I have no idea for a title here! It is on India, Israel, and Palestine.

As a young reader of The Hindu, I was tremendously impressed with Moshe Dayan.  Dayan was Israel's foreign minister as I was getting into my teens and he was in the news a lot thanks to the Israel-Egypt peace negotiations.  It was not the prospect of peace that drew my attention to Dayan--it was his eye-patch!  The guy looked like he had had quite some past and that he meant business.  If I had known then the power of the word "awesome" I definitely would have used that ;)  It does not take much to impress a budding teenager!

Israel was in the news quite a bit those days.  Even though nobody I knew had a passport at that time, it intrigued me that the Indian government did not allow its nationals to travel to Israel.  Indian politics, which was dominated by Indira Gandhi's Congress Party, the various flavors of communist parties, and a few regional ones, was overwhelmingly against Israel and pro-Palestine.  That approach had been in place ever since the days of Jawaharlal Nehru, who " was an outspoken partisan of the Palestinians."

As a teenager, I felt torn between an admiration for Israel's achievements and enormous sympathies for the Palestinians.  "If only India could be well organized and focused as the Israelis are" was a thought that often crossed my mind.  But, simultaneously, I was drawn to the Palestinian cause, and the PLO, as well and simply could not understand why there was this bitter conflict.  There is a good chance that many thinking people in my demographic group had similar experiences.

As I transitioned out of the teens, and was a tad more informed about the world, the admiration for Israel lessened, and the sympathies for the PLO significantly diminished.  There was nothing but violence from both sides, which did not appeal to my pacifist sensibilities.  Dayan and his eye-patch rapidly faded away.

Over the years, India's politics has also dramatically changed.  The fall of the Soviet Union and the changing global order also coincided with India's near-bankruptcy that triggered economic reforms.  A relatively liberal India began to look at the world differently.

Congress Party Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao ended India's Cold War hostility toward Israel by establishing full diplomatic relations in 1992

By then I was  easing into a life in the adopted country where politics was almost overwhelmingly pro-Israel while academe was (and is) predominantly in support of the Palestinians.  In one of the graduate school classes, Professor Lowdon Wingo even brought into the discussions the intifada.  Wingo walked a fine line expressing neither support nor criticisms for either side.  A wonderfully committed academic he was.

Since then, India has rapidly expanded its economic and military relations.

In terms of military cooperation, few countries have backed New Delhi as Israel did by supplying artillery shells during the 1999 Kargil conflict with Pakistan. Since then, Israel has emerged as India's second biggest arms supplier after Russia. 

It is a different India now.  Especially with the Hindu nationalist BJP in power, and with a government led by Narendra Modi.  The old political calculations of empty rhetoric favoring the Palestinians as a way to appeal to the Muslim vote has been replaced by ache din aane wale hain.  So much has the political atmosphere changed that:

The NDA government came under sharp attack in parliament for refusing to allow a resolution condemning Israel for the strikes on Gaza even as the death toll crossed 500 on Monday. In particular focus is the BJP’s top leaderships’ close ties with Israel, given that Prime Minister Modi had travelled as Gujarat Chief Minister to Israel in 2006, promising to return if he became Prime Minister. As Home Minister, L.K. Advani was the first senior Minister to visit Israel in 2000, and External affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj once chaired the India-Israel parliamentary friendship group and led a delegation there. 

That same essay notes this about India's radically different stance on the Israel-Palestinian issue:

Former diplomat and UN official Chinmaya Gharekhan, who was Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s special envoy to West Asia and the Middle East Peace Process, told The Hindu, “There is no doubt that India’s position on the Israel-Palestine conflict has moderated gradually over a period of time, from its once categorical support for the Palestinian cause.” Mr. Gharekhan says the game-changer in this regard was Israel’s assistance to India during the Kargil war, when it supplied much needed artillery shells at short notice. “It was gratitude for this act and our growing defence relationship with Israel that made the difference in later years. Even at the UN, while we still support statements in favour of Palestine, we no longer co-sponsor such resolutions.”

 In the old country, it is not uncommon for seasoned commentators and intellectuals to look at what the "father of the nation" opined on this geopolitical struggle:

Writing in the Harijan newspaper, which he edited, in November 1938 on the vexed Palestine issue, Mahatma Gandhi declared that "my sympathies are all with the Jews... but my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice." World War II was a year away and the world was yet to become aware of the scale of the persecution that befell the Jews and the enormity of the Holocaust and the Gandhi view merits recall.
In the same article, he continued: "Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs."
Much water and blood has flown since 1938 and the Jewish state is a reality, in much the same manner that Pakistan is - even though Gandhi was opposed to the idea. 

Hopefully, within my lifetime, everlasting peace will descend upon the troubled Israel-Palestine area, between India and Pakistan, and all around.  If nothing works, I will wear metaphorical patches over both my eyes and pretend that everything is well and good with the world.

To feel the pain of others, and to help those in misery

Mohandas "Mahatma" Gandhi, was shot dead on January 30, 1948--only a few months after his successful struggle to boot out the British.

One of Gandhi's favorites among the prayer music is this  While the reference to the Hindu god, Vishnu, might distract a militant atheist, I ignore the Vishnu part and appreciate, and love, the ideas expressed there. For instance, this:

Vaishnav people are those who:
Feel the pain of others,
Help those who are in misery

Wouldn't you want to be friends with such people?  Wouldn't you want to be such a person?  A wonderful ideal to work towards, though a tall order for most of us mortals.

So, yes, it was Gandhi's favorite.

