To Fight India, We Fought Ourselves

By MOHSIN HAMID

LAHORE, Pakistan

ON Monday, my mother's and sister's eye doctor was assassinated. He
was a Shiite. He was shot six times while driving to drop his son off
at school. His son, age 12, was executed with a single shot to the
head.

Tuesday, I attended a protest in front of the Governor's House in
Lahore demanding that more be done to protect Pakistan's Shiites from
sectarian extremists. These extremists are responsible for
increasingly frequent attacks, including bombings this year that
killed more than 200 people, most of them Hazara Shiites, in the city
of Quetta.

As I stood in the anguished crowd in Lahore, similar protests were
being held throughout Pakistan. Roads were shut. Demonstrators blocked
access to airports. My father was trapped in one for the evening, yet
he said most of his fellow travelers bore the delay without anger.
They sympathized with the protesters' objectives.

Minority persecution is a common notion around the world, bringing to
mind the treatment of African-Americans in the United States, for
example, or Arab immigrants in Europe. In Pakistan, though, the
situation is more unusual: those persecuted as minorities collectively
constitute a vast majority.

A filmmaker I know who has relatives in the Ahmadi sect told me that
her family's graves in Lahore had been defaced, because Ahmadis are
regarded as apostates. A Baluch friend said it was difficult to take
Punjabi visitors with him to Baluchistan, because there is so much
local anger there at violence toward the Baluch. An acquaintance of
mine, a Pakistani Hindu, once got angry when I answered the question
"how are things?" with the word "fine" — because things so obviously
aren't. And Pakistani Christians have borne the brunt of arrests under
the country's blasphemy law; a governor of my province was
assassinated for trying to repeal it.

What then is the status of the country's majority? In Pakistan, there
is no such thing. Punjab is the most populous province, but its
roughly 100 million people are divided by language, religious sect,
outlook and gender. Sunni Muslims represent Pakistan's most populous
faith, but it's dangerous to be the wrong kind of Sunni. Sunnis are
regularly killed for being open to the new ways of the West, or for
adhering to the old traditions of the Indian subcontinent, for being
liberal, for being mystical, for being in politics, the army or the
police, or for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

At the heart of Pakistan's troubles is the celebration of the
militant. Whether fighting in Afghanistan, or Kashmir, or at home,
this deadly figure has been elevated to heroic status: willing to make
the ultimate sacrifice, able to win the ultimate victory, selfless,
noble. Yet as tens of thousands of Pakistanis die at the hands of such
heroes, as tens of millions of Pakistanis go about their lives in
daily fear of them, a recalibration is being demanded. The need of the
hour, of the year, of the generation, is peace.

Pakistan is in the grips of militancy because of its fraught
relationship with India, with which it has fought three wars and
innumerable skirmishes since the countries separated in 1947.
Militants were cultivated as an equalizer, to make Pakistan safer
against a much larger foe. But they have done the opposite, killing
Pakistanis at home and increasing the likelihood of catastrophic
conflicts abroad.

Normalizing relations with India could help starve Pakistani militancy
of oxygen. So it is significant that the prospects for peace between
the two nuclear-armed countries look better than they have in some
time.

India and Pakistan share a lengthy land border, but they might as well
be on separate continents, so limited is their trade with each other
and the commingling of their people. Visas, traditionally hard to get,
restricted to specific cities and burdened with onerous requirements
to report to the local police, are becoming more flexible for business
travelers and older citizens. Trade is also picking up. A pulp
manufacturer in Pakistani Punjab, for example, told me he had
identified a paper mill in Indian Punjab that could purchase his
factory's entire output.

These openings could be the first cracks in a dam that holds back a
flood of interaction. Whenever I go to New Delhi, many I meet are
eager to visit Lahore. Home to roughly a combined 25 million people,
the cities are not much more than half an hour apart by plane, and yet
they are linked by only two flights a week.

Cultural connections are increasing, too. Indian films dominate at
Pakistani cinemas, and Indian songs play at Pakistani weddings. Now
Pakistanis are making inroads in the opposite direction. Pakistani
actors have appeared as Bollywood leads and on Indian reality TV.
Pakistani contemporary art is being snapped up by Indian buyers. And
New Delhi is the publishing center for the current crop of Pakistani
English-language fiction.

A major constraint the two countries have faced in normalizing
relations has been the power of security hawks on both sides, and
especially in Pakistan. But even in this domain we might be seeing an
improvement. The new official doctrine of the Pakistani Army for the
first time identifies internal militants, rather than India, as the
country's No. 1 threat. And Pakistan has just completed an
unprecedented five years under a single elected government. This year,
it will be holding elections in which the largest parties all agree
that peace with India is essential.

