Tag: enough said

Categories
Enough said

All things bright and beautiful

A new book on the ancient Indian ‘shringara’ tradition brings to mind all that’s best in our beautiful country.
Humra Quraishiby Humra Quraishi

I believe that our lives in the good old days were simple and good for our overall psyche. Those ways should be brought back. Our food and lifestyle, our ideas of beauty, even the very fabric we chose to wear next to our skins jelled with the climate and our living conditions.

Cottons and khadi are apt for our summers and the humidity, yet we ditch them for synthetics and polyesters. This brings to mind an incident, several years ago, when Delhi- based art historian Jyotindra Jain had gone to meet writer Mulk Raj Anand. The first thing that the writer did was to send Jain to the nearest Gandhi Ashram so that the latter could change his clothes – his trousers and synthetic shirt – and slip into a more comfortable and suitable khadi kurta pyjama!

Another thing to bring to mind my present preoccupation (for this column) with healthy living and beauty, was writer Alka Pande’s alka panderecently published book, Shringara – The Many Faces Of Indian Beauty.

Right on the front cover is this overwhelming photograph of Indian woman clad in ethnic clothes, while the back cover has a woman from a bygone era getting her somewhat bare body massaged; she is in a semi-Kamasutra pose, but as you sift through the pages, you understand that the underlying theme is shringara. The book takes you through shringara in verse, paintings, architecture, form and figure.

As Pande elaborates, “As an art historian, I’m often asked to define beauty in a word, phrase or even as a concept. I see beauty essentially as a value connected to the perception of different alternative aspects of human emotionality. When we perceive something that is in harmony with nature and generates a feeling of joy and pleasure within us, we describe it to be beautiful…”

shringar of the ladyShe adds, “Today, the cultural diversity of India faces the pulls and pressures of tradition and modernity, rural and urban, folk and classical, and most importantly, local and global. Shringara, too, faces the challenges of perception, where the beauty of adornment and the beauty of ugliness are two sides of the same coin…this is a time to ask important  questions on the concept of beauty: Has the morphology of the old nayika been given up for more westernised perceptions? Has there been an Indian renaissance, apart from path-breaking initiatives of AK Coomaraswamy and Rabindranath Tagore? Who are the new patrons of Indian art?”

What I took away from this book was not just the easy flow of words, but also the pictures and graphics that merged seamlessly with the narrative. It nudged me to introspect, perceive more, think of all that’s beautiful in our land.

(Pictures courtesy alkapande.com, www.exoticindia.com)

Categories
Enough said

When aerial surveys don’t help

What do our politicians try to accomplish by taking aerial surveys of disasters? Shouldn’t they be on the ground, helping?
Humra Quraishiby Humra Quraishi

No, Sir, aerial surveys won’t do in the Uttarakhand region. You cannot view disasters from so far away, from such a safe place. You have to be there, amongst your people.

It’s disgusting how VVIPs are touring the devastated region in a detached manner, even at this stage when thousands have been killed. And it’s more than disgusting to know that even now these political creatures are conducting aerial surveys. As representatives of the people, they ought to be right there on the ground, ferrying essentials, supplying food and medicines or even helping in the rescue operations.

But they opt to sit far away, in safe environs, and write bogus speeches. I have a feeling that these same speeches are routinely used and re-used in every successive calamity; it is possible that professional speech writers have penned these speeches, conveying the right dose of sorrow and political statement, while leaving room for minor changes, as the calamity may be.

Another disaster struck the Kashmir Valley recently, and it also attracted its own set of VVIPs. During their two-day visit to the Valley, one hoped that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi would visit the families of those sitting in the ruins of their homes, shattered by the recent earthquakes that had hit the Kishtwar/Doda region. Seemingly no speeches were written for that aerialinteraction, for none were made. Also, there were no statements from the duo on the recently re-opened case of the 1991 mass rapes that took place in Kunan Poshpora, the village of Kashmir that was witness to several women were raped in one night. Till date, the tragedy has been camouflaged and watered-down in several ways, but today, the villagers of Kunan Poshpora are no longer scared of a backlash and what the establishment can do against their vocal protests. The villagers are boldly speaking of how those rapes were completely hushed up by the Government and its agencies.