The video below is an instrumental version of that bhajan. The lead musician is Ustad Amjad Ali Khan.  Way back, when I was still an undergraduate student, I spent a few precious rupees from my meager allowance to attend his concert in Madras' Music Academy.  I went alone, because I could not convince anybody from my generation of friends and family to go with me. As exhilarating it was, I felt the lack of companionship that evening. I should have known then it would be a recurring theme in my life :(

But, I digress!  Yes, a Muslim musician and a Hindu bhajan.  How cool is that, and how awesome the music he produces is!



The music below is Ustad Bismillah Khan's powerfully emotional rendering of Gandhi's another favorite "bhajan"--Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram. Yes, another Muslim musician masterfully treating a Hindu bhajan. A few years ago, when talking family stories, I came to know that the shehnai was a favorite of my grandfather's, perhaps a result of his undergraduate studies at Benares, which was also home to Bismillah Khan and many other musicians.



I worry that such coexistence and celebrations in daily life, among the regular folks, have all become a distant and faded memory, as much as Gandhi and his messages have become.

Happy birthday, Mr. Gandhi

October 2nd is the anniversary of M.K. "Mahatma" Gandhi's birth.

The older I get, the more I appreciate and understand his contributions, and am simply blown away thinking that such a man was for real. He was not a figment of an author's imagination. It is so bloody incredible!

Every once in a while, I watch clips from the classic movie of his life that Richard Attenborough made, and Ben Kingsley brought to life ... and the scene that gets to my emotions is not Gandhi's assassination, which is how the movie begins too, but this one:



What a powerful conviction Gandhi had that he would be able to lead the people to freedom by standing up to the violent rule without throwing even a single stone.  And even more, he was able to convince millions that it was possible. 

I am not sure how many people in the contemporary world have at least a vague idea of who Gandhi was, leave alone an understanding of his message.  Even in India!  Sometimes it is hard to imagine that he was a mere mortal with his own failings ... Albert Einstein summed it up well that "Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth."

Could his message of non-violence work against the overwhelming background noise created by the likes of al Qaeda and the War on Terror?

Robert Wright presented a convincing argument on how such a strategy of non-violence could be successful even in the Palestinian issue:

If Palestinians want to strike fear into the hearts of Israelis they should (a) give up on violence as a tool of persuasion; (b) give up on the current round of negotiations; and (c) start holding demonstrations in which they ask for only one thing: the right to vote. Their argument would be simple: They live under Israeli rule, and Israel is a democracy, so why aren’t they part of it?

A truly peaceful movement with such elemental aspirations — think of Martin Luther King or Gandhi — would gain immediate international support.

It could. But, nobody will ever lay their guns down, it seems like.

It is awful that religion and other differences continue to be used by the opportunists in order to win political gains for themselves.  It becomes even more awful when, for instance, the violent actions of a few radical fundamentalists becomes the "Muslim Rage" in the media.  The best way to demonstrate that a few terrorists being Muslims does not mean that all Muslims are terrorists is by playing two bhajans that were among Gandhi's favorites.  What is so special about the videos here?  These are being played, and sung, by Muslim musicians. Yes, musicians, and legends at that.  Muslims. Peace and music loving like anybody else.





Thanks for everything, Mr. Gandhi. And, yes, happy birthday

Contradiction of the day: Burma's junta and Gandhi!

The Burmese junta has been doing a fantastic job of screwing up the country and its peoples.  The regime's leaders, who ought to be tried at the ICC, can compete with the likes of Mugabe for the title of worst among the worst!

Like most countries that care not for ideals but operate with realpolitik in mind, India hosted the Burmese junta leader for five days.  And, gave the visiting couple a gift: "Burma's leader and his wife were gifted a fabric printed with Mahatma Gandhi's "Seven Social Sins" 

WTF?  As if recognizing the junta weren't enough, they had to give a gift--of all things, quoting Gandhi?


One of my favorites about Gandhi and his ideals is this: as Europe tensed and with the war about to break out, Gandhi was apparently lobbied by his followers to step up the anti-Raj efforts and go for the British jugular, as it were.  Instead, Gandhi reminded them about how the Nazis were way worse and defeating the Nazis was important. Now, that is leadership and not playing realpolitik.  


So, anything else of interest while on this trip to India?

Thousands of Burmese refugees staying in India are upset over the visit of Myanmar military ruler General Than Shwe and have urged the Indian government not to endorse the upcoming elections in that country. Than Shwe is on a five-day visit to India. He arrived on Sunday and went to pray at Bodh Gaya in Bihar.
India has been the home for a large number of refugees from Myanmar, most of whom came here to escape the human rights situation and suppression in that country.
"We feel outraged with his visit as India is the largest democracy in the world, and the land of the Buddha and tolerance," said Tint Swe, who was elected a member of the Burmese parliament in 1990 and is now a leading member of the Burmese Pro-Democracy Movement in India.

That it right.  Apparently the junta does not see anything bizarre in the general visiting the site where Siddhartha became the Buddha, the enlightened one--the Buddha who preached non-violence.  AAAAAAAAHHHHH!

Nobel Peace Prize: the most glaring omission ever

From FP:

Mohandas K.  Gandhi was the spiritual and political leader of the Indian independence movement and an advocate of nonviolent resistance as a means to effect social change. Gandhi assumed a leading role in the Indian National Congress in 1921 and transformed the party into a mass movement dedicated to ending social and economic discrimination against Indians and achieving India's complete independence. He was also a vocal advocate for the emancipation of the Hindu "untouchable" class, as well as unity between the Hindu and Muslim communities. Following India's declaration of independence, he opposed the partition of India and Pakistan. Gandhi was shot and killed by a radical Hindu nationalist on Jan. 30, 1948.
More here