The last lecture someone asked me about the posturing that
India Pakistan was doing across borders. There was a terrorist attack on a
military base in India and India retaliated by conducting ‘surgical’ strikes
across the border on alleged camps. Uff… that was just the thig to get me
started off. A long short history about right wing governments versus leftists
and the centers. How right wing governments thrive on conflict and the perceived
threat perception from an outsider.
I just explained how the marketing theory will typically
right wing governments. Why there is always some escalation of conflict that
rallies a population when right wingers are in power. For some reason – there was
Kargil war after which in the election they could cobble up a majority for a
relatively stable coalition.
In the second term
there were the ‘attacks’ on the Indian Parliament. Some believe that these were
staged.
I quote from an article published here
http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/afzal/afzal13.htm
“We know this much:
On December 13, 2001, the Indian Parliament was in its winter session. (The NDA
government was under attack for yet another corruption scandal.) At 11.30 in
the morning, five armed men in a white Ambassador car fitted out with an Improvised
Explosive Device drove through the gates of Parliament House. When they were
challenged, they jumped out of the car and opened fire. In the gun battle that
followed, all the attackers were killed. Eight security personnel and a
gardener were killed too.
The dead terrorists,
the police said, had enough explosives to blow up the Parliament building, and
enough ammunition to take on a whole battalion of soldiers. Unlike most
terrorists, these five left behind a thick trail of evidence – weapons, mobile phones, phone numbers, ID cards,
photographs, packets of dry fruit, and even a love letter.
Not surprisingly, PM
A.B. Vajpayee seized the opportunity to compare the assault to the September 11
attacks in the US that had happened only three months previously.
On December 14, 2001,
the day after the attack on Parliament, the Special Cell of the Delhi Police
claimed it had tracked down several people suspected to have been involved in
the conspiracy. A day later, on December 15, it announced that it had
"cracked the case": the attack, the police said, was a joint
operation carried out by two Pakistan-based terrorist groups, Lashkar-e-Toiba
and Jaish-e-Mohammed.
Twelve people were
named as being part of the conspiracy. Ghazi Baba of the Jaish (Usual Suspect
I), Maulana Masood Azhar also of the Jaish (Usual Suspect II); Tariq Ahmed (a
"Pakistani"); five deceased "Pakistani terrorists" (we still
don't know who they are). And three Kashmiri men, S.A.R. Geelani, Shaukat
Hussain Guru, and Mohammed Afzal; and Shaukat's wife Afsan Guru. These were the
only four to be arrested.
In the tense days
that followed, Parliament was adjourned. On December 21, India recalled its high
commissioner from Pakistan, suspended air, rail and bus communications and
banned over-flights. It put into motion a massive mobilisation of its war
machinery, and moved more than half-a-million troops to the Pakistan border.
Foreign embassies evacuated their staff and citizens, and tourists travelling
to India were issued cautionary travel advisories. The world watched with bated
breath as the subcontinent was taken to the brink of nuclear war. (All this
cost India an estimated Rs 10,000 crore of public money. A few hundred soldiers
died just in the panicky process of mobilisation.)”
--
And then somewhere else in the article she argues
“On the basis of this illegal confession
extracted under torture, hundreds of thousands of soldiers were moved to the Pakistan
border at huge cost to the public exchequer, and the subcontinent devolved into
a game of nuclear brinkmanship in which the whole world was held hostage.
Big
Whispered Question: Could it have been the other way around? Did the confession
precipitate the war, or did the need for a war precipitate the need for the
confession?”
--
Whatever the truth, after the attack, the Indian army saw a mobilization
where two nuclear powers eye balled each other https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001%E2%80%9302_India%E2%80%93Pakistan_standoff
Wow. That was two nuclear powers eye balling each other! Let
that sink in for some time.
Now this time around as well, we have some posturing and in the
‘surgical’ strike one army crossed the border, ‘destroyed’ camps and came back.
This was celebrated in the media and everyone in India rejoiced that finally as
a country we have teeth. Jingoism all around you!
And now look at the centrist party. When they came to power,
they implemented socialist schemes with a gusto. Right to education, right to
food and right to employment. The last one was “MNREGA – the world’s largest workfare programme - formed the backbone
of the UPA government’s anti-poverty programme, and may well represent its most
important legacy in the long run.”
- See more at:
http://www.ideasforindia.in/article.aspx?article_id=292#sthash.1WVnU4gw.dpuf”
In the last paragraph the article states “It is no surprise therefore that MNREGA
helped UPA gain re-election in the 2009 general elections. There is detailed
RD-based evidence showing that UPA reaped electoral benefits from rolling out
MNREGA in 2009, and that MNREGA budgetary allocations across districts and
blocks have been manipulated in certain states to increase these benefits. “
So yes in the end, it’s up to you to weigh the substance of the
propaganda and the schemes thrown at you. You can’t accept anything blindly.
