Yes, this is
November 25, 2007
Can we bridge the “Digital Divide”?
In the poverty stricken Nangla Maachi slum in New Delhi Delhi
October 11, 2007
Of Momentous Heroes & An Uncertain Nation
In Delhi the best place to look for ‘affordable’ continental food are the small restaurants in Paharganj. I happen to visit Paharganj recently and went out to have lunch (picture of Lasagne floating in my head) with a friend at one such restaurant. The place was not very crowded but what struck me was the fact that in the 20 odd people sitting there we were the only Desis and rest ‘white’ Videshi. In minutes I saw a few more blonde heads trickle in and a dreadlocked head move out of the door. While I was chatting with my friend arguing about what to order the waiter kept on hanging around our table to get our order, the food on other tables was conspicuous by its absence.
भारत
The fact that the waiter (a 15-16 yr old lad) never bothered to ask the man with white skin about his order, while he kept on hounding us for full 20 minutes that we took for ordering the pre-ordained Lasagne opened my eyes to a bitter reality. I saw a society that still believes that they are the “White Man’s Burden”. If one starts introspecting after 60 years of independence the failure to exorcise the colonial ghost and an inherent inferiority complex when compared to ‘them’ has been the biggest failure of India as a society. The silver lining in this otherwise gloomy cloud of hopelessness have been individuals who have shone through their abilities and intellect and have shown them what we are all about.
The Heroes
Not counting the Nehru’s, Patel’s and the man called Gandhi, there was one man called V K Krishna Menon. After being appointed India’s first high commissioner to the UK in 1947 he had a huge responsibility on his shoulders to represent our nation in the country which had ruled us for almost two centuries. He performed his duty with utmost dignity and established himself as a distinguished ambassador. He never cared about the overtly patronising nature of the British society in general towards India and on occasion he let them know that they are dealing with one of the finest brains in the Indian politics.
One such incident is of a lady from British aristocracy who asked the London School of Economics educated Menon, how he can speak such articulately in English. Menon retorted, “Ma’am I happen to have studied this language, which you merely have picked!” Also on 23rd January 1957 Krishna Menon, then the head of Indian delegation to the UN, delivered an unprecedented 8-hour speech defending India’s stand on Kashmir and vociferously criticizing the United States. To date, Krishna Menon’s speech is the longest ever delivered in the United Nations Security Council.
Cricket despite being a relic of the British era had become a religion of sorts in post-independent India. In 1951 when India defeated their past masters at their own game in Madras (now Chennai) by an innings and 8 runs, the skipper Vijay Hazare was put on a heavenly pedestal. But still it was a team comprising of gentlemen who just played the game and when confronted by barrage of expletives (and bouncers) from their English counter-parts they preferred to sway away from the line. In 1971 Pakistan wasn’t the only nation cowering from the onslaught launched by India. We beat them in their own backyard for the first time and the reason we were able to do that was the team’s self belief and its ability to stand up to their erstwhile colonial masters as equals. The white cricketer was shown his place by players like Dilip Sardesai, Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev and later Sachin Tendulkar amongst others. But nobody did it as emphatically as Saurav Ganguly. After rubbing (snooty??) stalwart of the game Steve Waugh the wrong way during the home series in 2001 (which by the way India won!), Ganguly went to England and did a ‘semi-nude victory jig’ in the hallowed Lord’s balcony.
It made Ganguly an icon for this star-starved nation for next few years and ensured that this incident will be firmly etched on the memory of anyone who saw ‘Dada’ swirling his t-shirt and telling the Englishmen what exactly to do next! It also became the face of the new aggressive India that was dynamic and wasn’t ready to be cowed down by the colour of the skin of his opposing number. From that day onwards we have finally learnt to play our game differently and have ceased to be the docile ‘good boys’ of the game. But have the people, who deify these very players, being able to make that attitude shift that apparently the Indian cricketer has made? The simple answer of this difficult question is no.
We still feel blessed if a European tourist enquires about the way to the lavatory from us while the African students are called names while they travel using the public transport. It’s as if that we have accepted the supremacy of the white skinned and the English speaking over us. By imposing a cultural hegemony of sorts on us through language and various other Medias, the ‘West’ has been successful in its endeavour to turn us into a nation of ‘Brown Sahebs’. As the father of Western Education in India Thomas Babington Macaulay visualised we are turning into a nation of “…Indian in blood and colour, but English (read Western) in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.”