There has also been complete silence on the rape and murder of two Shopian women – Aasiya Jan and Niloufer Jan. The two young women were murdered in 2009, but till date, have received no justice. The culprits have not yet been arrested, and there has been no hue and cry over the cover-ups in the investigation. I recall, during the summer of 2010, when family members of those two women wanted to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was on a two-day visit to the Valley, they were not just halted but also detained in a police station located in the very heart of Srinagar city. They were released only after the PM had left the Valley. And this is not a lone example – this happens every time a top politician visits the area and the naïve ones looking for justice want to meet them.

rahul gandhi gives a speechAt times I wonder: why can’t these announcements of special packages be made from New Delhi? Why should these ‘leaders’ travel all the way when they cannot meet or interact with the commoner? Anyway, these packages mean little for the average citizen, since their benefits rarely reach the masses.

In fact, each time a VVIP from Delhi schedules a visit in the Valley, there is a mood of gloom that quickly spreads. For the average citizen knows he has to sit indoors, ordered to stay away, traffic is moved or halted – everything comes to a standstill while the visiting dignitary is there. If our politicos are not going to actively help the people, why should they hamper their movements?

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Pictures courtesy www.deccanchronicle.com, www.theunrealtimes.com, www.indiatimes.com, blogs.reuters.com)

Categories
Enough said

Citizens fight back against injustice

The days of people quietly accepting atrocities by the State are long gone – now they’re combating injustice with information.
Humra Quraishiby Humra Quraishi

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his wife, Lyudmila, made a rather dignified announcement, which put a formal end to their marriage. It was known before the announcement, that the two were rarely together, and that they had been dragging the marriage along for years.

What impressed me was the manner in which the announcement was made. The couple is middle-aged, yet they didn’t let their age come in the way of their decision. To part at 60 cannot be easy.

Just pause and think of how we, in India, rarely take this step at age 60 and beyond, preferring to keep up the sham. We pretend everything’s fine, we are comfortable portraying a reality that doesn’t exist. We can keep up the pretence for years. That’s just who we are.

And because we are so happy propagating a private lie, we are happy lying in the public sphere as well. Even as parts of North India are being wrecked by the monsoon, with hundreds being killed in flash floods and landslides, our politicians are doing what they do best – nothing. Political leaders from across the board should currently be a part of the relief operations in affected regions, putting to good use the sarkari and non-sarkari brigades they nurture. But what are they really doing? Conducting aerial tours, sitting far away and giving boring speeches.

Some politicians are otherwise engaged in justifying fake encounter killings or arresting innocents. In Lucknow, activists are protesting outside the UP State Assembly, against the khalid mujahidillegal arrest and killing of Khalid Mujahid by the UP cops (see pic on right). But Mulayam and Akhilesh Yadav are choosing to divert attention by distributing computers and laptops!

In Gujarat, where Mumbai-based student Ishrat Jehan who was killed in a fake encounter on the pretext of her part in a terror plot, the case has been reopened and the focus is now on the blatant killings conducted by the State. A few months ago, I had spoken to well-known human rights lawyer Vrinda Grover, who is the counsel for Ishrat’s mother. She said, “It was soon after the Sohrabuddin case was taken up by the Supreme Court and the nexus between the cops and politicians was exposed that I was contacted by Ishrat’s family to take up their case.

“It was the conviction of the mother and family in the innocence of Ishrat and their determination to have her name cleared of the tag of terrorism that persuaded me. They wanted their respect and dignity restored. As a human rights lawyer, I often represent victims of police atrocities and violence. But, after meeting Shamima Kauser (Ishrat’s mother) and her children, seeing the case file and the reading the truth about Sohrabuddin’s murder, it was clear that this ‘encounter’ was not just a crime committed by some trigger-happy cops, but rather part of the State-sanctioned and planned violence against Muslims, which was unleashed in the genocidal pogrom of 2002.

Ishrat_Jahan“The FIR recorded by the Police of these encounters refers to the riots and killings of Muslims in 2002 and claims that the alleged ‘terrorists’ wanted to kill Modi and take revenge for the 2002 attack on Muslims. These encounters, about 22 of them in Gujarat, are part of the politics of hate to polarise and build mistrust and fear between the communities. It is very important to recognise a clear pattern of targeting Muslims and demonising them as the enemy that must be eliminated, by use of State power, whether through engineered riots or staged fake encounters i.e cold blooded murders by those in State power.”

