IT training open magazine TruePDF 04 march 2019

SUNANDA K DATTA-RAY PROFILES MAMATA BANERJEE

J AM E S ASTIL L O N T H E THR I L LS O F CA R I B B E A N C R I C KE T
w w w. o p e n t h e m a g a z i n e .c o m

ThE wILD
EAST OF
INDIAN
POLITIcS
4 march 2019 / rS 50

The Last and Lost War of
Pulwama borrows from a history of deception and subversion
By MJ AkBAr



contents
4 march 2019

5

46

LOcOmOtif

a cricKEtinG caLyPsO

The crown prince
of bone-saw kingdom

India’s tour to the Caribbean
could produce a great contest in
the wake of an unforeseen
West Indian renaissance

By S Prasannarajan

By James Astill

6
indraPrastha

52

By Virendra Kapoor

thE LiGhtnEss Of BrOnzE

A new museum commemorates
the life and works of
Amar Nath Sehgal

8

By Avantika Bhuyan

mUmBai nOtEBOOK
By Anil Dharker

22

52

56
EyEwitnEss

14

Camera as sketchbook

thE rachEL PaPErs

By Somak Ghoshal

The Indian service industry
By Rachel Dwyer

34

58
18

thE writEr Of
smaLL thinGs

OPEn Essay

Mirza Waheed in his new novel
excavates the grey area between
complicity and consent while
exploring the banality of evil

The iron sister

46

42

By Sunanda K Datta-Ray

By Nandini Nair

22

66

thE Last and LOst
war Of PaKistan

Pulwama borrows from a history
of deception and subversion
By MJ Akbar

nOt PEOPLE LiKE Us

34

Katrina saves the day
By Rajeev Masand

a ViEw frOm

thE wiLd East

The brashness inspired by a
Hindi film cannot help in Kashmir

From Varanasi to Gorakhpur,
from Modi’s constituency
to Yogi’s fief, the combined
might of SP and BSP and the
charisma of Priyanka Gandhi
hope to make a dent in
the BJP bastion

Where’s the reformer who
will nail a thesis on the door
of the Catholic Church?

By Rahul Pandita

By Ullekh NP

By Stephen David

32
JOsh GOnE awry

4 march 2019

42
GOd aGainst LiBidO

Cover photograph by

AP
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volume 11 issue 9
for the week 26 february4 march 2019
total no. of pages 68

4

C

letter of the week

Your Kumbh Mela photographs brought out the
exuberance, enthusiasm and religious fervour of the
world’s largest gathering (‘Leaps of Faith’, February
25th, 2019). Like always, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister
Yogi Adityanath did not miss a chance of deriving
political mileage from the once-in-six-years Mela. The
state showed impressive organisational capabilities in

keeping such a huge event largely accident-free. It also
tried its best to convert visitors’ religious devotion into
political commitment. Let’s not forget the state government went the extra mile to make the Mela grander
with an eye on the upcoming General Election. It will
be interesting to see if Mela management really has
an impact on voters and the not-so-subtle political
messaging endures till polling time. Tapping such religious sentiments, the BJP seems confident it will defeat
the challenge from the combined opposition in UP at
least. What is not clear is whether it will just manage to
win or sweep the state the way it did in 2014. Won’t it be
better then for Yogiji to arrange some festivals of
minority communities as well to expand the party’s
reach and live up to its ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’
spirit? There’s no harm trying, even if it doesn’t
convert into votes for the BJP.

to the country’s ambition
of becoming a super power.
To fulfil their shortsighted
goals of power, our politicians
want to drag India back by a
few centuries. Caste-based
politics is retrograde.
Mahesh Kumar
don’t veer off vikaas

The interview with Ruchir
Sharma made it clear why the
Jaideep Mittra
BJP must stick to its promises

on development if it wants
to come back to power (‘The
stuck with caste
along with Muslims will
Expectations of Modi Were
Regardless of how much I
make up a significant portion Unrealistic’, February 25th,
might loathe it, anyone who of the SP-BSP vote base. The
2019). Prime Minister
has lived in Uttar Pradesh
BJP has only its upper-caste
Narendra Modi has launched
understands politics in this vote bank to bail it out.
scores of welfare schemes
Bal Govind that will take time to deliver
state always revolves around
caste and religion (‘Caste,
results. The ruling party
When the British ruled India, cannot expect all its goals to
Cows and the Countryside’,
caste hardly mattered. UnFebruary 25th, 2019). The
be achieved in one term, but
fortunately, now that we are
BJP’s 71 MPs from this state
that does not mean it should
helped it achieve a Lok Sabha ruling ourselves, only caste
give up on vikaas.
M Kumar
matters. Modern India is unmajority in 2014. But if both
the SP and BSP fight elections able to give up its premodern

the missing money trail
together this year, it will hurt politics. Caste should have
Claims regarding the Rafale
the BJP significantly. The BJP no relevance in an India of
deal cover two broad issues:
was never expected to repeat the 21st century. This ‘straticontract overvaluation and
fication’ of people is merely a
its 2014 performance in UP.
crony capitalism (‘A DefenceThe alliance between the SP political tactic. A section
less Democracy’, February
of politicians wants to take
and BSP and the Congress’
25th, 2019). But when there
advantage of caste, the
decision to formally induct
is no money trail to reveal
Priyanka Vadra Gandhi into mark of an orthodox society.
corruption, how can Rahul
the state’s politics are going to It has no positive contribuGandhi say Modi benefited
tion to make today and is
make it even more difficult
personally?
an impediment to economic
for the BJP to retain its posiVinod C Dixit
tion. Yadavs, OBCs and Jatavs development. It runs counter
4 march 2019


LOCOMOTIF

suspicion that he, in spite of the imagologues at his service,
struck a fine balance between the military and the mullah, the
twin pillars of the state within the state. Power neutralises the
romance of the outsider, and imran’s current bluster and
braggadocio reveal the true work beneath the imagology of the
outsider: another stereotypical Pakistani leader who too realises
the existential uses of an enemy.
by S PRASANNARAJAN
Now take the prince, who was given a welcome worthy of
his wealth and ‘strategic’ power in Delhi, his next stopover. The
imagologues had photoshopped him to perfection when he
began his ‘reforms’ by letting women drive and by opening
movie theatres in saudi arabia. and his ‘ethical purge’ had its
dramatic moment when scores of princes and princelings with
a combined net worth of billions were locked up in Riyadh’s
Ritz-Carlton—a gulag for the rich. Things turned problematic
when a group of saudi hit-men armed with a bone-saw
magology is a neologism best explained by milan
descended on the saudi Consulate in istanbul to receive Jamal
Kundera in his novel Immortality. ‘imagologues create
Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post and a severe
systems of ideals and anti-ideals, systems of short duration
critic of the regime. investigations by the Cia and Turkey had
which are quickly replaced by other systems but which
established that the dismembering and killing of Khashoggi,
influence our behaviour, our political opinions and
a saudi exile living in Washington, was ordered by the highest
aesthetic tastes, the colour of carpets and the selection
echelon of the kingdom. The american president rejected the
of books just as in the past we have been ruled by the