Peace with India or, rather, increasingly normal neighborly relations,
offers the best chance for Pakistan to succeed in dismantling its cult
of militancy. Pakistan's extremists, of course, understand this, and
so we can expect to see, as we have in the past, attempts to scupper
progress through cross-border violence. They will try to goad India
into retaliating and thereby giving them what serves them best: a
state of frozen, impermeable hostility.

They may well succeed. For there is a disturbing rise of hyperbolic
nationalism among India's prickly emerging middle class, and the
Indian media is quick to stoke the fires. The explosion of popular
rage in India after a recent military exchange, in which soldiers on
both sides of the border were killed, is an indicator of the danger.

So it is important now to prepare the public in both countries for an
extremist outrage, which may well originate in Pakistan, and for the
self-defeating calls for an extreme response, which are likely to be
heard in India. Such confrontations have always derailed peace in the
past. They must not be allowed to do so again. In the tricky months
ahead, as India and Pakistan reconnect after decades of virtual
embargo, those of us who believe in peace should regard extremist
provocations not as barriers to our success but, perversely, as signs
that we are succeeding.

Mohsin Hamid is the author of the novels "The Reluctant
Fundamentalist" and the forthcoming "How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising
Asia."
NYT

In India, Kisses Are on Rise, Even in Public

NEW DELHI — India may be the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, the ancient how-to manual on kissing and sex. But for many years, Indian couples did not widely embrace kissing, at least not in public. Now that is changing.

The Mahabharata, an epic poem written 3,000 years ago, is believed to include the first written description of mouth-to-mouth kissing. But anthropological studies done over the past century in India and elsewhere in Asia showed that kissing was far from universal and even seen as improper by many societies, said Elaine Hatfield, a professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii.

Sanjay Srivastava, a professor of sociology at the Institute of Economic Growth at Delhi University, said: “Until recently, kissing was seen as Western and not an Indian thing to do. That has changed.”

In India, most marriages are still arranged, and the rate of sex before marriage is low, according to a government survey, so passionate kissing among the unmarried has long been discouraged. Many married couples refrained as well, at least in front of other people. But recent studies, backed by interviews with sociologists and psychiatrists in India, suggest that kissing’s popularity has risen considerably.

Chastity is viewed as highly desirable in India, and Indians, as a result, have also tended to view outward expressions of love, be they physical or verbal, with suspicion, said Dr. Roy Abraham Kallivayalil, president of the Indian Psychiatric Society.

“I don’t tell my wife that I love her,” Dr. Kallivayalil said. “My father has never in 88 years told me that he loved me. We don’t do that.”

A study led by James Witte, a professor of sociology at George Mason University in Virginia, reported that more than half of a set of volunteer respondents in India said they kissed at least several times a week. He solicited respondents through Internet portals, in English, but cautioned that his sample was not random. He said he reached people who were “well educated, younger and more urban” and who had access to the Internet.

In Professor Witte’s study, of the 112 respondents in the kissing module, 24.1 percent said they kissed passionately “many times a day,” but when asked about kissing, hugging or caressing in public, 41.1 percent of participants chose “hardly ever or not at all.”

A pivotal screen kiss reflected the changing romantic landscape here. Kissing scenes were banned by Indian film censors until the 1990s, and Shah Rukh Khan, a Bollywood heartthrob who is one of the world’s biggest movie stars, has been teasing Indian audiences in dozens of films since then by bringing his lips achingly close to those of his beautiful co-stars. But his lips never touched any of theirs until he kissed the Bollywood bombshell Katrina Kaif in “Jab Tak Hai Jaan,” which was released in December 2012.

Mr. Khan tried to soften the impact by saying in a published interview that his director made him do it. But the cultural Rubicon had been crossed.

“That kiss was an incredibly important moment,” Dr. Srivastava said. “Shah Rukh Khan defines what is mainstream. If he does it, it becomes acceptable.”

Kissing’s rise here may also reflect the growing power of young women in deciding who to marry, said Debra Lieberman, an assistant professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Miami. In many cases, “women are now able to select mates without having to negotiate as much with family members,” Dr. Lieberman said.

And Dr. Avdesh Sharma, a psychiatrist practicing in New Delhi, said that his younger female patients are far more insistent than their mothers were that their emotional needs be met. That often involves kissing, he said.

“The terms and timing of intimacy used to be initiated and decided entirely by the man,” Dr. Sharma said. “That is no longer true.”