Language is the most important vehicle to assert identity and by loosing it or corrupting it we are loosing ourselves. Studying English language isn’t bad but learning it at the cost of your own mother tongue leaves a kind of void in one’s personality and similarly appreciating western culture is fine till the time you are at least aware of your own roots. When the later condition is not fulfilled then we get a generation of disjointed individuals floating in nothingness in a dazed condition searching for their own space, their own identity.
Our trepidation for the white skin manifests from this colonised mind which forces us to automatically cow down in front of an otherwise a normal white person. We are looking for fair skinned people even amongst our own community, so you see those horribly absurd and rather bemusing matrimonial adverts looking for a ‘fair groom’. It throws the conventional ‘tall, DARK, handsome’ norm for a man’s attractiveness out of the window. The only party not complaining here are the ‘fairness cream’ manufacturers who have sold more millions of tonnes of cream, both to men & women.
We need to realise that it is crippling us intellectually, morally, emotionally and spiritually. Embracing the so-called modern world at the cost of loosing one’s identity, culture and sense of individuality may not be such a sensible thing to do. The process of decolonising the Indian mind might take some time but we can make a start by putting a stop on giving out those absurd matrimonial adverts and trying to judge an individual on parameters other than his skin colour.
भारत
The fact that the waiter (a 15-16 yr old lad) never bothered to ask the man with white skin about his order, while he kept on hounding us for full 20 minutes that we took for ordering the pre-ordained Lasagne opened my eyes to a bitter reality. I saw a society that still believes that they are the “White Man’s Burden”. If one starts introspecting after 60 years of independence the failure to exorcise the colonial ghost and an inherent inferiority complex when compared to ‘them’ has been the biggest failure of India as a society. The silver lining in this otherwise gloomy cloud of hopelessness have been individuals who have shone through their abilities and intellect and have shown them what we are all about.
The Heroes
Not counting the Nehru’s, Patel’s and the man called Gandhi, there was one man called V K Krishna Menon. After being appointed India’s first high commissioner to the UK in 1947 he had a huge responsibility on his shoulders to represent our nation in the country which had ruled us for almost two centuries. He performed his duty with utmost dignity and established himself as a distinguished ambassador. He never cared about the overtly patronising nature of the British society in general towards India and on occasion he let them know that they are dealing with one of the finest brains in the Indian politics.
One such incident is of a lady from British aristocracy who asked the London School of Economics educated Menon, how he can speak such articulately in English. Menon retorted, “Ma’am I happen to have studied this language, which you merely have picked!” Also on 23rd January 1957 Krishna Menon, then the head of Indian delegation to the UN, delivered an unprecedented 8-hour speech defending India’s stand on Kashmir and vociferously criticizing the United States. To date, Krishna Menon’s speech is the longest ever delivered in the United Nations Security Council.
Cricket despite being a relic of the British era had become a religion of sorts in post-independent India. In 1951 when India defeated their past masters at their own game in Madras (now Chennai) by an innings and 8 runs, the skipper Vijay Hazare was put on a heavenly pedestal. But still it was a team comprising of gentlemen who just played the game and when confronted by barrage of expletives (and bouncers) from their English counter-parts they preferred to sway away from the line. In 1971 Pakistan wasn’t the only nation cowering from the onslaught launched by India. We beat them in their own backyard for the first time and the reason we were able to do that was the team’s self belief and its ability to stand up to their erstwhile colonial masters as equals. The white cricketer was shown his place by players like Dilip Sardesai, Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev and later Sachin Tendulkar amongst others. But nobody did it as emphatically as Saurav Ganguly. After rubbing (snooty??) stalwart of the game Steve Waugh the wrong way during the home series in 2001 (which by the way India won!), Ganguly went to England and did a ‘semi-nude victory jig’ in the hallowed Lord’s balcony.