findings of his own agency and maintained that saudi arabia
systems of ideologues,’ he writes while talking about the
contributes so much to the Us economy by buying weapons
‘planetary transformation of ideology into imagology’. last
worth billions of dollars that he cannot afford to blacklist the
sunday in islamabad, all it took was a picture to tell a bad story
prince. Trump’s transactionalism won the day.
ever so badly. in a photograph clicked for the front pages, we saw
and the prince, meanwhile, needed a lot more from his
them in the front seats of a mercedes, Prime minister imran Khan
imagologues.
of Pakistan as the chauffeur and Crown Prince mohammed bin
The prince’s asian blitz—next stop, China—is
salman of saudi arabia as guest. it was a gesture that defied
post-Khashoggi imagology at work. Delhi too treated him
protocol and brought out the cool contemporaneity of imran,
with the kind of special indulgence a prince of such ‘strategic’
whose election six months ago marked a ‘change’ in a country
importance is worthy of. strategic, that is the word that comes to
otherwise dismissed by some as a historical error, and where
aid whenever a transactional government defends a repressive
scriptural cold-bloodedness still has quasi-official protection.
kingdom whose extra-territorial brutalism still goes on
and the prince, affectionately abbreviated as mBs, heir apparent
unabated beyond the headlines in yemen. mBs needs more
to the throne of the House of saud, too, launched himself onto the
than all the perfumes of arabia to humanise his image after the
world stage as an agent of change, and panegyrists even went to
bone-saw vengefulness. He needs more fawning asian hosts in
the extent of calling him a gorbachev in a keffiyeh, ushering in

thrall to his benevolence to create an illusion of modernity.
reforms in the rich and repressive kingdom of saudi arabia. so, in
morality is seen as naiveté—or idealism without
islamabad, it was a perfect piece of ‘imagology’.
responsibility—in the age of transactionalism. so by talking
imagology is a manufactured
about the bone-saw kingdom, you run
metaphor for a lie as ambitious as
the risk of being accused of falling for a
ideology. Take the chauffeur.
Western libertarian narrative. Which,
Pakistan needed a redeemer, and
in a sense, leads to another reality: Third
Morality is seen as
imran, an apolitical politician who
Worldism has only lost its geography,
naiveté—or idealism
initially projected himself as the
not its morality or mindset. so we still
conscience keeper of a country
without responsibility—in
need to indulge bone-saw princes. let’s
savaged by generals and complicit
nevertheless end this column with a
the age of transactionalism
democrats, had the necessary
quote from Khashoggi: “When i speak
image. He was the outsider, untainted
of the fear, intimidation, arrests and
by the transgressions of power, and

public shaming of intellectuals and
his base was young and restless. He
religious leaders who dare to speak their
could have been the protagonist of a
minds, and then i tell you that i’m from
Pakistani spring. in power, he didn’t
saudi arabia, are you surprised?”
do much to repudiate the lingering
some of us are, still.

The Crown Prince of
Bone-Saw Kingdom

I

4 march 2019

Mohammed bin Salman

Jamal Khashoggi

www.openthemagazine.com 5


INDRAPRASTHA
virendra kapoor

V

eteran journalist

Kuldip nayar’s 16th and last
book, On Leaders and Icons: From
Jinnah to Modi, was released at a gala
function a few days ago in one of the
finest five-star hotels of the capital.
in this book, Kuldip reminisces
about events of pre-Partition days
in the Modi era. Celebrities whom
he met, what they said and saucy
tidbits about them are all littered in
the unputdownable book. now, you
would expect Kuldip to write about
politicians, but his insider account
of filmstars of his time came as an
eye-opener. For example, he throws
new light on the life of Bollywood’s
famous tragedienne, Meena
Kumari. How she was exploited
by her estranged husband Kamal
amrohi, how she fell head over
heels in love with Dharmendra, who
nonetheless did not show up at her
funeral, and the most sensational
of all revelations that Kamal
amrohi’s brother was behind her
death because he believed she had
brought shame to the family due to
her excessive drinking and the muchtalked about affair with the then
struggling jat hero from the back of
beyond in Punjab.

even as the who’s who of the capital sat engrossed flipping through the
book while simultaneously catching
snatches of the tributes paid to the
late author, there was a little drama
going on behind the scenes. Former
Prime Minister Manmohan singh
had begged off at the last minute,
declining to release the book; his excuse was that Kuldip had written that
PMo files were sent to 10 janpath,
something various others, including
sanjaya Baru, his media advisor, had
duly committed to paper. Kuldip’s
sons, rajiv, a senior high court lawyer,
and sudhir, an ex-Hindustan lever
executive, were now hard put to
6

by the feisty sagarika Ghosh who
flaunts her anti-saffron credentials
on her sleeves. When the other two
former diplomats learnt of the real
reason for sibal’s reluctance, one of
them cattily commented, “How can
he call us ‘juniors’ when he failed not
once but twice in the indian Foreign
service exam?” amen!

t

arrange another speaker. Former

uPa minister Kapil sibal and exdiplomats Pawan Verma and Hardeep
Puri, a union Minister in his new
avatar as a politician, were joined by
navtej sarna, till recently our man in
Washington. sarna was called in on
the morning of the book release. Wellknown tV anchor rajdeep sardesai
moderated the discussion.
However, what surprised everyone in the crowded ballroom of the
recently renovated hotel was sibal
engaging alone with sardesai while
former diplomats, Pavan Verma,
navtej sarna and diplomat-turnedMinister Hardeep Puri waited on the
side of the stage. two separate sessions looked odd while all four were
to discuss the book. until yours truly
learnt from the actors involved that
sibal declined to share the stage with
the others, allegedly on the ground
that all three were junior to him. to
soften the blow, the three were told
that sibal was in a hurry to leave for
another function. Puri, however,
thought that sibal’s reluctance to
share the stage with him stemmed
from the mauling he had received
at his hands when both had participated in a discussion on his book at
the recent jaipur literature Festival,
despite the session being moderated

He ParliaMentary poll
is upon us. Most sitting MPs are

not weighing their chances of
winning, which will come later, but
being fielded yet again by their parties. in the national capital, BjP chief
amit shah is set not to repeat at least
three of the seven MPs. their names
are on the chopping block. the other
three are certain to get BjP tickets.
the fate of one is hanging in the
balance. Heading the list of those to
be denied tickets is the member from
new Delhi constituency, Meenakshi
lekhi. the chatter in the party is
overwhelmingly against her, though
often this is attributed to her not
being a good constituency MP while
proving her worth in Parliament.
unfortunately, what counts with
voters is whether you have got
someone a job, someone else’s uncle
a transfer, someone’s child school
admission, etcetera. Distortions in
the role of a Parliament member have
been the undoing of several leaders
in the past. Meenakshi seems to be
falling victim to an injection of the
local in national politics.

a

nD tHey say there are

clamps on india’s free media
imposed by the Modi sarkar. in the
ongoing hearing of the Kulbhushan
jadhav case at the Hague, Pakistan’s
attorney General approvingly
quoted two indian journalists, Karan
thapar and raghav Bahl of Bloomberg
Quint. need not say more. n
4 march 2019



