Category: India

The Death of Chanakya

In Episode 2 of The Story of India, Michael Wood, journeys from Patna to Sravanabelagola following the footsteps of Chandragupta Maurya. According to Jain tradition, after a teacher warned Chandragupta about an impending famine, Chandragupta made Bindusara the king, took a begging bowl and walked to Deccan. Even now there is a cave with a carving of a stone foot, where the Mauryan emperor is believed to have starved to death (See from 35 min onwards)
But what about Chanakya? While most popular accounts of Chanakya end with coronation of Chandragupta Maurya’s coronation, Visakshadutta’s Mudrarakshasa is about events after the coronation where Chanakya tries to get the deposed minister of the Nandas, Amatya Rakshasa, to serve as the Emperor’s minister. We don’t know what happened after that.
The only information I could find about Chanakya’s life after this period is in the book The Lives of the Jain Elders by the Jain monk Hemacandra. This narration talks not just about the death of Chanakya, but also about the birth of Bindusara and associated palace intrigues.
According to Hemacandra, while Chanakya served as the Prime Minister of Chandragupta Maurya, he started adding small amounts of poison in the Emperor’s food so that he would get used to it; railway meals was not available then. This gourmet cuisine was prepared to prevent the Emperor from being poisoned by enemies.
One day a pregnant queen Durdha shared the food with the Emperor. Since poisoned food was not her staple diet, she died. Chanakya decided that the baby should not die; he cut open the belly of the queen and took out the baby. A drop (bindu) of poison had passed to the baby’s head, and hence Chanakya named him Bindusara.
After Chandragupta abdicated the throne, Chanakya stayed as the Prime Minister of Bindusara. One person who did not like this was Bindusara’s minister Subandhu who revealed to Bindusara that Chanakya was responsible for the murder of his mother.
On hearing that the Emperor was angry with him, Chanakya thought he had nothing to lose but his life. He donated a his wealth to the poor, widows, and orphans and sat on a dung heap, prepared to die by total abstinence from food and drink. Bindusara, meanwhile heard the full story of his birth from the nurses and rushed to beg forgiveness of Chanakya. But Chanakya would not relent. Bindusara vent his fury on Subandhu, who asked for time to beg for forgiveness from Chanakya.
Subandhu, who still hated Chanakya, wanted to make sure that he did not return to the city – alive. He arranged for a ceremony of respect, but unnoticed by anyone, slipped a smoldering charcoal ember inside the dung heap. Aided by the wind, the dung heap was on fire and the man behind the Mauryan Empire and the author of Arthashastra was burned to death.
R.C.C. Fynes writes in the introduction to the translation of The Lives of the Jain Elders that the stories told by Hemacandra are legend and not history. He has a point since there are no other sources to verify this story. Also it is told entirely from a Jain perspective which adds its own bias. But then most legends have a kernel of truth to them, only sometimes that kernel is hard to find.

Advice for Peace Missions to Pakistan

After the Mumbai massacre, 13 Indians went to Pakistan to promote peace and friendship.

The delegation includes eminent Indian personalities like former Indian diplomat and journalist Kuldip Nayar, renowned filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, social activist Swami Agnivesh, historian and academician Prof KN Panikar, former diplomat Salman Haider, human rights activist Prof Kamal Mitra Chenoy, journalist Seema Mustafa, Sandeep social activist Pandey, social scientist Kamla Bhasin, etc. [Indian delegation in Pakistan to promote peace ]

The same set of people, in various permutations and combination, have been holding candles at Wagah for peace since India was a floating landmass in Pangea. Sometimes they forgot the candles, but people forgave them; there are not many stand up comics in India.

These peace missions tell us that Pakistanis too are mango men (aam aadmi) like us, thirsting for peace. These peace missions also tell us that we need more P2P (people to people) contact. But if such P2P contacts happen a lot, it would violate the first law of P2P which states that the total amount of Peace in the universe must be constant. To maintain equilibrium, alternate P2P events like the Mumbai Massacre and Kupwara happen.
Besides increasing entropy, there is another problem with P2P missions. The candle holders on this side meet candle holders on the other side. Over a platter of Kabab and Rooh Afza, they agree on everything, except on whether they should use scented candles or not.
What they should do instead is visit some mango men from Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab’s village. Then chat about a few things: weather, water issues, candles, and maybe, if time permits, on what they think of terrorist training camps.

