oggi all’opposizione, vorrebbero una nazione specchio del Pakistan: una nazione induista tanto quanto loro sono musulmani. In dieci anni Sonia Gandhi ha portato il Partito del congresso, da disgregato che era, ad avere la maggioranza assoluta. è frutto del lavoro di una donna italiana che non voleva fare politica.

dal quotidiano Terra 7 ottobre 2009

“The Hukm (i.e. judgment) is for none but Allah. He has commanded that you worship none but Him, that is the (true) straight religion, but most men know not.” Surah Yusuf, 40

The Following is a exceprt of the interview by Karan Thapar on ibnlive

Singh’s book has provoked a storm of reaction in his own country [EPA]

Q: Mr Jaswant Singh, let’s start by establishing how you as the author view Mohammed Ali Jinnah? After reading your book, I get the feeling that you don’t subscribe to the popular demonisation of the man.
JS: Of course, I don’t. To that I don’t subscribe. I was attracted by the personality which has resulted in a book. If I wasn’t drawn to the personality, I wouldn’t have written the book. It’s an intricate, complex personality of great character, determination.

Q: And it’s a personality that you found quite attractive?
JS: Naturally, otherwise, I wouldn’t have ventured down the book. I found the personality sufficiently attractive to go and research it for five years. And I was drawn to it, yes.

Q: As a politician, Jinnah joined the Congress party long before he joined the Muslim League and in fact when he joined the Muslim League, he issued a statement to say that this in no way implies “even the shadow of disloyalty to the national cause”.Would you say that in the 20s and 30s and may be even the early years of the 40s, Jinnah was a nationalist?
JS: Actually speaking the acme of his nationalistic achievement was the 1916 Lucknow Pact of Hindu-Muslim unity and that’s why Gopal Krishna Gokhale called him the Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity.

Q: In your assessment as his biographer, for most if not the predominant part of his life, Jinnah was a nationalist.
JS: Oh, yes. He fought the British for an independent India but he also fought resolutely and relentlessly for the interest of the Muslims of India.

Q: Was Jinnah secular or was he communal?
JS: It depends on the way you view the word ‘secular’ because I don’t know whether secular is really fully applicable to a country like India. It’s a word borne of the socio-historical and religious history of Western Europe.

Q: Let me put it like this. Many people believe that Jinnah hated Hindus and that he was a Hindu basher.
JS: Wrong, totally wrong. That certainly he was not. His principal disagreement was with the Congress party. Repeatedly he says and he says this even in his last statements to the press and to the constituent Assembly of Pakistan.

Q: So his problem was with Congress and with some Congress leaders but he had no problem with Hindus.
JS: No, he had no problems whatsoever with the Hindus. Because he was not in that sense, until in the later part of his years, he became exactly what he charged Mahatma Gandhi with. He had charged Mahatma Gandhi of being a demagogue.

Q: He became one as well?
JS: That was the most flattering way of emulating Gandhi. I refer of course to the Calcutta killings.

Q: As you look back on Jinnah’s life, would you say that he was a great man?
JS: Oh yes, because he created something out of nothing and single-handedly he stood up against the might of the Congress party and against the British who didn’t really like him.

Q: So you are saying to me he was a great man?
JS: But I am saying so.

Q:Let me put it like this. Do you admire Jinnah?
JS: I admire certain aspects of his personality: his determination and the will to rise. He was a self-made man — Mahatma Gandhi was a son of a Dewan.

Q: Nehru was born to great wealth.
JS: All of them were born to wealth and position, Jinnah created for himself a position. He carved out in Bombay a position in that cosmopolitan city being what he was, poor. He was so poor he had to walk to work. He lived in a hotel called Watsons in Bombay and he told one of the biographers that there’s always room at the top but there is no lift and he never sought a lift.

Q: Do you admire the way he created success for himself, born to poverty but he ended up successful, rich?
JS: I would admire that in any man, self-made man, who resolutely worked towards achieving what he had set out to.

Q: How seriously has India misunderstood Jinnah?
JS: I think we misunderstood because we needed to create a demon.

Q: We needed a demon and he was the convenient scapegoat?
JS: I don’t know if he was convenient. We needed a demon because in the 20th century the most telling event in the entire subcontinent was the partition of the country.