MuMbai NoTebook
Anil Dharker

T

he blue synagogue is no
longer blue. For years, Mumbaikars have seen a distinctive building in
one of the small lanes off Kala ghoda
which stood out for its colour, a kind of
sky blue. but how many of us actually
went inside? not too many, I imagine,
because people are never sure whether
you can enter a religious place unless
you belong to that faith.
The blue synagogue which is no
longer blue is now open to all; more importantly, you can visit it without the
Wrath of god literally coming down
on your head because the structure

has been repaired and strengthened.
simultaneously, the blue façade has
given way to indigo and white because
abha narain lambah, the celebrated
architect who worked on its restoration, so decreed it. (she says it’s the more
authentic colour palette and we have to
take her word for it since the building
is 135 years old. and unless a guinness
World Record holder for longevity is
hiding somewhere, no one from 1884,
when it was built, is around anymore.)
‘are you Jewish?’ people asked
sangita Jindal, head of JsW Foundation, when she decided to fund the
restoration. of course not, she said,
what does that have to do with it, thus
emphasising once again the secular
nature of the Foundation’s philosophy
and her own liberal view of the world.
When you think of it, the synagogue—
of the Jewish faith though it might
be—is a symbol of the liberal underpinnings of our country. after all, it was
erected by the sassoon family that fled
baghdad in 1832 due to persecution
there and found a home in bombay.
In fact, the history of the Jewish
community in India goes much further
back in time: bene Israeli Jews in the
2nd century bCe fleeing from persecution in galilee were shipwrecked off
the Konkan Coast and found refuge in
India. later, towards the end of the 18th

century, members of the Jewish merchant community escaping from Iraq,
8

syria and other West asian countries
settled here and played an important
role in the development of bombay.
The blue synagogue (officially,
Knesset eliyahoo synagogue after
eliyahoo sasoon, father of David who
built it) was designed by the british
architectural firm gostling & Morris.
The inside has ornamental pillars and
wonderful stained glass, now beautifully restored. although primarily designed as a typical baghdadi synagogue,
the english architects incorporated
neo-Classical and gothic-Victorian
architectural elements. The exterior
is made of Porbandar stone, while the
floor tiling inside was imported from
stoke-on-Trent in england. These combinations make the synagogue itself
a secular and cosmopolitan symbol.
Much like Mumbai that was bombay.
Much like bharat that was India.

‘R

esToRaTIon’ Is a tricky
business, especially when zealous attempts by amateurs result in
disastrous shortcuts. a common mistake is to paint over paint, quite often
ignoring the original colour palette
and material used, as abha narain

lamba found in the synagogue. another is to paint over polished wood,
which is the fate of most old buildings.
(To my surprise, I found this at
anand bhavan, the nehrus’ home in
allahabad, now converted into a
museum. It’s an unfussy and elegantly
designed museum, but all the doors are
painted white, whereas there’s enough
wood-panelling in the building to sug-

gest that they too were polished wood.)
The recent renovation of Flora
Fountain has revealed the same
ascendancy of paint over imagination:
after two years of restoration, Mumbai’s iconic fountain was found to
have layers of not only paint, but also
plaster and cement! goddess Flora, the
central figure atop the fountain, now
turns out to be not marble-white, but a
luminous off-white.
The fountain’s location makes it
look as if it stands in the centre of the
city; that impression is reinforced by
its being in the middle of a traffic-free
square around which the buzz and hubbub of Mumbai rushes by. The square’s
wonderful symmetry, however, is
somewhat marred by a soviet-style
statue placed in 1960 to honour the
105 people killed in the samyukta
Maharashtra agitation to keep

bombay a part of Maharashtra (hence
the square’s official name, hutatma
Chowk, or ‘Martyrs square’).
Flora was a Roman goddess of
Flowers. The whole edifice is delicate, and Flora herself is exquisitely
carved (by an english engineer James
Forsythe, the fountain being designed
by another englishman, R norman
shaw). Its name was supposed to be
Frere Fountain, after sir bartle Frere,
the then governor of bombay who
commissioned it. Realising that Flora
Fountain was equally alliterative but
less vainglorious, the name was
changed to the goddess’. as with much
of urban history, no one asks why an
english governor, an english designer
and an english sculptor chose a Roman
goddess as the centerpiece of an Indian
metropolis, but there it is. It just goes
to show that however hard nationalist
fervour and regional chauvinism may
try to erase the past, it stays with us
as received memory. Tell a taxi-driver
to take you to hutatma Chowk and
he won’t know where to go. history,
mercifully, ignores all our wrong turns,
however many we might take. n
4 march 2019

openings
NOTEBOOK

A Partnership for the Future

J

ust days before saudi arabia’s Crown Prince
Mohammed bin salman made his maiden visit to India,
New delhi quietly signed a $1.5-billion deal with the us
for the supply of three million tonnes of crude oil. It is
a sign of the times that one of the world’s largest producers
of crude oil wants to invest in energy, refining, mining,
infrastructure, health and education in India. diversification
of economic interests is something that is propelling closer
relations between India and saudi arabia.
salman’s visit came at a charged time. on february 14th, at
least 40 security men were killed by a suicide bomber in Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir, leading to greatly elevated tension
between India and Pakistan. the saudi crown prince returned
home for a couple of hours after completing his Pakistan visit
before he flew to India. Purely in political terms, this appears a
somewhat cynical move to give an appearance of a ‘stand-alone’
visit, but the symbolism was important: India wants no truck
with Pakistan when it comes to developing ties with other
countries, even if they are close partners of Islamabad.
It is unrealistic to hope that no comparison will be made
between salman’s visit to India and to Pakistan just a day before
he landed in India. at one level, any such comparison reveals a

surge in positive expectations, which was inconceivable even
a decade ago. at another level, the comparison is troubling
as the nature of relations between
saudi arabia and the two countries
is premised on different outlooks
and goals. Pakistan and saudi arabia
have deep military and political ties
spanning a period all the way back
to the creation of Pakistan. the two
countries have a formal military alliance dating to 1982. but even before
that, Pakistan was closely involved
in the fight to end the seizure of the
grand mosque in Mecca. In 2017,
Pakistan dispatched its soldiers,
led by its former army chief raheel
sharif, to help saudi arabia pursue
its interests in yemen. the two countries are members of the organisation of Islamic Cooperation (oIC),
the ‘collective voice’ of the Muslim

community worldwide. India, despite a vast Muslim
population, is not a member of the oIC.
India, in contrast, has a very different basis for ties with saudi
arabia based on energy security—we buy large quantities of
crude oil from the kingdom—and has a substantial diaspora
there. until some years ago, there could be no realistic comparison between saudi arabia’s ties with India and Pakistan. on one
side were shared religion and military dependence and on the
other side little more than an oil buyer-seller relationship. there
has been much protestation about shared cultural values and
historical ties, but the skew in favour of Pakistan was obvious.
It is against this background that salman’s visit to India

should be seen. the carefully worded joint statement issued late
on february 20th did make a mention of the importance of restarting a comprehensive dialogue with Pakistan. the statement
noted, ‘His royal Highness appreciated consistent efforts made
by Prime Minister Modi since May 2014 including Prime Minister’s personal initiatives to have friendly relations with Pakistan.
In this context, both sides agreed on the need for creation of conditions necessary for resumption of the comprehensive dialogue
between India and Pakistan.’ but this was quickly followed by
condemnation of the attack on security forces in Pulwama and,
in rather general terms, the need to fight terrorism.
In contrast, when he was in Islamabad, the saudi arabians
echoed the sentiments of their hosts
when they said, ‘during the official
talks in Islamabad, His royal Highness the Crown Prince and deputy
Prime Minister, Minister of defense
praised openness and efforts of Prime
Minister Imran Khan for dialogue
with India and the opening of the
Kartarpur crossing point and the efforts exerted by both sides, stressing
that dialogue is the only way to ensure peace and stability in the region
to resolve outstanding issues.’
there’s nothing surprising here.
Joint statements are carefully choreographed diplomatic documents. In
both New delhi and Islamabad alike,
salman stuck to the formulations
of his hosts. Nothing more can, or