She went on, “It is very important to bring out the truth behind these fake encounters because in Gujarat there is a criminal nexus between the political executive, the police and even persons in critical positions in the IB, both in the Centre and State. This is a very dangerous and lethal combination and before our eyes a fascist State is in the making. To fight for Ishrat’s truth is part of the battle against fascism. The mechanics of electoral democracy may not deliver justice and the legal battle is important so that the killers and their masterminds are unmasked and punished.”

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist based in Gurgaon. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Pictures courtesy news.in.msn.com, www.rina.in, rihaaimanch.blogspot.com)

Categories
Enough said

A victim of his own moves?

LK Advani is unfortunately placed – he seems stifled within his party but he’s not allowed to move away, either.
Humra Quraishiby Humra Quraishi

This entire episode around LK Advani seems layered. Even the politically naïve can understand that Advani has not been allowed to resign, despite his initial outbursts. He has not been allowed to break free from the controlling powers of his political party, the BJP. It almost seems as though he is being forced to retain his mask, keep up the façade of ‘togetherness’ of the Right-wing brigade.

There seems to have been a complicated build-up to this turn of events. Is it possible that Advani couldn’t cope with the frustration of being sidelined and finally wanted to break away from it? How interesting that all these years, he’d diligently worked at so many gimmicks and indulged in hate politics to gather votes for his party, and the same party is most likely stifling him for a long time now.

Who can forget Advani’s master move, the idea that sparked the kind of fire in the country that it is still not being put out? In the early advani's rath yatra90s, he undertook the rath yatra all the way to Ayodhya, whipping up communal frenzy along the entire route and reveling in it. His rath yatra can be termed as one of the turning points in modern Indian history, for it sowed seeds of communal divide and hatred between communities, left a permanent imprint on minds. That communal hatred still continues to poison the atmosphere of this nation.

And who can forget that photograph of him and Uma Bharti and Murli Manohar Joshi, hugging and clasping each other as the Babri Masjid was being destroyed? The disturbing events of those times continue to simmer to this day, with riots periodically breaking out and terrorists planting bombs in the name of jihaad and the memories of 1992.

As the baton passes to Narendra Modi (or it seems to be forcibly grabbed by Modi and his men in a bloodless coup!), there is not just worry but a growing unease for the safety of this land and the people living in it

Ironically, we can turn to these lines from a poem written by BJP patriarch Atal Bihari Vajpayee from his book of poems, Twenty One Poems, for some succor. The poem is tilted ‘Power’:

advani1“To those who try to reach/

The throne of power/

Over mounds of dead bodies/

Of innocent children/

Old women/

Young men/

I have a question:/

Did nothing bind them/

To those who died?/

Their faiths differed;/

Was it not enough that they too were of this earth?/

‘The earth is our mother, and we are her sons’:/

This mantra from the Atharvaveda,/

Is it only to be chanted, not lived?/

 

Children charred by fire,/

Women savaged by lust,/

Houses reduced to ash/

Constitute neither a certificate of culture/

Nor a badge of patriotism,/

 

They are proof of bestiality,/

Proof of degradation,/

As if these be the deeds of sons,/

Mothers should not wish for any./

 

A throne smeared with the blood of the/

innocent/

Ranks lower than the dust of the cemetery,/

The lust for absolute power is worse/

Than a thirst for blood.”

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist based in Gurgaon. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Pictures courtesy www.livemint.com, www.frontline.in, www.hindustantimes.com)

Categories
Enough said

Some highs and some tremendous lows

This week has been an eye-opener on the state of the human condition in India. And it hasn’t been pretty.
Humra Quraishiby Humra Quraishi

This has been a strange week, to put it mildly.

Still reeling in the capital city over the Chhatisgarh Naxal attack on the State’s top Congress brass, we are now waking up to a detailed five-page letter on why tribals in the country are angry at the establishment. Space constraints bar me from producing the entire letter, so let me just write the operative part of the communication.

The letter was written by a Minister in the Central Government, V Kishore Chandra Deo, Minister for Tribal Affairs and Panchayati Raj. He has written to the Governors of the Schedule V Areas, in which he mentions, “The main challenge that is staring at us today is the explosive situations (sic) that are prevailing in the Schedule V Areas of our country. These areas are inhabited largely by people belonging to the Scheduled Tribe communities, forest dwellers and other marginalised and deprived sections of our society.