Mohammad Ajmal Amir ‘Kasab’ could have been inspired by the high regard shown to him by the people in his village.
Police sources have indicated that when Ajmal returned home from his training camp, he saw that he had risen in stature in the eyes of his fellow villagers and that they respected him.
So, when a group of trained cadre was allegedly presented the option of becoming fidayeen, seven youths raised their hands; Ajmal was among them. These seven, joined by three others who had already been part of combative action, came to Mumbai on November 26, 2008. [What motivated Ajmal ]

Looks like that Rooh Afza is not always sweet.
(Hat tip: Ranjith)

Two Fiction Writers

1863:
In 1863, six years before the birth of Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Twain was working as a journalist in Virginia City, Nevada. Mr. Clemens had adopted a new pen name and according to his own words was, “the most conceited ass  in the Territory.”
Ron Powers’ new biography, Mark Twain: A Life, narrates what happened in October when he published a newspaper report  titled,”A Bloody Massacre near Carson .” It was a the description of the murderous rampage of one Philip Hopkins of Ormsby County, who after killing nine children and his wife, killed himself as well. It shocked people due to the graphic description of the corpses and was reprinted in newspapers from Sacramento to San Francisco.
There was one problem though: the Hopkins family did not exist. In his defence, Mark Twain said that he had invented the story to expose a system of companies tricking investors into buying overpriced stock. He also explained that the only way to get such a story into San Francisco newspapers was through some tragedy.
2002:
In the May 6th, 2002 edition of Outlook, novelist Arundhathi Roy, wrote about the murder of Congress MP Iqbal Ehsan Jaffri in Gujarat. According to Roy, the mob stripped Jaffri’s daughter’s and burned them alive as well.
Nicole Elfi asks:

Wait a minute. Jaffri was burned alive in the house, true — is it not awful enough? Along with some other 41 people. Not enough? But his daughters were neither “stripped” nor burnt alive.Nobody knew my father’s house was the target (Asian Age, May 2nd, Delhi ed.), felt obliged to rectify:
…
There we are, reassured as regards Ehsan Jaffri’s children. He had only one daughter, who was living abroad. No one was raped in the course of this tragedy, and no evidence was given to the police to that effect. [GODHRA: THE TRUE STORY]

Then

The Gujarat Government sued Outlook magazine. In its May 27th issue, Outlook published an apology  to save its face. But in the course of its apology, the magazine’s editors quoted a “clarification“ from Roy, who withdrew her lie by planting an even bigger one: the MP’s daughters “were  not among the 10 women who were raped and killed in Chamanpura that day“! From Smita Narula to Arundhati Roy, “four or five girls“ had swollen to “ten women,“ equally anonymous and elusive.[GODHRA: THE TRUE STORY]

Finally

The police investigations revealed that no such case, involving someone called Sayeeda, had been reported either in urban or rural Baroda. Subsequently, the police sought Roy’s help to identify the victim and seek access to witnesses who could lead them to those guilty of this crime. But the police got no cooperation. Instead, Roy, through her lawyer, replied that  the police had no power to issue summons.[6][GODHRA: THE TRUE STORY]

1863:

When he found that people were outraged over his fictional news reports, Mark Twain published a brief byline, “I take it all back.”

Rashomon Effect (9)

Recently Mahatma Gandhi’s personal items were sold at an auction and it was bought by the Indian businessman Vijaya Mallaya.
Culture Minister, Ambika Soni:

“We have been able to procure them through the services of Mallya who was in touch with us,” an elated Culture Minister Ambika Soni told media-persons in New Delhi [Images], hours after the items were auctioned for $ 1.8 million.

Vijaya Mallaya:

In a shocking statement, industrialist Vijay Mallya has said that the Indian government had nothing to do with his bidding for Mahatma Gandhi’s memorabilia in a New York auction. Mallya said this in an interview to a TV channel from France. “I bid independently… I wanted to get back the items to the country… I am not sure if anyone was aware that I was bidding,” chairman of the United Breweries Group said. “Nobody from the government advised me on the bid… Our national treasure was up for grabs, for me it was emotional,” he said.

(hat tip: rand0mwalker)

See Also: Episode 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Rashomon Effect (8)

Frits Staal, Professor Emeritus, UC Berkeley in Mantras and Bird Songs

This applies equally to apparently “meaningless” mantras such as om or hum phat and to apparently “meaningful” mantras such as namo buddhaiya or sivaya namah.
…
We may formulate this conclusion in slightly different terms by distinguishing between apparently meaningless mantras such as om and apparently meaningful mantras such as sivaya namah.

Resul Pookutty , Oscar winner for Sound Mixing

I come from a country and a civilization that has given the universal word. That word is preceded by silence, followed by more silence. That word is “Om.”