Saudi Arabia has
announced a
potential investment
of $100 billion
in India. If this

happens, it will be a
huge upswing in
business relations
between the
two countries

10

4 march 2019


ap

Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomes Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in New Delhi on February 19

should, be read into these statements.
there is, however, a whiff of positive change when it comes
to India. saudi arabia has announced a potential investment of
$100 billion in India. If this happens, it will be a huge upswing
in a commercial relationship that is at best tepid. In the first
nine months of 2018, saudi arabia’s foreign direct investment
(fdI) equity flow to India was a paltry $10 million. for
comparison, the united arab emirates (uae), saudi arabia’s
neighbour, had an inflow into India of $629 million. even
India’s much smaller trading partners have fdI flows in tens of
multiples of what the kingdom invests in India.
Much of this change reflects India’s status as a favourable
fdI destination and saudi arabia’s own priorities at economic
diversification, a move being pioneered by salman. there is
mutual interest here: India not only needs crude oil but also as

much fdI as it can get, given the current weakness in investment growth. Here, the contrast with Pakistan could not be
more glaring. In Islamabad, salman promised $20 billion to his
host country. that, however, is in the nature of an emergency
dose of help for a country that is constantly teetering on a
balance-of-payments crisis. Were it not for the largesse of China
and saudi arabia, by now Pakistan would have been forced to
go to the International Monetary fund (IMf) for a bailout on
rather onerous terms. It says something about the India-Pakistan-saudi arabia relationship that one country wants money
from the kingdom to avoid borrowing more from the IMf,
while the other, India, is attracting investment on its own eco4 march 2019

nomic strength and not by leveraging a special religio-political
relationship. on one side are military and economic dependence and on the other side lie progress and mutual interests.
If only for these reasons, it is difficult to foresee political
relations between India and saudi arabia develop along the
lines seen in the case of Pakistan and the Kingdom. In any case,
there is no reason why that should be: India’s interests in saudi
arabia are based on the four pillars of energy security, the wellbeing of its large diaspora there, closer security and intelligence
cooperation, and closer economic ties. on all four there is
visible progress over the last five to eight years. Modi’s extra
push has helped this process further. as long as bilateral ties
progress along these lines, it will be a matter of satisfaction.
It is worthwhile to imagine a counterfactual situation.
suppose Crown Prince salman had not been accorded the
welcome that he received from Modi—hug and all that. What
would have happened? by now a different form of criticism
would have been at hand: that his reception was lukewarm as
Modi does not give any importance to furthering relations with
countries of the Middle east. that would have led to an uproar
about all manner of issues, secularism included. If the last five

years are any guide, the current Prime Minister has gone out
of his way to further these relations. His reasons remain
embedded in a key goal of India’s foreign policy: furthering
India’s economic development. n
By siDDHARTH singH
www.openthemagazine.com 11


openings

in memoriam

Karl lagerfeld (1933-2019)

The Icon

The last eccentric genius in fashion

T

his must be the golden age of internet cat videos. Funny cat videos,
grumpy cat videos; cats on Facebook, on Youtube—as far as our eyes can
turn, they appear in the digital landscape. Who then is the most famous?
there is Grumpy Cat, often called the most pessimistic feline, whose unimpressed visage has garnered it 2.4 million followers on instagram. there is
samson or Catstradamus, a four-foot-long maine Coon Cat, larger than most
dogs. these are very popular cats appearing in movies and tV shows.
then there is Choupette, a white birman cat who if not the most famous
is certainly the most pampered, glimpsed occasionally on the parody twitter
and instagram accounts ‘ChoupettesDiary’. she has two maids, a bodyguard
and a private medical consultant, travels by private jet, and has a taste for

caviar and chicken en gelee with asparagus. how did she manage this?
Courtesy her master, of course. but Choupette is now bereaved because he,
the legendary fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, is dead.
Lagerfeld is believed to have met her late in his life, in 2011. unmarried
and childless (he was last known to be in love with Jacques de bascher,
who died from AiDs in 1989) and with a fiendish reputation for little time
outside work (he told the New Yorker mockingly, “this is another cliché—the

ap

loneliness... i have to fight to be alone... Loneliness is a
luxury for people like me”), Lagerfeld is believed to
have fallen in love with her when the original master, model baptiste Giabiconi, had him cat-sit her
for two weeks. When Giabiconi returned, Lagerfeld
refused to part with her. he told Numéro magazine
the cat stole his heart because “she is pretty to look
at and has good poise, but her main quality is that
she doesn’t talk”. by 2013, he proclaimed he would
marry her if it were legal.
An eccentric with outsize influence over fashion,
Lagerfeld was always in a uniform, if one could call it
that, ever since early 2000s. he gave himself the look,
consisting of a razor-thin black suit, white shirt,
fingerless black biker gloves and sunglasses, after
a drastic weight loss of 40 kg. his preternaturally
white hair—as white as Choupette’s fur—pulled
into a pony tail and his large belt buckle encrusted
with diamonds. he told the New Yorker he didn’t
wear t-shirts and jeans like other male designers because “i don’t think i’m too good for what i’m doing”.
Nobody helmed so many labels for so long. he

headed Chanel, Fendi and intermittently his ownname brand. before him, Chanel meant dignity and
restraint. Lagerfeld gave a bad-girl dash to it, slashing
hemlines and adding glitz to dull tweed suits, changing the direction of fashion itself. Vanity Fair wrote,
‘he injected an industry once famously fusty and
white-gloved with daring, youth and irreverence.’
he was also something of a caricature. endlessly
quotable, known for put-downs. On Paul
mcCartney’s designer daughter stella’s appointment at Chloé he said, “i think they should have
taken a big name. they did—but in music, not fashion.” he called his friend and rival Yves saint Laurent
“very middle-of-the-road French, very pied-noir, very
provincial”. Lagerfeld was also reviled—by animal
rights activists for unapologetically working with
fur (PetA uK director mimi bekhechi called him
“an undertaker”); and for his ‘sexist’ comments, like
calling Adele “a little too fat”.
even his early life story was an invention. he lied
about his birth date. september 10th, 1933, is deemed
most reliable. he claimed his father was a swede who
made a fortune importing condensed milk, and his
mother, a German ‘of culture’. Others said his father
was just another businessman and mother a lingerie
saleswoman. in one version, his family suffered
deprivations under hitler.
Who will take care of Choupette now? On
‘ChoupettesDiary’, that is a far more pressing issue
than who will take care of Chanel. n
By Lhendup g Bhutia
4 march 2019

ideas

anGLe

Courtesy aLfred eisenstaedt

The Problem
WiTh STingS

They exploit the faulty idea that anything shown on
hidden camera must be a wrongdoing
By madhavankutty piLLai

