Operation Recapture

The events that recently unfurled in Nandigram, West Bengal, India, made my skin crawl.

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20071126&fname
=Nandigram+%28F%29&sid=1

A group of villages fighting against a policy that they believed would be harmful to their livelihood were brutally massacred and the women gang-raped with the assistance of the state government. The first person in the celebration lines was the chief minister of the state. His party not only controls the state of West Bengal but also holds 25% of the country's parliament. Does India still have basis to call itself a democracy?

Who is to blame? The brilliant policy-makers who allocated a multi-crop region to industrial SEZ? The opposition parties that clearly saw this as an opportunity to rally the masses for a protest against the chemical intrusion, despite obvious risks? The few and numbered who genuinely believed in the cause of opposing forceful acquisition of farming land to foreign industrialists? Or, the state government that went back on its own policies of labour cause and then used force when it needed control?

A series of bad decisions has been highlighted only by the inability of the federal government to step in. How different is this from the actions of the Modi government in allowing a massacre to take place while the BJP government did nothing to stop it?

When Gandhiji wanted to stop the Calcutta riots in 1946-47, he occupied a house in the city as a lone sane voice and braved it through the days of mayhem. 60 years from then, the same state of West Bengal has proven that where evil politicians have room to overwhelm hardworking citizens, democracy is merely one another twisted route to recapture autocracy.

Local sixer

For those of you who just dropped in from Mars, Pakistan has recently declared an emergency. Everyone is talking about it including Dubya. Yet, an eerie silence seems to exist in much of South East Asia, particularly India which has given about the same reaction to this issue as it did to the tearing apart of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu on the issue of water. A cool indifference coated with a verbal homage. For a country that has recently posted a nominee to the United Nations General Secretary post and is constantly claiming a position on the Permanent security council, it has remained largely docile in it's opinion in a situation where it should be really the most vociferous. One wonders whether the press is under immense pressure to maintain an appearance of neutrality. There is really no way for the Indian public to know of the long-term consequences of this emergency situation with no voices to trust or even hear. But what worries me most of all about this lack of stance is that in giving a lukewarm reaction to the plight of the average Pakistani, India is letting slip an important opportunity to gain the trust of this neighbour, once family. If democracy is re-instated in Pakistan, as I sure hope it is, one can only hope with a vague sense of relief that the new government will return any good-will for our support during difficult times. If we meet the ball now with an uncertain bat, we can be sure that that it will only boomerang on us when we most need it sent out of the ground. This is not a time for a "local sixer".

In the meantime Kumble is now faced with the arduous task of putting a new spin on the sporting rivalry between the two countries. I for one wish that this gamesmanship at least moves on in the right spirits. I am glad the Pakistani team has had some reason to celebrate its cricketing tradition, in times that they have little else to celebrate as citizens.