Indeed, while arranged marriages are still the norm in India, a growing share of young couples say that their views play a role in the process. If a young woman does not like the man her parents have picked, many families now offer her a veto.

Prakash Kothari, the founder of the department of sexual medicine at Seth Gordhandas Sunderdas Medical College in Mumbai, said that his female patients are much more demanding than they once were.

“For years, most Indian men used sex with their partners as a kind of sleeping pill, and few devoted any time to foreplay,” Dr. Kothari said. “Now, many women are able to ask for what they want.”

Aseem Chhabra, a columnist for The Mumbai Mirror, an English daily featuring local news, said public displays of affection are still a rare sight in India. “It’s not like you can walk on the streets of Delhi and Bombay and see people kissing. It’s still a big taboo,” he said.

“The educated 20-somethings are watching a lot more Hollywood films,” he said. “It’s not like they are imitating, but they are getting inspired.”

Six years ago, Richard Gere caused a national scandal when he kissed the Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty during an AIDS-awareness event. Mr. Gere quickly fled India, leaving legal complaints and at least one arrest warrant in his wake. Ms. Shetty was criticized for failing to resist him.

A 2006 government-financed survey, the most recent available, found that less than 1 percent of female respondents and 5 percent of male ones said that they had had sex outside of marriage in the previous year. Other studies suggest that premarital sex rates are higher than reported in official surveys, but the numbers are still very low compared with those in the West.

Rajat and Neha, two 22-year-olds in New Delhi’s majestic Lodi Gardens, agreed to discuss why they enjoy kissing when their parents had not done so, at least in front of them.

“Love,” Rajat said simply as Neha nodded. Their parents’ marriages were arranged; they hope to marry for love. They asked that their last names be withheld, however, in part because they are from different castes and fear that her parents would not approve.

Rajat and Neha expect to graduate from college this spring; they say their physical relationship has not gone beyond kissing and cuddling. They met four years ago in a park when he approached and asked if she would be his friend. She agreed but soon suspended the relationship for seven months while she studied for her last set of high school exams.

“It was very hard to spend a day without her,” Rajat said. “A single day.”

Soon after the exams, she called him. She had memorized his telephone number because she did not want her parents seeing the number in her phone.

“I knew he was waiting for me,” Neha said.

They meet regularly in Lodi Gardens, which is far enough from their homes that discovery is unlikely. In contrast to parks in other Indian cities, the police in New Delhi rarely harass young couples in Lodi Gardens. But young men often sit and stare hungrily at kissing couples. On a recent afternoon, kissing couples in Lodi Gardens had the added burden of shooing away a foreign reporter clumsily asking for interviews.

Rajat and Neha say they plan to reveal their love to their parents sometime next year. In the meantime, they kiss — igniting a bonfire of yearning that fairly leaps off their lips.

“Times have changed,” Rajat said. “We are different.”

NYT

Top Secret: The Making of India’s Budget

It's February, and a veil of secrecy has enveloped parts of North Block, a wing of government offices in central Delhi that houses India's finance ministry.

These days, the block, usually teeming with journalists, is strictly off limits to them.

Countdown to India's budget day –Parliament's single most important calendar event –  is on. As usual, this year it falls on Feb. 28. Last year, it was on March 16, a couple of weeks later than usual owing to then ongoing state elections in parts of the country.

This time around, the stakes are especially high, as this is the government's last chance to kick-start growth ahead of general elections next year. And there's a lot of work to do: the budget will need to address a slowing economy and try to rein in widening fiscal and current account deficits.

Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has already taken steps in the right direction, recently lifting caps on foreign direct investment, raising prices of subsidized diesel and import duties on gold, and cutting public expenditure. This will be the eighth budget in his career but the first in his latest stint as finance minister, which began in the summer.

In 1997, some economists credited him for delivering a "dream budget" outlining a roadmap for economic reforms, including lowering income tax and corporate tax rates.

The question is whether this can be repeated. It will be easy to outdo last year's budget, which economists found disappointing. It failed to take bold measures to encourage investment, or to contain India's widening budget deficit. Instead, it spooked investors through tax reforms including a proposal to tax overseas deals involving Indian assets retroactively – a measure that is currently being reviewed.

We are unlikely to find out until this year's budget is officially unveiled later this month. Ahead of the budget's release, extreme measures are taken to prevent leaks.

Work on the budget typically starts in September, and "by early-November, the first steps towards enforcing secrecy are taken," a former senior official at the finance ministry, told India Real Time. "Internet connections in the offices of senior officers and staff involved in the process are shut-down," he said, comparing North Block during the budget preparation to a "operations room during a war."