Y

Ou miGht remember a tV
advertisement in which sachin
tendulkar cheerfully says, “boost is the
secret of my energy.” before him, Kapil
Dev appeared in similar ads saying the
same thing. Did you pause to think
about the coincidence? that the energy
of indian cricket’s biggest superstars of
succeeding generations is the result of a
tablespoon of sweet brown powder with
milk. everyone knew it was just a makebelieve line to sell a product by someone
being paid for it. No one expects salman
Khan to be washing Dixcy scott underwear with Wheel detergent in real life.
When investigative website Cobrapost,
as per its own description ‘exposes three

dozen bollywood celebrities, including famous singers, comedians & actors, willing
to post messages as their personal opinion
on social media, on behalf of political parties, All for money’, the obvious question
then is, why not? tendulkar saying boost is
responsible for his energy is also a message
couched as personal opinion. the only
difference now is the product is a political
party and the platform, social media.
You could argue endorsing a political
party is different. but then you would
need to say why. should you be more concerned about eating something that goes
inside your body based on a celebrity’s recommendation or swinging to his or her
opinion on a political issue? As something
that directly affects you,what would you
want a better ethical framework for? the
endorsement of boost or political tweets?
Celebrity endorsements have been a
normal feature of modern societies for
4 march 2019

a couple of centuries now. to say social
media is another medium in which different rules must operate is absurd. the
whole point of social media, beginning
with those who created platforms like
Facebook to twitter, is the generation of
profit. People participate in it to make
money or, by being users (or a ‘count’),
they become mediums for others to
make money. A sting like this operates on
the assumption that it is a moral arena. it

is not. it is from start to end a true capitalist enterprise and it is realising its marketing potential now, a reason why people
with a wide following take such business
deals seriously when approached.
What then is Cobrapost banking on
when all that was shown are exploratory
negotiations that are neither illegal nor illegitimate? it is the power of the visual medium. the idea that because something
is shown on a hidden camera, it must be
assumed there is something wrong being
done. because someone says ‘okay’ to
make a few tweets, there is something
heinous involved. that someone asking
for a crore makes it all the more criminal,
when all that is being exposed is idiocy.
such a sting then banks on the enmity
between ideological players on social
media to pick a side and take the story’s
momentum ahead. sting journalism’s
problem, even when in public interest, is
it is bereft of any context that has not been
managed at the editing table. even civil
behaviour exhibited, like politeness as
someone hears out a proposal, makes the
person guilty of a crime that no one can
spell out but is sure about. n

romance

there are few images as iconic as
that of the sailor at times square
kissing the nurse at the end of

World War ii. the picture taken by
Alfred eisenstaedt and published
in Life magazine came to symbolise
romance. the truth, of course, was
more boring. the sailor, George
mendonsa, was drunk and out on a
date with another woman when he
dashed into the street after hearing
about the end of the war and saw
the nurse, Greta Zimmer Friedman.
her uniform apparently reminded
him of the nurses he’d served with
overseas. the kiss, as it turned out,
was non-consensual. According to
Friedman, “he was just holding me
tight... it wasn’t really a romantic
event.” mendonsa died recently.
Less than 24 hours later, a statue
recreating that moment in Florida
was found vandalised with ‘#metoo’
spray-painted over it. We don’t need
to blame the metoo movement for
ruining this moment. reality has a
way of getting into things. the kiss
was never romantic. n

Word’s Worth

‘A photograph is
usually looked at,

seldom looked into’
Ansel AdAms
american photographer

www.openthemagazine.com 13


THE RACHEL PAPERS

By Rachel Dwyer

The Indian Service Industry
Where the guest is god

F

or visitors from overseas, the biggest risk to
health in india is what i have coined: ‘militant’ hospitality. Any occasion, indeed any excuse, means
that one must press some special food and drink on
one’s guests. for extreme hospitality moments, i have tried
to master the trick of putting my arm over my plate to stop
more food being added but i am no match for a good hostess
who always manages to slip the spoon neatly underneath.
my family has always offered food and drink to any
visitor and i have a horror of running out of food for guests.
one London Book fair, i blithely said to mr D that he should
invite all his publishing friends as no one would come out
in the cold wet winter weather and they’d all have jetlag.
Eighty people showed up and all were fed and watered. i
had to recruit some assistance to wash up for multiple

settings and we were as crowded as a Bombay local in rush
hour, but we had a jolly time.
i remember visiting other Brits as a child where people
would postpone a meal, often for an agonisingly long
time, rather than invite others to join them. my mother
regarded this as rude, always asking my friends who had
dropped in if they would like to call home to say they’d be
joining us for lunch. there’s a running gag on the longrunning British radio comedy I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue,
“You’ll have had your tea”, which translates as: “so i don’t
need to offer you anything.”
i have no idea why my mother was so hospitable.
Perhaps it was just her nature. i try to keep this going,
though nowadays no one just drops by in London but we
often have people home for meals. A sense of humour and
an abandonment of perfectionism are essential, as is a
partner who pours a good glass.
in a similar vein i remember once giving a nice bottle of
14

single malt to an indian friend. i was struck when he said
to us that he wanted to share it with special friends. A Brit
once said, while giving me something similar, that we’d
want to keep it for ourselves.
i don’t buy the Brit argument that they don’t need to
return indian hospitality as it’s easy to host in india
because of servants. While it makes life easier and one can
spend more time with guests rather than taking turns to
sit with them at all times, there’s still planning to be done.
indian guests expect a different type of hospitality: a larger
number of dishes, which enables catering to many complex

food requirements. We keep it simpler. We don’t serve beef or
pork (unless requested); we separate strictly veg and non-veg;
and i always ask the egg questions: Will you eat them at all? if
you can’t see them? if they are completely concealed? We also
prepare for the stampede to leave as soon as dinner is over.
this hospitality extends to indian hotels. some of my
wealthier European friends don’t enjoy top-end indian
hotels. they complain that they’re not top-end enough and
the wine lists are poor and the food not so great. these are
not my concerns. the two main indian chains train their
staff impeccably and they also show genuine enthusiasm in
offering real service.
We tend to avoid hotels with large family groups, tour
groups and wedding parties, but still wish we could avoid
the entitled guest yelling, “Don’t you know who i am?”
(Answer, yes, an ill-mannered moron.)
We often stay in clubs which we adore, the royal Bombay
Yacht Club in particular, and independent hotels. sometimes
the coffee matters. the Neemranas are always a joy, although
i had another coffee incident in tranquebar last year with
only instant coffee. fortunately, i was restored by on tap
‘kaapi’ in the Bangala in Chettinad although i had an
4 march 2019


alarming moment when we were served western food as we
were mistaken for being part of a European tour group who
wanted soup and sandwiches. Honour was swiftly restored
in a ‘Death by paniyarams’ experience.
We tried the raas in Jodhpur on a friend’s recommendation. i responded sulkily to the apologies for the broken

coffee machine though it didn’t stop me eating a hearty
breakfast. When we left for Jaisalmer, the staff at the desk
apologised profusely. When we returned, the first thing
they told me was that the machine was repaired. they
insisted we had a top-end room to compensate. i was
mortified by my childish behaviour but they seemed
genuinely upset that they had disappointed me.
i loved the thali service at shreyas hotel when
researching the National film Archives in Pune. there
were photos of all the famous guests and i was sorely
disappointed never to feature, despite my great feat of
eating so many dahi vadas (it may have been twelve) that
the cook came out to meet me.
When i was a teenager and a junior lecturer, i stayed in
some truly awful hotels and more recently in some nasty
guesthouses. terrifying bathrooms, flickering tube lights,
smelly carpets, air conditioners (such luxury) that flashed
blue sparks, oily imprints of former guests on chairs and
sheets, unwanted flora and fauna, fans which could make
the noise of helicopter without moving the air and breakfasts
of greasy tea and soggy toast. the sorrow of the staff at serving such misery was apparent on their dirty clothes adding to
the odour of disappointment at failing to be hospitable.
i have been welcomed in so many homes in india that i
can never reply the kindness shown. i would never invite a
traveller in to use the bathroom, yet this has happened often
to me when travelling in non-touristy areas in Kerala and
odisha. When i was researching my PhD on the Gujarati
poet, Kavi Dayaram, i visited his hometown of Dabhoi. i
drank 17 cups of tea that day as a refusal was met with ‘Well,
you did in the last place you visited.’