It made Ganguly an icon for this star-starved nation for next few years and ensured that this incident will be firmly etched on the memory of anyone who saw ‘Dada’ swirling his t-shirt and telling the Englishmen what exactly to do next! It also became the face of the new aggressive India that was dynamic and wasn’t ready to be cowed down by the colour of the skin of his opposing number. From that day onwards we have finally learnt to play our game differently and have ceased to be the docile ‘good boys’ of the game. But have the people, who deify these very players, being able to make that attitude shift that apparently the Indian cricketer has made? The simple answer of this difficult question is no.
We still feel blessed if a European tourist enquires about the way to the lavatory from us while the African students are called names while they travel using the public transport. It’s as if that we have accepted the supremacy of the white skinned and the English speaking over us. By imposing a cultural hegemony of sorts on us through language and various other Medias, the ‘West’ has been successful in its endeavour to turn us into a nation of ‘Brown Sahebs’. As the father of Western Education in India Thomas Babington Macaulay visualised we are turning into a nation of “…Indian in blood and colour, but English (read Western) in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.”
Language is the most important vehicle to assert identity and by loosing it or corrupting it we are loosing ourselves. Studying English language isn’t bad but learning it at the cost of your own mother tongue leaves a kind of void in one’s personality and similarly appreciating western culture is fine till the time you are at least aware of your own roots. When the later condition is not fulfilled then we get a generation of disjointed individuals floating in nothingness in a dazed condition searching for their own space, their own identity.
Our trepidation for the white skin manifests from this colonised mind which forces us to automatically cow down in front of an otherwise a normal white person. We are looking for fair skinned people even amongst our own community, so you see those horribly absurd and rather bemusing matrimonial adverts looking for a ‘fair groom’. It throws the conventional ‘tall, DARK, handsome’ norm for a man’s attractiveness out of the window. The only party not complaining here are the ‘fairness cream’ manufacturers who have sold more millions of tonnes of cream, both to men & women.
We need to realise that it is crippling us intellectually, morally, emotionally and spiritually. Embracing the so-called modern world at the cost of loosing one’s identity, culture and sense of individuality may not be such a sensible thing to do. The process of decolonising the Indian mind might take some time but we can make a start by putting a stop on giving out those absurd matrimonial adverts and trying to judge an individual on parameters other than his skin colour.
September 29, 2007
Regulation not Control
The biggest problem with the present broadcasting bill is that it confuses regulation with control. Censorship of media is undesirable and unhealthy for a democratic country like India but an unregulated media can cause havoc, latest example being the Uma Khurana ‘sting’ that’s unfolding in Delhi. This incident has again highlighted the power of the broadcast media and has shown how ‘power without responsibility’ can end up adding fuel to a mob’s fury.
In the 21st century television as a medium has cross-country reach and this fact alone makes it the presence of a system to regulate the television media a necessity. A body is required that can haul up erring news channels and if required has the necessary powers to punish them as well. But even the thought of an army of Babus’ running that ‘regulatory body’ is really unpleasant.
Government’s bid to impose itself on media through legislation should be thwarted in strongest possible manner. But for the media to continuously croon that “We don’t need no regulation, we don’t need no thought control” is rather juvenile. The stakeholders in the media and the govt need to sit and brainstorm together to come up with a mutually acceptable plan. Initially it may look as complex as the Kashmir issue but at the end of the day all one need is honest intent and clarity in thought. And a nationwide debate involving all stakeholders like government and political parties, representatives from media, civil society organisations and the public might just help.
PS: With great power comes great responsibility…but unaccountable power corrupts.
In the 21st century television as a medium has cross-country reach and this fact alone makes it the presence of a system to regulate the television media a necessity. A body is required that can haul up erring news channels and if required has the necessary powers to punish them as well. But even the thought of an army of Babus’ running that ‘regulatory body’ is really unpleasant.
Government’s bid to impose itself on media through legislation should be thwarted in strongest possible manner. But for the media to continuously croon that “We don’t need no regulation, we don’t need no thought control” is rather juvenile. The stakeholders in the media and the govt need to sit and brainstorm together to come up with a mutually acceptable plan. Initially it may look as complex as the Kashmir issue but at the end of the day all one need is honest intent and clarity in thought. And a nationwide debate involving all stakeholders like government and political parties, representatives from media, civil society organisations and the public might just help.
PS: With great power comes great responsibility…but unaccountable power corrupts.