See Also: Episode 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

The Carrots can Wait

On February 12th, more than two months after 26/11, Pakistan’s Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik acknowledged that some part of the planning for the Mumbai attacks were done in Pakistan. Pakistani authorities have also said that they obtained confessions from members of Lashkar-e-Taiba and are interrogating one of the Lashkar leaders, Zarrar Shah, believed to be the conduit between ISI and Lashkar.
Is this action — Pakistan publicly admitting terrorists from it soil launching attacks — such a great step forward that India should offer some carrots in return.? Some say, it is time to go soft on Pakistan; some, want to overlook loopholes in Pakistan’s investigation into the incident ; others want to make the right moves in the diplomatic tango.
For the right reaction, uninfluenced by a Ghajini like amnesia, we need to look at the events of the past two months.
POST 26/11
Following the Mumbai attacks, Pakistan, along with other countries, expressed solidarity with India and President Zardari agreed to co-operate to find the masterminds. Soon Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar stated that Pakistan played no role in the attacks. It was then announced that Pakistan would send the ISI chief, Shuja Pasha, to visit New Delhi. Soon they reneged.
President Zardari blamed non-state actors and accused that India did not provide any evidence that Muhammad Ajmal Kasab, the surviving terrorist, was a Pakistani. In January, when Pakistan’s national security advisor, Mahmud Ali Durrani confirmed that Muhammad Ajmal Kasab was a Pakistani, he was fired for “irresponsible behavior.”
The visiting Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi denied that the terrorists traveled by boat from Karachi to Bombay and asked reporters if they had seen the boat? He told Indians that Pakistan too was a victim of terrorism and what was needed was a joint anti-terror mechanism.
When the dossier, which contained previously undisclosed transcripts of telephone conversations and evidence from the trawler used by the terrorists, was sent to Pakistan and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh upped the ante verbally, Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s information minister said that scoring points like this would not help solve the issue of regional and global terror. Also Pakistan found a Bangladeshi connection by the involvement of a banned militant organisation, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami, Bangladesh (HuJI-B) and announced that the plot was hatched in Dubai by an “international network of Muslim fundamentalists”.
Thus in response to the terrorist attack of 26/11, Pakistan mocked facts, trivialized Indian demands and displayed evasive behavior. From such a position what caused Pakistan to admit involvement in 26/11.? Was it the strength of our dossier or the guilt we created by arguing ourselves out of surgical strikes or those warnings against “neighboring countries.”?
The admissions came on Feb 12th, but even on the Monday before that Pakistan was busy denying involvement. So what changed abruptly.? Richard Holbrooke, President Obama‘s special envoy to the troubled regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan raised the issue with Pakistan according to New York Times. At the same time President Obama  made a call to the Pakistan President. As soon as Mr. Holbrooke left Pakistan for Afghanistan, Rehman Malik of the Interior Ministry made the admission.
Besides this there has been CIA brokered back channel activity as well which allowed India and Pakistan to exchange sensitive information. According to this news, which was revealed by Washington Post, “the unparalleled cooperation was a factor in Pakistan’s decision to bring criminal charges against nine Pakistanis accused of involvement in the attack.”
Pakistan Foreign Minister insisted that Holbrooke’s visit had nothing to do with the change of plans, but it hard to believe. With sufficient pressure Pakistan has produced rabbits out of a hat: Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, who  was considered third, in command in Taliban was arrested immediately after Vice President Dick Cheney’s visit ; in 2005, President Bush telephoned President Musharraf and after the 25 minute conversation, President Musharraf expelled all foreigners from Pakistani madrassas.
A COERCED CONFESSION
While Pakistan admitting to terrorism originating from its soil is definitely welcome, it is not sufficient to display irrational exuberance.
First, in their admission, Pakistan singled out two suspects who are connected to Lashkar-e-Taiba, which apparently is a group banned by Pakistan. The goal of this group is to  wrest control of not just a small part of India, but “All of India, including Kashmir, Hyderabad, Assam, Nepal, Burma, Bihar and Junagadh.” The fact that such a group is operating, just by changing the name to Jamaat-ud-Dawa, with impunity in Pakistan even now should make it clear that the Augean stable is not clean.
Second, to believe how effective the arrests of these suspects are, one has to look at what Omar Saeed was able to do from jail . In death row for the murder of Daniel Pearl, Omar Saeed was able to call Gen Pervez Musharraf on his personal cell phone and issue a death threat. On investigation, the authorities found that he was running a terror network from the jail. Rashid Rauf, the suspect in the plot to blow up planes over the Atlantic, escaped from custody in a plot which the late film maker Manmohan Desai would have found unbelievable.
Third, this concession came due to American coercion. Pakistan and United States have a strange relation. As a front line ally in the war on terror Pakistan gets financial aid and weapons; as the epicenter in the war on terror Pakistan gets bombed by unmanned Predators. This gives America leverage, not India. This admission by Pakistan, after American pressure, could also be a temporary gesture to gain concessions. So let us not build a rope ladder from dental floss.
Finally, this admission came from the civilian government. There is an opinion that India should strengthen the civilian government of Pakistan and see them as partners and not  as adversaries. Those who suggest this seem to be ignorant of what happened in Kargil just a few months after Prime Minister Vajpayee and the civilian leader Nawaz Sharif recited poetry at the border. So it is hard to believe that by supporting the civilian administration, there will be a miraculous act of appropriation by which the other players in Pakistan — the actual power centers — will allow the terror infrastructure to be dismantled or stop such events from happening again.
All the Pakistani drama before the admission states a harsh truth: it will be hard for India alone make any progress. Next.? The crucial question is this: Will President Obama have to get involved — like President Clinton during Kargil war — to force Pakistan make the next positive step.? Will we see justice served or more meaningless statements like “we are determined to get to the bottom of this attacks.”?
So far pattern of the cross border rhetoric and action has been along predictable lines and we have seen this movie before. Unless we see more sincere gestures to match the words, lets hold off on the carrots.