Q: I’ll come to that in a moment but first the critical question that your book raises is that how is it that the man, considered as the ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity in 1916 had transformed 30 years later by 1947 into the ‘Qaid-e-Azam’ of Pakistan? And your book suggests that underlying this was Congres’ repeated inability to accept that Muslims feared domination by Hindus and that they wanted “space” in “a reassuring system”.
JS: Here is the central contest between minoritism and majoritarianism. With the loss of the Mughal empire, the Muslims of India had lost power but majoritarianism didn’t begin to influence them until 1947. Then they saw that unless they had a voice in their own political, economical and social destiny, they would be obliterated. That is the beginning. That is still the purpose.

Q: Let me ask you this. Was Jinnah’s fear or anxiety about Congress majoritarianism justified or understandable? Your book in its account of how Congress refused to form a government with the League in UP in 1937 after fighting the elections in alliance with that party, suggests that Jinnah’s fears were substantial and real.
JS: Yes. You have to go not just to 1937, which you just cited. See other examples. In the 1946 elections, Jinnah’s Muslim League wins all the Muslim seats and yet they do not have sufficient number to be in office because the Congress party has, even without a single Muslim, enough to form a government and they are outside of the government. So it was realised that simply contesting election was not enough.

Q: They needed certain assurances within the system to give them that space?
JS: That’s right. And those assurances amounted to reservation, which I dispute frankly. Reservations went from 25 per cent to 33 per cent. And then from reservation that became parity, of being on equal terms. Parity to Partition.

Q: All of this was search for space?
JS: All of this was a search for some kind of autonomy of decision making in their own social and economic destiny.

Q: Your book reveals how people like Gandhi, Rajagopalachari and Azad could understand the Jinnah or the Muslim fear of Congress majoritarianism but Nehru simply couldn’t understand. Was Nehru insensitive to this?
JS: No, he wasn’t. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was a deeply sensitive man.

Q: But why couldn’t he understand?
JS: He was deeply influenced by Western and European socialist thought of those days. For example dominion status would have given virtual independence to India in the 20s (but Nehru shot it down).

Q: In other words, Nehru’s political thinking and his commitment to Western socialist thought meant that he couldn’t understand Jinnah’s concerns about majoritarianism? Nehru was a centralist, Jinnah was a decentraliser?
JS: That’s right. That is exactly (the point). Nehru believed in a highly centralised polity. That’s what he wanted India to be. Jinnah wanted a federal polity.

Q: Because that would give Muslims the space?
JS: That even Gandhi also accepted.

Q: But Nehru couldn’t.
JS: Nehru didn’t.

Q: He refused to?
JS: Well, consistently, he stood in the way of a federal India until 1947 when it became a partitioned India.

Q: In fact, the conclusion of your book is that if Congress could have accepted a decentralised federal India, then a united India, as you put it, “was clearly ours to attain”. You add that the problem was that this was in “an anathema to Nehru’s centralising approach and policies”. Do you see Nehru at least as responsible for Partition as Jinnah?
JS: I think he says it himself. He recognised it and his correspondence, for example with late Nawab Sahab of Bhopal, his official biographer and others. His letters to the late Nawab Sahab of Bhopal are very moving letters.

Q: You are saying Nehru recognised that he was as much of an obstacle.
JS: No, he recognised his mistakes afterwards.

Q: Afterwards?
JS: Afterwards.

Q: Today, Nehru’s heirs and party will find it very surprising that you think that Nehru was as responsible for Partition as Jinnah.
JS: I am not blaming anybody. I’m not assigning blame. I am simply recording what I have found as the development of issues and events of that period.

Q: When Indians turn around and say that Jinnah was, to use a colloquialism, the villain of Partition, your answer is that there were many people responsible and to single out Jinnah, as the only person or as the principal person, is both factually wrong and unfair?
JS: It is. It is not borne out of events. Go to the last All India Congress Committee meeting in Delhi in the June of 1947 to discuss and accept the June 3, 1947 resolution. Nehru-Patel’s resolution was defeated by the Congress, supported by Gandhi in the defeat. Ram Manohar Lohia had moved the amendment. It was a very moving intervention by Ram Manohar Lohia and then Gandhi finally said we must accept this Partition. Partition is a very painful event. It is very easy to assign blame but very difficult thereafter. Because all events that we are judging are ex post facto.