my friends have lavished hospitality on me, remembering
my love for dal and anything with a pulse (groan), making
me my favourite dishes. Even those who prefer a risotto will
take me to eat chaat even if they don’t indulge themselves.
the tradition of hospitality goes back to ancient india.
in the mahabharata, Kunti welcomes the sage Durvasas
into her father’s home and he rewards her with a mantra
to give birth to sons. the same sage, who is described as
‘sulabhakopa’ (quick to anger) cursed shankuntala for
failing to show him proper hospitality. the curse was that
the one whose memory distracted her (Dushyanta) would
forget her. only her friends’ pleas persuaded the sage to
allow a token of recognition to lift the curse so that her
husband would recognise her.
one of my favourite film clips of tales from the
mahabharata is a story of mahasati savitri. savitri has
unexpected visitors in the ashram whom she cannot feed.
4 march 2019

she prays to a cow on whose body the gods are manifest,
with Annapurna Devi sending forth thalis, mats, and
maidens to fan the guests to redeem the family’s honour.
in the film Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge? a distant relation from
Gorakhpur visits a family in mumbai. the greatest of his
many disasters is to destroy a film set he visits. Although the
family are driven to distraction by his behaviour, when they
discover it was all a mistake and he isn’t a relative at all, they
have become so fond of their guest that they decide that he
is an honorary relative and ask him to stay on with them.
twenty years ago, a friend and i flew to Lucknow as we

In AtIthI tum KAb JAoge? A
dIstAnt relAtIon vIsIts A fAmIly
In mumbAI. Although the fAmIly
Are drIven to dIstrActIon by hIs
behAvIour, when they dIscover
It wAs All A mIstAKe And he Isn’t
A relAtIve At All, they hAve
become so fond of hIm thAt
they decIde he Is An honorAry
relAtIve And AsK hIm to stAy on

were invited by the son of a landed family to their ancestral
palace in UP. We were surprised not to be met at the airport
nor the family’s palace in Lucknow, but were warmly welcomed after a five-hour road journey to the palace. We were
shown our rooms after an amazing dinner and then as we
sat on the terrace, our host asked politely who we were and
why we had come as no one had informed him of our visit.
truly in india, ‘Atithi devo bhava’. n
www.openthemagazine.com 15


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open essay

By sunanda K datta-ray

the iron sister

W

The strongwoman with a human face

hile others tried to outdo the Bharatiya Janata Party in belching fire and brimstone at
Pakistan or retreated into cowed silence, Mamata Banerjee lashed out at Narendra Modi in terms
that recalled Émile Zola’s ‘J’Accuse!’, the letter that famously led to the end of that shameful outburst
of prejudice and persecution that was France’s dreyfus scandal.
‘Most people start their life with an aim,’ Banerjee once wrote. ‘i too had a dream. Mine was to do
something different—to look at politics from a humanitarian angle.’ And so she did in challenging
Modi on the timing of the Pulwama tragedy, its relevance to the lok sabha election, the massive
“intelligence failure” it revealed, and insufficient respect shown to the victims. Yet, even in her fury the
Bengali Chief Minister is not unlike the Gujarati Prime Minister. Both are intensely political, proudly
solitary, sharply incisive. didi, elder sister, is Modi with a human face. her “What was the national security advisor doing?” wasn’t a
question. it was a blistering indictment. that perception enables her in these dire times to appreciate omar Abdullah’s plea that “Kashmir isn’t just a piece of land, it’s the people that inhabit it” and seek a humanitarian solution to the most daunting challenge india faces.

she alone dares to broadcast what others mutter in secrecy for fear of provoking vengeful authority. her criticism of the Prime
Minister for inaugurating projects just after the killings broke the taboo on personal strictures against Modi. the media savaged
indira Gandhi who was worldly enough to take criticism in her stride. But the life insurance Corporation’s suspension of an
employee in durgapur or the charges slapped on a Guwahati college teacher confirm that today’s authority hits back hard. didi is
prepared to take the risk because she cares.
she is no goongi gudiya. But, then, indira Gandhi soon shrieked out of court ram Manohar lohia’s dismissal of her as a dumb doll.
Mamata Banerjee is equally vociferous. she is no doll either. she is calculatingly impetuous, humbly haughty, austere and
flamboyant, a daughter of the people bundled in a cotton sari flip-flopping up the greasy pole in rubber slippers as she has done
ever since 1984 when an unknown young girl felled the mighty somnath Chatterjee.
since the illusory mahagathbandhan hasn’t chosen a leader (nor decided on its foot soldiers), she can’t be called prime minister-inwaiting. But—echoes of the ‘historic blunder’ that denied Jyoti Basu the ultimate accolade—the BJP’s Bengal satrap, dilip Ghosh, says,
“if there is any Bengali who has the chance to be the PM, then she is the one.” the compliment could be a trap. having had so many unlikely political bedfellows, didi understands devious machinations to subvert the opposition alliance. she once knotted a black shawl
round her neck at a mammoth rally and threatened to strangle herself because she suspected the Congress of being secretly in cahoots
with the CPM. her suicidal dramas, like her indefinite fasts, begin in a blaze of raucous publicity, but peter out in silent obscurity.
the year after she became Chief Minister Time magazine named her one of the ‘100 Most influential People in the World’. Bill
Gates praised her eradication of polio as a milestone not only for india but the world. Unlike many successful female politicians, she
did not need a man or a murder (multiple murders in hasina Wazed’s case) to rise. her reticence on prime ministerial yearnings recalls Morarji desai who snapped at the reporter who asked if he wanted the top job, “don’t you want to be editor?” she didn’t repudiate
Anna hazare who backed her for the position. instead, she dismissed the notion of a third Front—the mahagathbandhan of that era—
18

4 march 2019


Bolshevik, with that name?), without so much as
a by-your-leave to the trinamool Congress chief.
thankfully, she nipped in the bud subversive
plans to pair Kolkata with Kunming. some colleagues might have hoped that with darjeeling
in ferment, the lakes and hills of Yunnan would
provide pleasant alternative r&r. But just as didi
boasts of creating london and Paris in Kolkata,
she can create Yunnan and Kunming too. if the

trip hadn’t fallen through, a replica Great Wall
of China might have snaked its way through the
dereliction of tangra. it would have joined copies
of Big Ben and the eiffel tower (and perhaps one
day a giant Ferris wheel like the london eye) to
confirm Kolkata lives on imitation.
that’s modernity for a woman who proudly
flaunts her lower-middle-class origins. she may
not be sure of her birthday, but has her finger on
the public pulse. it’s only Kolkata’s indignant
elite that accuses her of leasing pavements to vendors, painting the city blue and white, slapping