September 9, 2007
Demystifying Cyberia
Internet has become our virtual world and social networking sites like Orkut, Facebook, MySpace among many others are acting as tools that bind people together. But if you think that these sites are just another way to reach out to friends and colleagues then think again! Social networking sites on the Internet not only serve as a meeting ground for like-minded people, but also defy the geographical boundaries between them. They enable you to interact with people who share similar tastes and interests.
Online Networking has moved on from being just another fad to a social phenomenon and an influential one at that. Let’s just look at some bare facts- Google’s highly popular social networking platform Orkut was launched in January 2004. By the end of July 2004 it had crossed the 1 million member mark and the latest figures suggest that Orkut has more that 67,000,000 members (Wikipedia rocks!!). Similarly MySpace has about 70 million users spread all across the globe. The numbers definitely are mind boggling.
Networking Blues
Any networking site is similar to each other in a way as during the initial sign up process members are asked to provide their basic information. This includes small bits of general information like favourite music, cinema genre, books, TV shows to some more personal details like contact number, address to even sexual orientation. Although all information supplied is optional for the user, according to rapidly evolving but basically amorphous ‘cyber ethics’ it’s uncool to appear coy in the virtual world. Instant gratification is the biggest incentive through virtual friends and concocted affections are one of the biggest USP of online camaraderie and by being prude the individual creates a barrier around him/her.
Till this point everything is good but the moment any over-enthusiastic user makes sensitive information like personal contact details (like mobile number/e-mail id) or sexual proclivities public the situation gets a bit problematic. Caution is something we practice in our daily lives as any of natural tendency. Strangely the moment we ‘log-in’ to our online profile we let our guard down. People easily part with their telephone numbers and share pictures with a perfect stranger about whose identity/background we can never be sure of. The knowledge that the incognito of anonymity will aid their misdeeds has endeared the web to mischief makers but is that a fault of the medium?
Don’t Shoot the Messenger
The recent spurt of cyber crimes (‘Orkut Crimes’ as the Indian media calls it) has resulted in calls from certain section of society that these sites be either regulated or shut-down. Now we don’t shoot the messenger who delivers a bad news! Similarly we need to understand that the web and the networking sites are just a medium and not the reason of the crimes. Orkut, which happens to be the most popular networking site in India, has recently been involved in various controversies. According to statistics available with the Delhi Police, a total of 17 cases related to hacking, obscenity, e-commerce fraud and Internet-related crimes were registered in 2006 from Delhi NCR region. Now this is a substantial number in a country where there are only 2 personal computers per 100 people! These figures don’t mean that the spurt in the popularity levels of social networking sites are the bane of the web world, especially in India. What they mean is that our Cyber laws are ambiguous and inadequate to curb modern day cyber crimes. What we really need is to be more aware and get a hang of these new technological forms. It is very easy to blame technology for everything but while doing so what we forget is that is just a reflection of what’s going on in the real world.
Networking for a Cause
Innumerable political and civil strife have ensured that at any given time there are millions of refugees spread across the length and breadth of the globe. This pain is shared only by those who have suffered it or witnessed it first hand. In such circumstances internet becomes a really powerful and effective medium for these people to share their experience and sometimes to form a kind of public opinion for their cause. The example of Tibetan people living in India explains this phenomenon effectively.
A sizeable numbers of Tibetans call India home for past two-three generations now but still their status here is that of refugees and also they are very particular about maintaining a separate identity for all these decades. The current net savvy generation is now taking the protest against Chinese occupation to their homeland inside the World Wide Web. Their community on Orkut and Hi5 is growing at an exponential rate and the depth of discussion that is being held on these communities is simply amazing.
No doubt it is a two edged weapon as this very platform is also used for carrying hate campaigns and spreading communalism. On October 10, 2006 Mumbai High Court's Aurangabad bench served a notice on Google for allowing a hate campaign against India, refering to a community on Orkut called 'We Hate India'. Similarly politicians like Arjun Singh and Mayawati have been targeted by individuals for various reasons and despite legal notices nothing substantial have come out of it.
Now What?