Then, three weeks before the budget is presented, "60 to 70 volunteers are taken down to the basement of the North Block, which houses two printing presses, and confined there with no contact with the outside world till the whole exercise is over," he added. These people are involved in printing, proof reading and translation.

A single phone is made available to them on which they can only receive calls, and that too, in the presence of an intelligence official, he said, adding that more than 95% of the group volunteer every year.

Senior ministry officials though can keep their normal routine, the official said.

Ceilings on expenditure for most ministries are fixed by the third week of December. By this time, the finance ministry completes assessments of revenue and market borrowings, and the first draft of the budget sees the light.

By the first week of January, estimates of tax revenue come in and by the end of the month, estimates of major subsidies and defense expenditure are finalized. Discussions on taxes – corporate, sector-specific and personal – start in January and the proposals are completed at the 11th hour.

The Finance Minister's budget speech is finalized just a couple of days before the presentation of the Budget, the official said.

This year, the budget session of Parliament is from Feb. 21 to May 10, with a month's break in between – from March 23 to April 21. A finance ministry official declined to comment.

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2013/02/11/top-secret-the-making-of-indias-budget/

Around India in 80 trains

Monisha Rajesh introduces her new book, which recounts an epic four-month journey on India's railways, and offers advice for travellers planning their own trip.

A thud had barely brought the train to a standstill when satchels and carrier bags were posted through the barred windows, their owners attempting to save seats. A baby wearing eyeliner and a look of shock was passed to me through the emergency-exit window before her parents bolted the length of the carriage and shoved through the door amid a cacophony of yelps and yelling. After 12 weeks and 63 train journeys, I had learnt that this was standard procedure.


Four months earlier I had been at my desk in London reading an article about how India’s domestic airlines could now reach 80 cities. Curious, I pored over a map: the reach was impressive, but nowhere near as great as that of the railway network, which rippled out across the country, embroidering the edges of its landmass. Twenty years ago I had lived briefly in Madras, now Chennai, but had barely stretched a toe beyond its borders. I had always wanted to return to see India in all its glory.


Indian Railways, known as the “Lifeline of the Nation”, carries more than 20 million passengers a day along 64,000 km (40,000 miles) of track, its trains thundering through towns, inching past villages, climbing mountains and hugging coastlines. Riding those trains up, down and across India would, I hoped, enable me to lift the veil on a country that had become a stranger to me. Stringent planning was out of the question, lending itself neither to adventure nor spontaneity. I convinced a photographer friend of a friend to join me on the venture and nicknamed him Passepartout in homage to Phileas Fogg’s long-suffering companion, then bought a 90-day IndRail pass, made a handful of reservations, and constructed a rough outline of the route around events, beautiful sections of the railways, and trains renowned for good food.


Beyond that, I relied on serendipity, which threw up some wonderful escapades and fortuitous meetings. When we found our berths had been double-booked on an overnight trip from Pune to Delhi, Passepartout slept in a linen cupboard, much to the amusement of two children who tumbled through the doorway looking for the Crazy White Man in the Cupboard. And a chance encounter with an Indian MP, on a 28-hour journey from Delhi to Chennai, led to an invitation to visit Tinsukia, in Assam, where the welcome included armoured jeeps, police escorts and guided tours around tea estates and collieries.



The journey began in my old home of Chennai. I boarded the 14-hour Anantapuri Express to Nagercoil, a short hop from Kanyakumari – the southernmost point of India, where the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal all meet. After witnessing a total solar eclipse from its rocky shores, I threaded up the glorious Konkan coast, hanging out of the doors of the Mandovi Express as it sailed across the Panval Nadi Viaduct – the highest in India – the sea shifting quietly below, before sipping Bombay Sapphire on the Indian Maharaja Deccan Odyssey and spotting tigers fight in Ranthambore, tackling Mumbai’s local trains at rush hour, visiting the world’s first hospital train in Madhya Pradesh, and wedging myself into luggage racks on trains to Dwarka, Udhampur and Ledo, the western, northern and easternmost tips of the network.

Within the first few days, I realised that an Indian train ticket is a permit to trespass on the intimacies of other people’s lives. What would have been improprieties elsewhere become instantly acceptable on a train: tearing strips of roti proffered by a man I had known for 10 minutes; reading in bed while eyeing a dishevelled stranger muttering in his sleep; eavesdropping on young lovers’ disputes; or gatecrashing the celebrations of pilgrims and wedding parties, clapping and singing along as their gifts of glass bangles slid down my arms. Suddenly my destination would rap at the window, rudely interrupting and bringing a curtain call on the show.