Q: Absolutely, and what your book does is to shed light in terms of a new assessment of Partition and the responsibility of the different players. And in that re-assessment, you have balanced differently between Jinnah and Nehru?
JS: All vision which is ex post facto is 20/20. It is when you actually live the event.

Q: Quite right. Those who have lived it would have seen it differently but today, with the benefit of hindsight, you can say that Jinnah wasn’t the only or the principal villain and the Indian impression that he was is mistaken and wrong?
JS: And we need to correct it.

Q: Let’s turn to Jinnah and Pakistan. Your book shows that right through the 20s and the 30s, or may be even the early years of the 40s, Pakistan for Jinnah was more of a political strategy, less of a target and a goal. Did he consciously, from the very start, seek to dismember and divide India?
JS: I don’t think it was dismemberment. He wanted space for the Muslims. And he could just not define Pakistan ever. Geographically, it was a vague idea. That’s why ultimately it became a moth-eaten Pakistan. He had ideas about certain provinces which must be Islamic and one-third of the seats in the Central legislature must be Muslims.

Q: So Pakistan was in fact a way of finding, as you call it, ‘space’ for Muslims?
JS: He wanted space in the Central legislature and in the provinces and protection of the minorities so that the Muslims could have a say in their own political, economic and social destiny.

Q: And that was his primary concern, not dividing India or breaking up the country?
JS: No. He in fact went to the extent of saying that let there be a Pakistan within India.

Q: A Pakistan within India was acceptable to him?
JS: Yes.

Q: So in other words, Pakistan was often ‘code’ for space for Muslims?
JS: That’s right. From what I have written, I find that it was a negotiating tactic because he wanted certain provinces to be with the Muslim League. He wanted a certain percentage (of seats) in the Central legislature. If he had that, there would not have been a partition.

Q: Would you therefore say that when people turn around and say that Jinnah was communal, he was a Hindu hater, a Hindu basher that they are mistaken and wrong?
JS: He was not a Hindu hater but he had great animosity with the Congress party and Congress leadership. He said so repeatedly: I have no enmity against the Hindu.

Q: Do you as an author believe him when he said so?
JS: I don’t live in the same time as him. I go by what his contemporaries have said, I go by what he himself says and I reproduce it.

Q: Let’s come again to this business of using Pakistan to create space for Muslims. Your book shows how repeatedly people like Rajagopalachari, Gandhi and Azad were understanding of the Jinnah need or the Muslim need for space. Nehru wasn’t. Nehru had a European-inherited centralised vision of how India should be run. In a sense was Nehru’s vision of a centralised India, a problem that eventually led to partition?
JS: Jawaharlal Nehru was not always that. He became that after his European tour of the 20s. Then he came back imbued with, as Madhu Limaye puts it, ‘spirit of socialism’ and he was all for highly centralised India.

Q: And a highly centralized India denied the space Jinnah wanted.
JS: A highly centralised India meant that the dominant party was the Congress party. He (Nehru) in fact said there are only two powers in India — the Congress party and the British.

Q: That attitude in a sense left no room for Jinnah and the Muslim League in India?
JS: That is what made Jinnah repeatedly say but there is a third force — we. The Congress could have dealt with the Moplas but there were other Muslims.

Q: So it was this majoritarianism of Nehru that actually left no room for Jinnah?
JS: It became a contest between excessive majoritarianism, exaggerated minoritism and giving the referee’s whistle to the British.

Q: Was the exaggerated minoritism a response to the excessive majoritarianism of Congress?
JS: In part. Also in response to the historical circumstances that had come up.

Q: If the final decision had been taken by people like Gandhi, Rajagopalachari or Azad, could we have ended up with united India?
JS: Yes, I believe so. It could have. Gandhi said let the British go home, we will settle this amongst ourselves, we will find a Pakistan. In fact, he said so in the last AICC meetings.

Q: It was therefore Nehru’s centralising vision that made that extra search for united India difficult at the critical moment?
JS: He continued to say so but subsequently, after Partition, he began to realise what a great mistake he had made.

Q: Nehru realised his mistakes but it was too late, by then it had happened.
JS: It was too late. It was too late.

Q: Let’s end this first interview there. In the next part I want to talk to you about the relationship between the early Gandhi and Jinnah, the questions you raise about Partition and the predicament of Indian Muslims.