The unfortunate death of the Mumbai lad Adnan Patrawala could very well have been avoided had he taken some other friend or family member to meet his Orkut friends. Social networking sites encourage people to make ‘virtual friends’ and allows them to do so in an uninhibited manner i.e. without the fear of them being judged on the basis of their appearance etc. But everyone has to draw a line when it comes to sharing personal information with a stranger, how so ever friendly he may seem. Finally to conclude on a bright note, a study commissioned in US by the National School Boards Association surveyed students between nine and 17 years as well as parents and teachers to find out the number of people who have faced a cyber stalker or has been victimised through any of the social networking sites. The report said over 96 per cent of students with online access used one of these social networking services but only 0.08% actually met a person they got acquainted with online. So the bottom-line of the whole issue is a guideline for parents (ya even the overbearing ones!)-give your children space to grow but don’t leave them alone!
Online Networking has moved on from being just another fad to a social phenomenon and an influential one at that. Let’s just look at some bare facts- Google’s highly popular social networking platform Orkut was launched in January 2004. By the end of July 2004 it had crossed the 1 million member mark and the latest figures suggest that Orkut has more that 67,000,000 members (Wikipedia rocks!!). Similarly MySpace has about 70 million users spread all across the globe. The numbers definitely are mind boggling.
Networking Blues
Any networking site is similar to each other in a way as during the initial sign up process members are asked to provide their basic information. This includes small bits of general information like favourite music, cinema genre, books, TV shows to some more personal details like contact number, address to even sexual orientation. Although all information supplied is optional for the user, according to rapidly evolving but basically amorphous ‘cyber ethics’ it’s uncool to appear coy in the virtual world. Instant gratification is the biggest incentive through virtual friends and concocted affections are one of the biggest USP of online camaraderie and by being prude the individual creates a barrier around him/her.
Till this point everything is good but the moment any over-enthusiastic user makes sensitive information like personal contact details (like mobile number/e-mail id) or sexual proclivities public the situation gets a bit problematic. Caution is something we practice in our daily lives as any of natural tendency. Strangely the moment we ‘log-in’ to our online profile we let our guard down. People easily part with their telephone numbers and share pictures with a perfect stranger about whose identity/background we can never be sure of. The knowledge that the incognito of anonymity will aid their misdeeds has endeared the web to mischief makers but is that a fault of the medium?
Don’t Shoot the Messenger
The recent spurt of cyber crimes (‘Orkut Crimes’ as the Indian media calls it) has resulted in calls from certain section of society that these sites be either regulated or shut-down. Now we don’t shoot the messenger who delivers a bad news! Similarly we need to understand that the web and the networking sites are just a medium and not the reason of the crimes. Orkut, which happens to be the most popular networking site in India, has recently been involved in various controversies. According to statistics available with the Delhi Police, a total of 17 cases related to hacking, obscenity, e-commerce fraud and Internet-related crimes were registered in 2006 from Delhi NCR region. Now this is a substantial number in a country where there are only 2 personal computers per 100 people! These figures don’t mean that the spurt in the popularity levels of social networking sites are the bane of the web world, especially in India. What they mean is that our Cyber laws are ambiguous and inadequate to curb modern day cyber crimes. What we really need is to be more aware and get a hang of these new technological forms. It is very easy to blame technology for everything but while doing so what we forget is that is just a reflection of what’s going on in the real world.
Networking for a Cause
Innumerable political and civil strife have ensured that at any given time there are millions of refugees spread across the length and breadth of the globe. This pain is shared only by those who have suffered it or witnessed it first hand. In such circumstances internet becomes a really powerful and effective medium for these people to share their experience and sometimes to form a kind of public opinion for their cause. The example of Tibetan people living in India explains this phenomenon effectively.
A sizeable numbers of Tibetans call India home for past two-three generations now but still their status here is that of refugees and also they are very particular about maintaining a separate identity for all these decades. The current net savvy generation is now taking the protest against Chinese occupation to their homeland inside the World Wide Web. Their community on Orkut and Hi5 is growing at an exponential rate and the depth of discussion that is being held on these communities is simply amazing.
No doubt it is a two edged weapon as this very platform is also used for carrying hate campaigns and spreading communalism. On October 10, 2006 Mumbai High Court's Aurangabad bench served a notice on Google for allowing a hate campaign against India, refering to a community on Orkut called 'We Hate India'. Similarly politicians like Arjun Singh and Mayawati have been targeted by individuals for various reasons and despite legal notices nothing substantial have come out of it.
