Contagious Wordplay

               One of my pastimes is to observe the changing ‘vocabulary’ of our times and their context. The word ‘contagion’ caught my fancy these days. Actually it’s difficult to ignore this word as it’s in the news in one way or the other - either in its traditional context like a bird-flu or H1N1 virus or in its new context of a financial contagion and sovereign-debt contagion. We had an Indian context of honour killings contagion also. And now there’s a 'revolution contagion'.

              This contagion is spreading like a wild fire in the Middle-East and Arab world and its victims - the ruthless dictators are increasing. Some of the victims were quarantined and some others immunity system (tacit US support) is slowly wearing down. Everyone wants a sniff of ‘Jasmine’ revolution.

               India is not in danger of catching this revolutionary contagion yet, but there is already an indigenously developed 'virus' spreading its tentacles. I am not referring to New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase-1 that enraged many Indians. NDM-1 is a bacteria and i am talking about a virus. The reason why NDM-1 enraged our Government, Media and middle-class could be one of the causes of the virus I am referring. NDM-1 affects health tourism and thus our GDP and foreign exchange reserves. Glossing over GDP and ignoring many of the poor health indicators churned by different organizations is one of the causes for a virus called Naxalism. Another difficult thing to ignore is the bullying power of Indian Media in support of renaming the NDM-1 virus. One more instance of a ‘misplaced priority’.

             Indigenisation and Innovation are other words that caught my fancy recently. Indigenisation is what we strive for eternally and no matter what President Obama thinks we all knew about our Innovation. Coming back to the gravest internal security threat and the 'virus' i referred, Ms. Arundathi Roy and others have a point when they complain of vocabulary like infested, combing operations and COBRA forces. Talking about contagion and terror reminds me that terror is indeed colour-blind. No wonder then ‘colour revolution’ term is coined for peaceful revolution. The Arab diagnosis reveals that providing and defending ‘right to dissent’ is a reasonably good vaccine to start with in this fight against revolution contagion. This is one area where India needs to watch out against misuse of section IPC 124 (A) called Sedition. Sections 124(A), 304, 304A and 377 of IPC are also catching my attention these days.

            Just like words and numbers, I observe acronyms also. Recently US announced its support for India's membership to some of the multilateral bodies that control exports like NSG, AG, WG and MTCR. Is NATO a logical conclusion so that we also can start exporting democracy? It’s quite a paradox that US exports only democracy and military arms. And US want's India to join in this club so that they can outsource some work to India. US's dislike towards the word outsourcing is case-specific. It has no qualms about outsourcing wars to drug lords and mercenaries.

            In all these contagions, the words coherent, synchronized and coordinated are often used. The genesis of Tunisian revolution is food crisis and unemployment. Two areas which need coordinated efforts by all countries. The word ‘contagion’ highlights the interdependence of the day and implores for a coordinated action plan by all countries. Hope the wise minds are listening and are not interested in taking over the fight to ‘Kepler’ – the newly discovered solar system.

Kaun Banega Next PM?

         Our PM filed his affidavit to SC saying that they indeed took some 'action' w.r.t Swamy's letter/plea. I was reading about Lokmanya Tilak a few days back and an Empire Judgment against him where the British judge defined 'disaffection' as 'absence of affection'. Glad that our G.O.P didn't get inspired in similar lines and quote 'inaction' as a form of 'action' in their defense in the affidavit. This form of action (inaction) was notoriously institutionalized by their party's ex-PM Mr. P.V. Narasimha Rao. Glad that they stopped from making it statutory.
         I am not sure if Yuvraj, Rahul Gandhi must be padding up for his innings as a PM, because of this injury to their top-order batsman. May be they can send a night-watchman if they don't want to risk Rahul's wicket or may be they can give the PM a by-runner (by backing him to the core). A few weeks back i read in some Newspaper that there's a lobby who wants Mr. Nandan Nilekani as future PM. For me this is preposterous. They are saying that he has all the qualities like Mr. Manmohan Singh and is a bona-fide successor. I would say in addition to having all the good qualities like Mr. Singh, he will be also having 2 undesired qualities - lacking a ground-reality experience of the real India (or the Bharat as they say) and being a puppet for the real power. Rahul taking over is far better than an arrangement like this, at least he has been doing a lot of ground work among the real masses. Actually i have nothing against Rahul Gandhi, in fact its his greatness that he is still not interested in wielding power. He could have done that long back if he intended. My grouse is against this 'dynasty syndrome' or the nepotism in the Indian context. Its in all fields, but Politics & Cinema are most visible and Politics affect everyone. For me the glaring example of this nepotism is Tushar Kapoor in the movie Golmaal. If he is not a somebody's son, nobody would have given him even that 'dumb' role.My grouse is against this phenomena where son's/daughters of movie stars and politicians are thrust upon us even though when they lack the basic skill.
        Enough of my ranting! I think we should all thank Mr. Swamy for filing these letters and pleas. Kapil Sibal says that these are Swamy's tactics for gaining political space. I would say, that this is a far better way of doing that than other politicians who try to gain political space by raising caste or religion differences. On a lighter note Swamy say's that he doesn't want mid-term polls as he has a pending case against use of Electronic Voting Machines.
           

Whose Mumbai Is It ?? && Lessons From British 'Raj'

Below line from a ‘Times of India’ article made me write this post:

“Loud discussions have given way to whispers… that’s what’s really scary”, is how a north Indian techie who spent the better part of his life in Mumbai described the new mood in the city.

Now the feeling of ‘outsider’ and ‘native’ is being felt by IT engineers and other white-collar people also. Till a few days back may be most people were thinking that this is a ‘tamasha’ being created by MNS for political mileage and the people involved in the violence are illiterate and unemployed youth. But now even literates are also thinking like this. ‘Local trains’, the very fabric or lifeline of Mumbai are being used to further this division.

Isn’t there something wrong? This confirms my belief that we really learnt one thing very well from the British – ‘Divide and Rule’. Isn’t this what Raj’s MNS is trying to achieve? 400 years back as a race or as a civilization we fell in that trap to British and still we didn’t learn anything. 400 years and still there is no ‘change’. Isn’t it so easy to create ‘hatred’ among people here in India? Is it so easy to make people fight with each other and use it for your benefit? Are we inclined to hate and fight with each other for any slightest reason? Reminds me of Sue’s dialogue in the film ‘Rang De Basanti’ – “I was so stupid to pack my bags and come to a place where people are looking for excuses to kill each other”. Religion, north-east-west-south divide, state, regions within state, caste, sub-caste --- what not, we have so many ‘diverse’ reasons to hate each other. ‘Unity in Diversity’ – the unity we are talking is this much fragile! Is Winston Churchill correct in saying –"India is no more a political personality than Europe. India is a geographical term. It is no more a united nation than the Equator”?

Lots and lots of haunting questions.....