Q: Let us start this second interview with the portrait you paint of the relationship between the early Gandhi and the early Jinnah.You say of their first meeting in January 1915 that Gandhi’s response to Jinnah’s “warm welcome” was “ungracious”. You say Gandhi would only see Jinnah “in Muslim terms”, and the sort of implication that comes across is Gandhi was less accommodating than Jinnah was.
JS: I have perhaps not used the adjective you have used. Jinnah returned from his education in 1896. Gandhi went to South Africa and was returning finally — in between he had come once — to India it was 1915 already. Jinnah had gone to receive him with Gokhale and he referred fulsomely to Gandhi. Gandhi referred to Jinnah and said that I am very grateful that we have a Muslim leader. That I think was born really of Gandhi’s working in South Africa and not so much the reality of what he felt. The relationship subsequently became competitive.

Q: But you do call that response “ungracious”?
JS: I don’t know whether I call it ungracious?

Q: You do.
JS: But I might have. Jinnah is fulsomely receiving Gandhi and Gandhi says I am glad that I am being received by a Muslim leader.

Q: So he was only seeing Jinnah in Muslim terms?
JS: Yes, which Jinnah didn’t want to be seen.

Q: Even when you discuss the impact of their political strategies in the early years before 1920 you suggest that Jinnah was perhaps more effective than Gandhi, who in a sense permitted the Raj to continue for three decades. You write “Jinnah had successfully kept the Indian political forces together, simultaneously exerting pressure on the government.” Of Gandhi you say “that pressure dissipated and the Raj remained for three more decades”.
JS: That is a later development, because the political style of the two was totally different. Jinnah was essentially a logician. He believed in the strength of logic; he was a Parliamentarian; he believed in the efficacy of parliamentary politics. Gandhi, after testing the water, took to the trails of India and he took politics into the dusty villages of India.

Q: But in the early years up till 1920 you see Jinnah as more effective in putting pressure on the British than Gandhi.
JS: Yes, because entire politics was parliamentary.

Q: The adjectives you use to characterise their leadership in the early years suggests a sort of, how shall I put it, slight tilt in Jinnah’s favour. You say of Gandhi’s leadership that it had “an entirely religious, provincial character”. Of Jinnah’s you say he was “doubtless imbued by a non-sectarian nationalistic zeal.”
JS: He was non-sectarian. Gandhi used religion as a personal expression. Jinnah used religion as a tool to create something but that came later. For Gandhi religion was an integral part of his politics from the very beginning.

Q: And Jinnah wanted religion out of politics.
JS: Out of politics. That is right — there are innumerable examples.

Q: In fact, Jinnah sensed or feared instinctively that if politics came into religion it would divide.
JS: There were two fears here. His one fear was that if the whole question or practice of mass movement was introduced into India then the minority in India would be threatened. There could be Hindu-Muslim riots as a consequence. The second fear was that this will result in bringing in religion into Indian politics. He didn’t want that — Khilafat movement, etc are all examples of that.

Q: And in a sense would you say events have borne out Jinnah?
JS: Not just Jinnah, Annie Besant also. When the Home Rule League broke up — resigning from the League, Annie Beasant cautioned Gandhi you are going down this path, this is a path full of peril.

Q: Both Jinnah and Beasant have been borne out.
JS: In the sense that mass movement, unless combined with a great sense of discipline, leadership and restraint, becomes chaotic.

Q: As you look back on their lives and their achievements, Jinnah, at the end of the day, stood for creating a homeland for Indian Muslims. But what he produced was moth-eaten and broke up into two pieces in less than 25 years. Gandhi struggled to keep India united, but ended up not just with Partition but with communal passion and communal killing. Would you say at the end of their lives both were failures?
JS: Gandhi was transparently a honest man. He lived his political life openly. Jinnah didn’t even live his political life, leave alone his private life, openly. Gandhi led his private life openly — (in) Noakhali with a pencil stub he wrote movingly “I don’t want to die a failure but I fear I might.”

Q: And did he in your opinion.
JS: Yes, I am afraid the Partition of land, the Hindu-Muslim divide, cannot be really called Gandhiji’s great success. Jinnah, I think, did not achieve what he set out to. He got what is called a moth-eaten Pakistan, but the philosophy which under laid that Muslims are a separate nation was completely rejected within years of Pakistan coming into being.