Now What?
The unfortunate death of the Mumbai lad Adnan Patrawala could very well have been avoided had he taken some other friend or family member to meet his Orkut friends. Social networking sites encourage people to make ‘virtual friends’ and allows them to do so in an uninhibited manner i.e. without the fear of them being judged on the basis of their appearance etc. But everyone has to draw a line when it comes to sharing personal information with a stranger, how so ever friendly he may seem. Finally to conclude on a bright note, a study commissioned in US by the National School Boards Association surveyed students between nine and 17 years as well as parents and teachers to find out the number of people who have faced a cyber stalker or has been victimised through any of the social networking sites. The report said over 96 per cent of students with online access used one of these social networking services but only 0.08% actually met a person they got acquainted with online. So the bottom-line of the whole issue is a guideline for parents (ya even the overbearing ones!)-give your children space to grow but don’t leave them alone!
August 8, 2007
Blissfully Ignorant Media
Indian society has always been regarded as a heady concoction of “cocktails of contradictions”. Our cities are abuzz with talk regarding our booming economy and the viability of an 8%-10% growth rate of our economy, but are our country cousins as fortunate as we are, perhaps not. Farmers are still committing suicide in the face of mounting debt and failing crops, the agrarian sector is still growing at a mere 2%.
The national press, following the footsteps of our ‘revered’ politicians, seems to have turned its back towards the real India. At a time when the socio-economic equations are increasingly favouring the middle-class this attitude of apathy towards the poor and pandering to the needs of the bourgeoisie translates into good business, but not good journalism. It seems that somewhere down the line the media has forgotten about its responsibility of ‘nation building’, which is unfortunate.
The profession of journalism is different from others as a huge social responsibility accompanies it. Journalists earlier were driven by a sense of duty and were always accountable for the content they published but in the era of globalization and free market it has become just another business driven occupation with profit being its sole mantra. In a scenario where information is the most powerful tool to succeed in this world, the newspapers and media organisations have a bigger responsibility to inform and empower the youth of India.
To do this they need to get as sensitive towards the issues of the marginalised section of the society as it already is towards the “Shining India” living-it-up in the cities. It needs to understand that it is more important to highlight the plight of the farmer drinking pesticides in Vidharbha than the traffic woes of an average delhiite! Maintaining a state of equilibrium should be the key.
All the eye ball grabbing headlines can also be used to sensitise the DU dude about the rampant illiteracy in the Indian heartland. It can help expose government’s populist measures by informing the quota fearing middle class about absence of even primary education for the kids unfortunate enough to be born to ‘lower caste’ parent in Bihar or Jharkhand.
The national press, following the footsteps of our ‘revered’ politicians, seems to have turned its back towards the real India. At a time when the socio-economic equations are increasingly favouring the middle-class this attitude of apathy towards the poor and pandering to the needs of the bourgeoisie translates into good business, but not good journalism. It seems that somewhere down the line the media has forgotten about its responsibility of ‘nation building’, which is unfortunate.
The profession of journalism is different from others as a huge social responsibility accompanies it. Journalists earlier were driven by a sense of duty and were always accountable for the content they published but in the era of globalization and free market it has become just another business driven occupation with profit being its sole mantra. In a scenario where information is the most powerful tool to succeed in this world, the newspapers and media organisations have a bigger responsibility to inform and empower the youth of India.
To do this they need to get as sensitive towards the issues of the marginalised section of the society as it already is towards the “Shining India” living-it-up in the cities. It needs to understand that it is more important to highlight the plight of the farmer drinking pesticides in Vidharbha than the traffic woes of an average delhiite! Maintaining a state of equilibrium should be the key.
All the eye ball grabbing headlines can also be used to sensitise the DU dude about the rampant illiteracy in the Indian heartland. It can help expose government’s populist measures by informing the quota fearing middle class about absence of even primary education for the kids unfortunate enough to be born to ‘lower caste’ parent in Bihar or Jharkhand.
July 2, 2007
TP
Well this is just a test posting but expect me to c0me up with something, something worth sharing, pretty soon but till then all i want to say that this blog will be as intriguing (and self indulgent) as the pix posted here.
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