SHE IS CALCULATINGLY
IMPETUOUS, HUMBLY HAUGHTY,
AUSTERE AND FLAMBOYANT,
A DAUGHTER OF THE PEOPLE
BUNDLED IN A COTTON SARI
FLIP-FLOPPING UP THE GREASY
POLE IN RUBBER SLIPPERS AS
SHE HAS DONE EVER SINCE 1984
WHEN AN UNKNOWN YOUNG
GIRL FELLED THE MIGHTY
SOMNATH CHATTERJEE
getty images

as “third class” and sought a “federal front” which she could
dominate. Understanding the dangers of a one-to-one contest
between Modi and rahul Gandhi, she sees herself as destiny’s
instrument to cleanse the land of saffron as she rid Bengal of red.
the last-minute cancellation of last year’s trip to China

because she would not meet people of the “appropriate level”
betokened confidence in her destiny. india’s potential prime
minister refused to hobnob with anyone lower than the seven
members of the standing committee of the Communist Party
of China. she has to be strict with Marxists and Maoists, her favourite terms of abuse. Adding insult to injury, india’s foremost
Marxist, sitaram Yechury, forged a pre-poll alliance with the
dravida Munnetra Kazhagam President MK stalin (surely a
4 march 2019

gold paint on stately colonial edifices, and festooning lamp
posts with twinkling lights. Clearly, her pet contractors cheat
her right, left and centre, for the paint is peeling and many
lights have fallen off. What remains gives villagers something
to gawp at in addition to Kalighat, the Victoria Memorial and
Jadu Ghar, the Museum. With them behind her, didi thumbs
her nose at snooty critics.
like Modi, she doesn’t take kindly to criticism. A farmer was
branded Maoist and jailed for asking inconvenient questions
about rising fertiliser prices at a public rally; an academic was
both assaulted and arrested for posting a critical cartoon on the
internet. she has stalked out of a national television talk show.
in her rumbustious lok sabha days, she dragged durga Prasad
www.openthemagazine.com 19


open essay

saroj, a samajwadi Party MP, by his shirt
of ‘Mumtaz Banerjee’ by offering namaaz
DESPITE OCCASIONAL

collar from the well of the house for
in a burkha, finding legal loopholes to
BLUNDERS,
daring to question the Women’s repregive mullahs an allowance, and claimMAMATA BANERJEE
sentation Bill. on another occasion, she
ing to have fulfilled 90 per cent of the
flung her shawl at ram Vilas Paswan,
sachar Committee’s recommendations,
HASN’T ABANDONED HER
then Union railway minister, for supMamata Banerjee must feel particularly
PROMISE ‘TO LOOK AT
posedly ignoring Bengal’s needs.
concerned. reports of Muslims who
POLITICS FROM A
A red band round her head (like the
abandoned the CPM for trinamool
red ribbon round empress Josephine’s
HUMANITARIAN ANGLE’
defecting to the BJP seem like betrayal.
neck which the guillotine nearly sevNone of this would have mattered
ered) advertised her escape from Marxist
much if the promised poriborton, change,
murderers. i listened to her roundly
had taken place. Yes, villages now have
abusing Basu at the indian Chamber of Commerce just before
potable water, electricity and better roads. But trinamool’s
the patrician Marxist stepped down. “only wearing a dhoti
manifesto spoke of turning rivers into highways, of Bengal as an
doesn’t make one a bhadralok, gentleman!” was her cutting fina‘export hub’ and ‘logistics hub’ with ‘a transport corridor’ from
le, delivered to fervent applause by businessmen and industrialPunjab to ‘Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and the entire Northeast

ists who had applauded Basu the previous day. her latest dharna
region’. didi promised a ‘scientific land map for every district’
during which she held Cabinet meetings in a police outpost and
with agricultural and industrial land clearly identified. industry
distributed gallantry medals from a makeshift roadside dais
is still shy, jobs are scarce and educated young Bengalis have no
confirmed that—as with Modi—politics’ gain is theatre’s loss.
option but to migrate to other states. even the labouring classes
have little employment when the only visible economic activity
is building condominiums for which there are few takers.
AMAtA BANerJee stANds with indira Gandhi and
For someone with the common touch, Mamata Banerjee
israel’s Golda Meir as “the only man in her Cabinet”. even
sometimes seems strangely unsympathetic. her initial
colleagues who badmouth her privately like lord Carrington,
response to the saradha scam was “Ja gechey ta gechey…” (What’s
Britain’s foreign secretary who once described his boss, Margaret
gone is gone) although she did then create a rs 500-crore relief
thatcher, as that “fucking stupid, petit bourgeois woman” love
fund. introducing a new tobacco tax to raise money for victims,
her. Partha Chatterjee, the industries minister, praised her so
she urged people to smoke more. it was “a petty matter” when
effusively in singapore that “singaporeans thought he might
a student died in police custody. she dismissed a horrendous
have been speaking of the Goddess durga”. A Western high
rape in fashionable Park street as a “saajaano ghatana” or put-up
commissioner visiting Calcutta noted that Amit Mitra cancelled
job. When middle-aged trinamool leaders dragged out and
their confirmed appointment as soon as he discovered the Chief
assaulted the principal of raiganj College, she said the culprits

Minister wasn’t seeing him. she gives officials a patient hearing
were only “chhoto baachchaas” (small children). More recently,
but they are not sure she even hears what they say. she treats her
she accused her enemies of “making a mountain out of a moleparty with contempt knowing that the businessmen, writers,
hill to tarnish the image of Bengal” when policemen stormed
artists, actors and civil servants who clambered aboard her bandJadavpur University in the dead of night to attack peaceful
wagon when she swept like a hurricane through the state would
student protestors who wanted a fresh probe into a girl’s
just as happily serve the left Front, Congress or BJP. didi has no
complaint of sexual harassment. these lapses won’t cost her
confidantes outside her family. rumours abound about the inthe top job. What will is the emerging convention that failing a
fluence exercised by her brothers and nephew, a trinamool MP.
single-party majority, the President should first invite the head
saradha could be her downfall. Few of the more than 1.7
of the largest pre-poll alliance. that demands a mahagathbandmillion investors—mainly low-income families—duped by
han before the election with her at its head. the obstacles and
swindlers in more than 200 saradha companies have got their
objections to that are obvious.
money back. ready to believe the worst of didi’s aides—not of
despite occasional blunders, Mamata Banerjee hasn’t
her personally—they provide the BJP’s ammunition. “When a
abandoned her promise “to look at politics from a humanitarfew thousand farmers lost their land in singur and Nandigram,
ian angle”. Amidst the upsurge of rattling sabres, boiling blood
didi fasted for days,” Amit shah taunts. “But now that 17 lakh
and hearts bursting with anger, she alone thought of the last
poor people have lost their deposits to the saradha scam, why
rites for the dead jawans. Why were they not despatched with
don’t you feel like fasting?” he has the answer. “You are not fastthe honour given to politicians? “i demand 72 hours mourning
ing because it’s your cronies who are involved in the scam.” one
for the ultimate sacrifice of the soldiers,” she thundered. “only

of them, Ahmed hassan imran in the rajya sabha, is accused of
one flag is not enough.” her politics is steeped in compassion. n
diverting saradha funds to the Jamaat-e-islami in Bangladesh.
Sunanda K Datta-Ray is a journalist and author of several books.
the BJP’s creeping rise is another worry. it could herald the
He is an open contributor
return of communal polarisation. having earned the nickname