I explained all of this to the class. In marketing I keep
teaching, the first thing is to understand yourself and your brand and understand
what it is that you are selling. Similarly if you are a consumer, you have to understand
who is it that is selling something to you. What they seem to be selling versus
what they are selling. Political parties are amongst the most dependent on marketing
for survival. They have to understand their core philosophy so as to keep their
core base intact and after that they go after the fence sitters. Without a
detailed and vivid understanding of who they actually are, no political party
can hope for long term survival. Funnily worldwide the philosophies seem to
converge across three types – viz right left and center. The core principals
are also very similar across. Rights tend to favor minimal government and are
pro-business, while the center tries to lean left and increase governance and
welfare for the underprivileged. The left of course, worldwide is stupidly
rigid and completely veering towards state owned. You can understand world
economics, trade, politics and news through the interplay of these thoughts and
ideals.
So when the world is going bonkers and you have strong ideas
on what is wrong and right and you want to box the crap out of your neighbors,
sure, do so, but think again. Or as Arundhati Roy in the article says very very
nicely – “To hang Mohammed Afzal without
knowing what really happened is a misdeed that will not easily be forgotten. Or
forgiven. Nor should it be.
Notwithstanding the
10% Growth Rate.”
The last line is the hardest hitting one that she has
written. It’s a dig at the right wing which normally is super pro-business and
pro-growth. The growth rate is an important metric on which they win votes and allegiance.
Yes – you have the freedom to vote right, left or centre. You
have and must exercise the freedom to shout slogans, support war, surgical
strikes, place of worship or whatever you want to do in a peaceful non violent
way. You have the right to spew vitriol and choose sides. But all I tell the
kids that I teach – listen carefully, not just to the message but also to the
carrier and the originator? Within this itself there are many, multiple
agendas. Look carefully!
It also amazes me that how much of a pacifist I have become.
From a mother India lover who wanted to join the army and serve the motherland,
I have become a skeptic. The fun bit is that I don’t know when this happened. No
I am not disillusioned with the politicians of the country. That doesn’t work
me up. We deserve the jokers we elect. Public service is very difficult, taxing
and definitely not rewarding (if you are honest). We make life difficult for
the guys doing public service. We believe that all problems come to their
doorstep and we absolve ourselves of any solution. It also doesn’t help that
most people in public service drive their own agendas and their own ways of
doing things. They don’t allow for participation and block everything else. But
yes, people inherently are to blame for the shit they get.
I have been involved with the Swimming pool of the gymkhana
as an office bearer. It is a dam tough thing to do. People have strong agendas
and counter agendas. They don’t help when needed but come across to criticize
whatever you do. I think a few years of public service should be a must for
anyone. Once that’s done you will do a better job of discharging your duties as
a citizen, benefitting the collective whole.
But yes – I have over a period of time become an agno-
nationalist. I don’t care about your nationality or mine. What I care about is
how humans react to one another and treat each other. How people have to get
involved in how they debate and conduct themselves in public. These are simple
and important principals from which I want to draw the line. I love my city and
my country but not in a jingoistic way. I love how my culture and my thought
has been shaped by our geography and our history. I know what I am by knowing
my past. But I also know that I have to shape my future and that of the
generations to come from me. It cannot be shaped by propaganda but by listening
to logic and to question everything. It can come from a deeper understanding of
people and their emotions and their selfish interests. It comes from within. I
have been lucky to be in marketing. It helps me understand the core of human behavior
and their motivations. It makes me skeptic and dreamer at the same time. It is
interesting.
In the aftermath of the terror attacks, Pakistani artistes
are being singled out and have been asked leave the country. Producers have
been told not to take them in their movies or songs. There is enough indian
talent they say.
Here, listen to this absolutely amazing cover by a Pakistani
band. Tell me, if they come to India and play a song, how would we not end up
being enriched? Would we be poorer? But hell, thanks to youtube, they are
broadcast across the world. I just love the song, the cover version which I argue
is better than the original. I love the sitar notes which reverberate through the
song giving it a strong constant sound lending a kind of stirring to the guitar.
The crisp tabla creates an interesting contrast to the more muffled drums used.
The contrast and the richness is there to be heard. Like Indian classical
jugalbandi style, every instrument is given its two minutes of solo with the
rest giving it beat support. This takes a song that was essentially a solo to a
group effort, making it unforgettable. Seriously brilliant.
While watching TV over the weekend, we chanced upon Haider.
Haider is an adaptation of the Hamlet and Jispa with her new found love for English
thanks to her amazing teacher Mrs Ayesha Thomas was keen to see the Shakespeare
adaptation. We had seen Omkara, the Othello adaptation together and now Hamlet.
It’s fun watching the movie with her. I had to explain certain parts of it and
the language is a bit difficult for her to pick up completely on her own. But nevertheless
it was awesome fun. At the end of the movie, we went through Wikipedia to
understand the original story better and therefore to better appreciate the
adaptation. While reading the explanation, I chanced upon this paragraph that
explains all that I have written so far in this blog – “The idea that nothing
is real except in the mind of the individual finds its roots in the
Greek Sophists, who argued that since nothing can be perceived except
through the senses—and since all individuals sense, and therefore perceive
things differently—there is no absolute truth, but rather only relative truth”