I soon learnt some tricks of the trade. On several journeys the train halted in between stations and, after 20 minutes or so, jerked and carried on while passengers remained nonplussed, playing cards or chatting in the vestibules. Wondering what was causing the unscheduled stops, I questioned a fellow passenger, who explained that the label on the emergency handle saying PULL HANDLE TO STOP was often taken quite literally. Passengers passing through their villages would yank the handle, jump off and skip across the tracks to their homes. “There are so many people on the train,” he said, “by the time the conductor has reached the carriage, who knows who pulled what?”

Inevitably, after almost four months constantly on the move, a part of me did begin to go a little crazy. I had spent more nights contorted in a rocking berth than I had stretched out on a stationary bed. My back was filled with knots and the May heat was making me irrational and snappy.

Contrary to the romanticised descriptions of India’s smell of sweet chai and spices, the honking of horns, the stench of sandalwood and sewers, and the close proximity of sweating skin began to batter my senses, but one remedy that always worked to counter the situation was to squat on the steps of the doorways, watching the sun go down. Most trains travel so slowly that passengers regularly loop arms through the hand holds, invigorated by the blast of warm air, or perch on the steps with a battered paperback. Watching sunsets as the train rolled through the countryside became a daily ritual, the sun turning orange, darkening to a deep pink, then slowly sliding away, leaving cracks of soft light lingering in the sky.

For many, Indian Railways provides little more than a mode of transport: a cheap and convenient way to commute, visit relatives or simply while away the day. For others, it is a place of employment where generations have earned their livelihood. But after 80 journeys, 25,000 miles and a thousand cups of tea, I realised that it really is the bloodstream that keeps India’s heart beating.

Telegraph

Indian Middle Class-magnified sense of self and a perceived sense of neglect

This class of divergent people rarely comes together as a force, and their sense of power does not get translated into electoral power.

But the Anna Hazare-led movement against corruption last year put a lie to that notion. It was an indication of the middle-class's need to find a political space. Middle-class activism also gained strength on online forums and via NGOs. Sadly, the enthusiasm remained shortlived, and like the television TRP, middle-class activism too disappeared soon from the radar, making it convenient for the political class to shift focus.

And in the current economic scenario, when there is no threat to life or livelihood, it seems unlikely that the middle class will push for a long battle, including against corruption—though inflation remains a concern. According to this point of view, with growth in most sectors having flattened, it is directly impacting rise in salaries and leading to "some frustration".

Other observers feel that the middle class has no reason to be optimistic as the government continues with populist measures in the name of inclusive growth. That's the reality in a country with so many poor people. Diplomat-author Pavan K. Varma feels the middle class is facing a double jeopardy. "When the economy slows down, the middle class, which has been the beneficiary of higher growth, is likely to be the first to be hit. And it is precisely during such times that the government's focus shifts to the larger population of poor to ensure benefits reach them." But, as Usha Ramanathan, an expert on development and poverty issues, says, while several policies are formulated for the poor, they are not implemented properly and as such the benefits rarely reach them.

At the root of the present crisis is the government failure to carry out the promise it made in its 1991 budget: of administrative reforms, as also ensuring social protection and quality of employment. "The assumption that we will collect from the people and spend on the people is at fault as the rich are always seeking ways to dodge taxes. There is no political will to charge the rich high taxes," says Dr Indira Hirway of the Ahmedabad-based Centre for Development Alternatives. She cites the resistance to Right to Education as an example, with the middle class thwarting the attempt to uplift the lower classes and be included in their domain.

This resistance apart, the competition for the limited number of seats in good schools and colleges is becoming tougher, with more and more youngsters from poor families using the education ladder to better their lot. This is the same route used by the yesteryear lower middle class, particularly with competence in English, to chart success stories, points out Ajit Balakrishnan, the chairman of Rediff.com. As democracy deepens, the middle class, Balakrishnan says, will feel "more anxiety-struck" as people from financially weak backgrounds will become more aware and seek better opportunities.

Under pressure on all fronts then, this is a fresh moment of trial for the middle class. With such poor mood, the economy will go through some turbulence. Many say the Indian middle class—dogged, resolute and always optimistic—will eventually prevail. If that sounds a bit like the "India story", the middle class (complaints and all) will continue to bear that cross.

Full Article 

Quick-fix Approach

I could not agree more with Jerry Rao on our government's quick-fix approach.

This is bound to happen if the most powerful member of the cabinet is know as fire-fighter. 

(indianexpress.com)

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