“It is, therefore, not a matter of coincidence that we are today faced with a situation which is threatening to strike at the very roots of the basic structure of our polity, and has  become a threat to our national security…The root cause of this situation is, however, result of continuous exploitation, oppression, deprivation, neglect and indifference for decades.”

And so on.

Recently, Roli Books launched Incredible Ascents to Everest, which captures “extraordinary stories of ascents – from a blind man’s success to a sherpa’s record 21 climbs. From the oldest, two weeks before his 77th birthday, to the first person to ski down the Everest. From the first solo ascent without any supplemental oxygen to the first double amputee to scale the Mount Everest…the extraordinary stories of ordinary men and women who have risked their physical, emotional and financial well-being to make the momentous and perilous climb to the top of the world’s tallest mountain.”

Jiah KhanBefore I could get more details of these men and women scaling the highest mountain in the world, came the news of Bollywood’s Jiah Khan and her suicide. News reports claim that she couldn’t claim with the emotional turmoil and the struggles of everyday life. It is sad to hear of the death of a young, reasonably talented girl, who I wish had seen the positives in her life and not given up the courage to go on. Some day, I hope many such Jiahs will learn to look past immediate disappointments and just live.

On the other end of the spectrum, there’s a symbol of mingled hope and grief. An exhibition titled Nirbhaya by artist N Swarnalatha was launched here recently, and it bears sketches and paintings of the human form exploited, molested, raped and abused. To quote from the brochure to the exhibition, “‘Nirbhaya’, her current body of work reflects her angst on the plight of the Indian women today. The series is dedicated to Nirbhaya, Vinothini, Vidhya and all the women martyrs who have taught lessons of bravery and self esteem worldwide…”

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist based in Gurgaon. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Pictures courtesy www.warisboring.com, www.dayandnightnews.com)

Categories
Enough said

Who will ask why?

The question – why are tribals killing? – needs to be addressed before looking for answers to the Naxal problem.
Humra Quraishiby Humra Quraishi

Heated discussions are currently on in the corridors of power in Delhi, and the blame games are now taking off in the latest onslaught of Naxals on several Congressmen, in which they and their aides and other bystanders were killed in Chhattisgarh. Political lobbies are hard at work here, with the BJP and the Congress blatantly throwing charges at each other.

In the midst of this, every bit of news space is being hogged by so-called ‘experts’ invited to speak in newsrooms. Watching them and hearing them speak is tiring – most of them repeat themselves, suggesting outdated means to end the violence. Invariably, all their formulae are centered on hounding and then pounding; they are unmindful of the possibility that this may trigger another series of killings.

After all, paramilitary operations have seldom resulted in long-lasting peace. Countering violence with violence cannot get you moving towards peace.

In the last few days of watching a plethora of experts giving their views on containing the Naxals, only one voice seemed sanest of them all. That voice belongs to Director General of the BSF (Border Security Force), EN Rammohan. He has been the only one to ask the most important question: Why? It must have taken tremendous guts and grit to ask this basic question, but ask it he did – Why is the tribal taking to killing?

If you think about it, there have been ample background incidents that explain this violence, and indeed, the rise of the Naxal movement in the country. Why are those who had hitherto been living in complete peace in the tribal belts and villages provoked enough, today, to maim or kill those who govern them?

Is it only due to the widening gap between the rulers and the ruled? Or do political and business mafia also hold the key? The government of the day knows that tribal land and the naxal violence in indiariches it holds does not necessarily serve the actual owners of that land – the villagers and tribes living in those areas. Even as their ancestral lands are taken away from them, they sit waiting for justice that never comes.

In this scenario, what seems to be the only course to pursue – if this gap is to be shortened – is to engage the aggrieved parties in a dialogue. This dialogue should be carried out with the help of activists and grassroot-level workers who the tribals know and trust. Without speaking to each other in a peaceful environment, there can be no hope for the rulers to effectively rule. Trying to contain violence with further violence will only result in several more deaths and a never-ending cycle of terror.

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist based in Gurgaon. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Pictures courtesy theopinionmag.com)

Exit mobile version