Q: So, in a sense, both failed.
JS: I am afraid I have to say that. I am, in comparison, a lay practitioner of politics in India. I cannot compare myself to these two great Indians but my assessment would lead me to the conclusion that I cannot treat this as a success either by Gandhi or by Jinnah.

Q: Your book also raises disturbing questions about the Partition of India. You say it was done in a way “that multiplied our problems without solving any communal issue”. Then you ask “if the communal, the principal issue, remains in an even more exacerbated form than before then why did we divide at all?”
JS: Yes, indeed why? I cannot yet find the answer. Look into the eyes of the Muslims who live in India and if you truly see through the pain they live — to which land do they belong? We treat them as aliens, somewhere inside, because we continue to ask even after Partition you still want something? These are citizens of India — it was Jinnah’s failure because he never advised Muslims who stayed back.

Q: One of the most moving passages of your biography is when you write of Indian Muslims who stayed on in India and didn’t go to Pakistan.You say they are “abandoned”, you say they are “bereft of a sense of kinship”, not “one with the entirety” and then you add that “this robs them of the essence of psychological security”.
JS: That is right, it does. That lies at the root of the Sachar Committee report.

Q: So, in fact, Indian Muslims have paid the price in their personal lives.
JS: Without doubt, as have Pakistani Muslims.

Q: Muslims have paid a price on both sides.
JS: I think Muslims have paid a price in Partition. They would have been significantly stronger in a united India, effectively so — much larger land, every potential is here. Of course Pakistan or Bangladesh won’t like what I am saying.

Q: Let us for a moment focus on Indian Muslims. You are a leader of the BJP. Do you think the rhetoric of your party sometimes adds to that insecurity?
JS: I didn’t write this book as a BJP parliamentarian or leader, which I am not. I wrote this book as an Indian.

Q: Your book also suggests, at least intellectually, you believe India could face more Partitions. You write: “In India, having once accepted this principle of reservation, then of Partition, how can now we deny it to others, even such Muslims as have had to or chosen to live in India.”
JS: The problem started with the 1906 reservation. What does Sachar committee report say? Reserve for the Muslim. What are we doing now? Reserve. I think this reservation for Muslims is a disastrous path. I have myself, personally, in Parliament heard a member subscribing to Islam saying we could have a third Partition too. These are the pains that trouble me. What have we solved?

Q:In fact you say in your book how can we deny it to others, having accepted it once it becomes very difficult intellectually to refuse it again.
JS: You have to refuse it.

Q: Even if you contradict yourself?
JS: Of course, I am contradicting myself. It is intellectual contradiction.

Q: But you are being honest enough to point out that this intellectual contradiction lies today at the very heart of our predicament as a nation.
JS: It is. Unless we find an answer, we won’t find an answer to India-Pakistan-Bangladesh relations.

Q: And this continuing contradiction is the legacy of Partition?
JS: Of course, it is self-evident.

Q: Mr. Jaswant Singh, let’s come to how your book will be received. Are you worried that a biography of Jinnah, that turns on its head the received demonisation of the man; where you concede that for a large part he was a nationalist with admirable qualities, could bring down on your head a storm of protest?
JS: Firstly, I am not an academic. Sixty years down the line someone else — an academic — should have done it. Then I wouldn’t have persisted for five years. I have written what I have researched and believed in. I have not written to please – it’s a journey that I have undertaken, as I explained myself, along with Mohammedd Ali Jinnah — from his being an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity to the Qaid-e-Azam of Pakistan

Q: In a sense you were driven to write this book.
JS: Indeed, I still search for answers. Having worked with the responsibilities that I had, it is my duty to try and find answers.

Q: And your position is that if people don’t like the truth as you see it – so be it, but you have to tell the truth as you know it.
JS: Well, so be it is your way of putting it, my dear Karan, but how do I abandon my search, my yearning and what I have found? If I am wrong then somebody else should go and do the research and prove me as wrong.

Q: In other words you are presenting what you believe is the truth and you can’t hide it.
JS: What else can I do, what else can I present?

Q: In 2005, when L.K. Advani called Jinnah’s August 11, 1947 speech secular he was forced to resign the presidentship of the party, are you worried that your party might turn on you in a similar manner?
JS: This is not a party document, and my party knows that I have been working on this. I have mentioned this to Sri Advani as also to others.