Layoff Patterns

In Saudi Arabia

In a move that may affect hundreds of expatriates, including Indians, Saudi Arabia has asked all companies in the kingdom to fire foreigners first, if they have to layoff staff. “Labour offices are instructing companies to start with foreigners first, if they have to sack staff,” the ‘Saudi Gazette’ quoted Muhammad Al-Hamdan, head of the labour office in the eastern province, as saying. [Sack expats first, then locals: Saudi govt to cos- The Economic Times]

In United States

A perennially contentious issue, the H-1B visa has drawn fire in recent weeks as layoffs have multiplied. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, told Microsoft it should lay off guest workers before “similarly qualified American employees.” Grassley has co-sponsored legislation to give priority in hiring to American workers.[Layoffs mean more than lost wages for H-1B visa holders – San Jose Mercury News]

Draft Arun Shourie

Gaurav has started an effort to Draft Arun Shourie to be BJP’s candidate for prime minister.
I own few of Arun Shourie’s books and have learned a great deal from his meticulous research. His Eminent Historians prompted me to find the truth behind various blue pills I swallowed in school and Missionaries in India provided the references for the Macaulay series.
He would make a fine prime minister, but I doubt it will happen since he is not an Octogenarian. One possibility is him being a compromise candidate, a la Manmohan Singh, but then it depends on too many random variables.
There are debates going on about this topic, like if Shourie can win votes for the party or if he is too much of an intellectual to govern successfully. This debate is one of the side effects of Gaurav’s campaign.

Calabashes or Plastic Pots?

(Photograph by author)

Many winter solstices back, a study compared certain parameters like life expectancy, infant mortality etc. of Kerala and United States and found they were equal. Thus it was concluded that Kerala is equal to United States. So the state assembly stopped debating mundane roti, kapda, hartaal issues and engaged in discussions of historical importance like if the final destruction of the library of Alexandria happened during the Muslim invasion in 642 CE.
A new study, done exclusively based on news reports, suggests that Kerala is not United States, but Nigeria. Few years back helmets were made mandatory in Kerala and as usual we Malayalees protested. No words can express what high literacy combined with anger can do to a society than this picture or this.
Recently Nigeria enforced helmet laws on motorcyclists and they protested in a way which would have made every Malayalee proud.

Motorcyclists in Nigeria have been wearing dried pumpkin shells on their heads to dodge a new law forcing them to wear helmets, authorities say. Road safety officials said calabash-wearers would be prosecuted. Calabashes are dried pumpkin shells more commonly used to carry liquid. [Nigeria bikers’ vegetable helmets]

In Kerala, everything is attributed to “western conspiracy”; in Nigeria, fear of voodoo.

Stories have also appeared in the local papers highlighting passengers’ fears that the helmets could be used by motorcyclists to cast spells on their clients, making it easy for them to be robbed. “Some people can put juju inside the helmets and when they are worn the victim can either lose consciousness or be struck dumb,” passenger Kolawole Aremu told the Daily Trust newspaper. [Nigeria bikers’ vegetable helmets]

The similarities do not seem to end. Prof. Amartya Sen should factor this into his studies of “Kerala’s experience of development.”