M

20

4 march 2019



Cov e r S t ory
Pa k i s ta n

We heard the same denials.
Jinnah did not ‘know anything’
about the raiders of 1947;
Ayub Khan feigned ignorance
of Operation Gibraltar;
General Zia-ul-Haq insisted
that he had nothing to do with

Khalistan secessionists; Nawaz
Sharif claimed he was hoodwinked
by his own generals during Kargil;

and Pervez Musharraf was
‘innocent’ as masterminds in
Pakistan ran the barbaric assault on
Mumbai in 2008. Today, Imran Khan
sings the same tune and demands
“actionable evidence”. How can the
wilfully blind and the consciously deaf
see or hear evidence? To go down that
route of trust is to participate in fraud.
By MJ akBar


ImRan khan


Cov e r S t ory
Pa k i s ta n

F

Smoke bIllowS fRom a ReSIdentIal
buIldIng wheRe mIlItantS had taken Refuge
duRIng a gun battle In PIngIlana vIllage of
Pulwama dIStRIct on febRuaRy 18

getty images

The time has come
to aver that the integration
of Kashmir into India

is a closed chapter.
We must take it off the
agenda of talks. There is
nothing to discuss with
Islamabad, except the
withdrawal of its troops
from ‘Occupied Kashmir’
Every Kashmiri is
an Indian citizen.
There is no such thing
as a ‘special’ Indian or a
‘conditional’ citizen.
Then why should such a
qualified status be given
to a province which is
an equal member of the
Union of India?

or hiStory buffS, Gibraltar is the last outpost of a british
empire that once stretched from the West indies to hong Kong.
for indians, Gibraltar should be an indelible part of national
memory. it was twice used as a signature codename in Pakistan’s 72-year Jihad against india.
there is a misconception in some quarters that Pakistan
turned to ‘war by other means’ or a ‘hybrid war’ only after its decisive defeat in the 1971 war. Pakistan has been using terrorists,
both in militia formation and in small cells, since october 1947.
Pakistan described that first offensive as a ‘jihad’ and used the
term as inspirational fodder for recruits. for over seven decades,
Pakistan has tried to seize Kashmir through a combination of
covert terrorism dressed up in a theocratic idiom, duplicity,
denial, false narratives, formal war and the constant drumbeat

of deceptive diplomacy.
Patterns established in 1947 echo down to 2019. the political leadership maintains hypocritical ignorance in its public
stance, and gives the nod in secret. the Pakistan Army always
claims that the violence is part of a ‘popular uprising’, while its
officers and men arm and train terrorists in clandestine camps.
the use of ‘Gibraltar’ as a codename was neither whimsical
nor accidental.
Gibraltar is a corruption of Jebel al tariq, Arabic for ‘Mount
of tariq’. in 711 Ce, a small army of berber Muslims led by tariq
bin Zaid landed on this tiny Spanish island dominated by a famous 1,398-foot-high rock, and located on the northern mouth
of the Mediterranean. the first thing that Zaid did was burn
the ships that had brought his force. the message was clear:
victory or death. tariq’s famous victory over the visigoths
created a launch pad for Arab rule over the iberian peninsula,
which lasted till the last sigh of the Moor at Alhambra in 1462,
or seven-and-a-half centuries later.
in 1947, the Pakistani army officer who led the planning
and operations in the first invasion of Jammu and Kashmir,
Colonel Akbar Khan, was its director of weapons and equipment at General headquarters in rawalpindi. but since deceit
was at the heart of this operation, he was given an alias: ‘General
tariq’. the government and army wanted in 1947 what they
continue to want in 2019: deniability.
Pakistan founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s first strategic
decision was to seize the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir
through war. the second decision was that this would be a war

4 march 2019


www.openthemagazine.com 25

getty images

In its nascent phase,
Pakistan had
a dysfunctional
administration, negligible
resources and a
massive humanitarian
refugee crisis. And yet
Jinnah and his acolytes,
particularly in the military,
could only think of war

caPtuRed Pathan tRIbeSmen
at SRInagaR aIRPoRt, 1947

ap

of terror. there would be no formal declaration of war. ‘General tariq’ was put in charge. When hostilities began, Colonel
Khan was posted as military adviser to Liaquat Ali Khan, to
smoothen the line of command between the Prime Minister
and the invaders.
Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan presided over the long
meeting where a plan called ‘Armed revolt inside Kashmir’
was finalised. finance Minister Ghulam Mohammad joined
this meeting for a while. A Military intelligence assessment by
Colonel M Sher Khan factored in the possibility of an indian
Army intervention, but concluded that it would not be able to
respond until the spring of 1948 because of the Kashmir winter.

the plan was to arm and train some 5,000 tribals, mobilised
from the frontier region, and unleash them across the Kashmir border in a campaign of terror and territory. they would
pretend to be Kashmiris seeking ‘liberation’ from the ‘hindu
rule’ of Maharaja hari Singh.
Confirmation of this deception comes from a british source
as well. Sir George Cunningham, then governor of the North
West frontier Province, wrote in his diary on october 17th,
1947, that he had been informed by a member of his staff that
‘there is a real movement in hazara for a jihad against Kashmir’.
there were more details in the entry, including the fact that
rifles had been collected for the operation.
the manner in which these rifles were obtained provides a
clue to the Pakistani mindset in 1947. the invaders had asked
for 500 rifles, but Colonel Khan knew that this would be inadequate. he commandeered, with the help of the local administration, 4,000 rifles sanctioned for the Punjab police. these
rifles would have helped the police curb communal riots still
raging across the land. but riots were not a priority for Pakistan.
A war over Kashmir was.
on october 20th, 1947, Pakistan announced an economic
blockade against Jammu and Kashmir, further confirming its
government’s role as sponsor and strategist. At first light on
october 23rd, just a little more than nine weeks after freedom,
Pakistan launched what would be the first Jihad after World
War ii. Pakistan was already responding to its theocratic genes.
Liaquat Ali Khan’s role is not disputed. but some apologists
for Jinnah try and slice him out of the framework of responsibility. Shuja Nawaz, whose brother Asif Nawaz rose to become
the Pakistani army’s chief in August 1991, writes in his book,
Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army and the Wars Within: ‘Given
the nature of the Prime Minister’s relationship with Mr Jinnah, it seems unlikely that all this planning was being done
without Mr Jinnah’s tacit approval...’ Doubtless, if the raiders
had captured Srinagar, Jinnah would have been given a starring

role in every Pakistani school-text as a military genius.
As Lord Mountbatten told ian Stephens, then editor of the
Statesman, on october 28th, 1947, “Jinnah at Abbottabad...
had been expecting to ride in triumph into Kashmir...he had
been frustrated...” (quoted in Mission with Mountbatten by Alan
Campbell-Johnson, the viceroy’s head of personal staff and
press attaché).

At first light on 23rd
October, 1947, just a little
more than nine weeks
after freedom, Pakistan
launched what would
be the first Jihad after
World War II. Pakistan
was already responding
to its theocratic genes