Q: But are they aware of your views and the content of the book?
JS: They can’t be aware unless they read it.

Q: Are you worried that when they find out about your views, and your analyses and your conclusion, they might be embarrassed and angry?
JS: No, they might disagree, that’s a different matter. Anger? Why should there be anger about disagreement?

Q: Can I put something to you?
JS: Yes.

Q: Mr Advani in a sense suffered because he called Jinnah secular. You have gone further, you have compared him to the early Gandhi. And some would say that Gandhi is found a little wanting in that comparison. Will that inflame passions?
JS: I don’t think Gandhi is found wanting. He was a different person. They are two different personalities, each with their characteristics, why should passions be inflamed? Let a self-sufficient majority, 60 years down the line of Independence, be able to stand up to what actually happened pre-47 and in 1947.

Q: So what you are saying is that Gandhi and Jinnah were different people, we must learn to accept that both had good points.
JS: Of course.

Q: And both had weaknesses.
JS: Of course. Gandhi himself calls Jinnah a great Indian, why don’t we recognise that? Why did he call him that? He tells Mountbatten “give the Prime Ministership of India to Jinnah.” Mountbatten scoffs at him, “are you joking?” He says, “no I am serious, I will travel India and convince India and carry this message”.

Q: So if today’s Gandhians, reading the passages where you compare between the two, come to the conclusion that you are more of praise of Jinnah than of Gandhi.
JS: I don’t think I am. I am objective as far as human beings have ability to be objective. As balanced as an author can be.

Q: As balanced as an author can be.
JS: Indeed, indeed. How else can it be?

Q: Your party has a Chintan Baithak starting in two days time, does it worry you that at that occasion some of your colleagues might stand up and say — your views, your comments about Jinnah, your comments about Gandhi and Nehru have embarrassed the BJP?
JS: I don’t think so, I don’t think they will. Because in two days time the book would not have been (read). It’s almost a 600-page book. Difficult to read 600 pages in two days.

Q: No one will have read the book by the time you go to Simla!
JS: Yes (Laughs).

Q: But what about afterwards?
JS: Well, we will deal with the afters when the afters come.

Q: Let me raise two issues, that could be a problem for you. First of all, your sympathetic understanding of Muslims left behind in India. You say they are abandoned, you say they are bereft, you say they suffer from psychological insecurity. That’s not normally a position leaders of the BJP take.
JS: I think, the BJP is misunderstood also in its attitude towards the minorities. I don’t think it is so. Every Muslim that lives in India is a loyal Indian and we must treat them as so.

Q: But you are the first person from the BJP I have ever heard say, “look into the eyes of Indian Muslims and see the pain.” No one has ever spoken in such sensitive terms about them before.
JS: I am born in a district, that is my home — we adjoin Sind, it was not part of British India. We have lived with Muslims and Islam for centuries. They are part…. In fact in Jaisalmer, I don’t mind telling you, Muslims don’t eat cow and the Rajputs don’t eat pig.

Q: So your understanding of Indian Muslims and their predicament is uniquely personal and you would say…
JS: Indeed because I think what has happened is that we try and treat this whole thing as if it’s an extension of the image of the UP Muslim. Of course the UP (Muslim) is…Pakistan is a stepchild of UP in a sense.

Q: The second issue that your book raises, which could cause problems for you, is that at least theoretically, at least intellectually, you accept that there could be, although you hope there won’t be, further partitions. Could that embarrass you?
JS: No, I am cautioning. I am cautioning India, Indian leadership. I have said that I am not going to be a politician all my life, or even a member of Parliament. But I do say this — we should learn from what we did wrong, or didn’t do right, so that we don’t repeat the mistakes.

Q: In other words this is — how shall I put it, a wake up call?
JS: Wake-up? Shaking….

Q: A shake-up call!
JS: Yeah (Smiles)

Q: My last question. Critics in your party, allege that you are responsible for the party losing seats in Rajasthan, they allege that you are responsible for asking questions about the sanctity of Hindutva. Now, after this book, have you fed your critics more ammunition against yourself?
JS: Time will tell (Smiles).

Q: But does it worry you?
JS: Do I look worried? (Smiles)

Q: With that smile on your face Mr Jaswant Singh. Thank you very much for these two special interviews.
JS: Thank you very much.

Note: The views and discussions expressed in this interview is that of the author, and not necessarily of this blog.