Tagore: Hope

HOPE

Poem: Asha (Hope) of the book Purabi (name of an Indian Raga played in the evening), written on board SS Andes on 19 October, 1924.
Translator: RAJAT DAS GUPTA (Calcutta)
rajatdasgupta@yahoo.com
& rajarch@cal3.vsnl.net.in

[Translator’s note: To the Poet, a man’s greatest achievements which bring him wealth and honour are not necessarily his life’s greatest accomplishments. As one advances in age with all recognition in the society for his successes, he may start realizing that he has missed many precious rewards which might be his exclusive either in his daily trifles or in his meditation for some supreme perceptions, which are not for the market place.]

Many a fantastic feat
Are not difficult indeed;
For the world’s welfare
I move everywhere.
Compatriots congregate
Many to educate
A lot of verbiage
In many a language
A lot of demolition
To follow new formation.
The nets web up, the knots fasten,
Bricks erect mansion after mansion.
Such creation some say good, some bad,
Credulous, some come close, some doubt as fad.
Some pure, spurious some,
As raw materials will chance to come –
On the whole
Something builds up as your goal.

But the hopes very humble
Sound easy, but not at all simple.
A bit of pleasure
From a song or fragrance of flower,
Dream in the shade of a tree
When I crave in leisurely spree –
Those fugitives are nowhere
So far I stare.
As the Creator fastened His belt
And the vast steamy space He dealt
To shape it up thundering the sky
With His primal labour raised mountains high;
But after dream of ages many a million
The first bunch of flower did dawn.

I cherished the hope many a day
In the corner of the earth I may
Stay exclusive in a cot,
Not with wealth and honour a lot.
The cool shade of the tree
The river flowing free,
In the dusk the evening star
The fragrance of the flower,
Just outside my window
Through which does glow
The first light of the morning
On the pond there shimmering;

Embracing All these
May work up my pathos and glees –
Not wealth and honour a lot
But I had hoped a mere cot.

For long I did cherish
My humble wish –
That my heart’s treasure
In eloquence will flower;
Not wealth nor honour –
But to be overt mere.
Hues the clouds the setting Sun
When his day’s round is done
To paint the portrait of the end
With his imagination’s blend.
Like that if I could
My dreamland paint I would
In light and shade
Bright and fade
Its myth to build
And around it to yield
Fullness to life’s tear and smile
Nor wealth nor honour to pile –
But only the language of dedication
Was my expectation.

For long the hope I did keep,
Thirst of my life deep,
To quench with the ultimate nectar –
Not wealth, nor honour –
A bit of love mere,
Only that hope I did bear.

With my heart’s music
Someone I would seek,
To put hand in hand
As one close to me will stand,
Worry alone when goes far
Talk eye to eye when comes near.
Around all these trifle
Will slowly fulfill
All tear and smile
Of this life for a while –
Nor wealth, nor honour
But I had hoped a bit of love mere.

Post-Bush America

Random thoughts on the prospects of post-Bush US

From The Statesman
ND Batra

The present global financial crisis that threatens to undo decades of economic growth has made it crystal clear that the US alone cannot set the world right. To lead the world, since it is still the only power that can play that role and is willing to do so, the US must seek global cooperation of the willing as well as the unwilling.

The US needs a deeper engagement with the world through international economic aid, building democratic institutions and strengthening weaker or failing states so that they don’t become havens for terrorists. But the US cannot depend solely upon its muscle power to subdue a restive people or bolster a failing state. Such hit-and-run scary and battle-scarred people, whether they are in the badlands of Pakistan-Afghanistan, Kashmir or elsewhere, need to be engaged culturally, economically and politically to sever them from an Islamic militant nihilistic ideology masquerading as anti-Americanism. Preemptive policy needs re-examination in the sense that it may not always be productive, though as an offensive-defensive tool it cannot be permanently eschewed.

Much has been written about Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari’s bold and courageous statement to The Wall Street Journal that India has never been a threat to Pakistan. He called the militant groups operating in Kashmir terrorists, adding that though some others including former President Pervez Musharraf would have preferred to call them freedom fighters, he did not share that view. He also recognised the economic reality that there is no other economic survival for nations like them. We have to trade with our neighbours first, he said. These are not the views of a maverick or a lone ranger. Mr Zardari represents a steadily growing mode of consciousness in Pakistan that cooperation is more productive than confrontation in the interconnected global world. But this sentiment is not a sudden development. During the 2002 brinkmanship between India and Pakistan, the US by sharing selective military intelligence with both countries played a low-profile but significant role in defusing the crisis; and since then Washington has been unobtrusively supporting the process of normalisation.
So there is a lesson. The only way the US can exercise its influence is through the use of diplomatic power, the power of persuasion through cooperation, commonality of national interests and developing common goals such as, apart from fighting terrorism, global warming, financial stability, economic growth, eliminating AIDS and pandemics like bird flu.

Diplomatic power arises from the attraction of a nation’s culture and values, apart from its economic and military prowess. Most people around the world perceive American culture as a culture of Hollywood, pop music, blockbuster movies and steamy television programmes, but that’s a half-truth. American culture is a culture of openness, of freedom and open roads that leads to the free marketplace of goods and ideas. It is a culture of optimism that holds the possibility of expanding human horizons, the present economic gloom notwithstanding.

India like many other countries has fully grasped the power of US openness, the free marketplace, and has consequently become one of the fastest growing world’s economies. If the next US administration were to close its doors on India by reducing outsourcing, India’s technology-driven export economy would receive a setback, apart from hurting the US businesses. Fortunately, from an economic and diplomatic point of view, both Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain are equally good for India.

China beyond any doubt has benefited tremendously by opening its economy, though it has yet to open itself fully to other cultural influences including free expression and democracy. By opening its markets to China the US has exercised its diplomatic and cultural power to help transform China into a responsible global power. Americans may be resented in some places, but even today in spite of gloom doom atmospherics they are also the most admired and envied people in the world.

The faith in the dollar is undiminished. Wall Street is still the last best hope of global finance. A country can become attractive by “co-opting people rather than coercing them”, says Mr Joseph Nye of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. International influence, he believes, “comes from an effective aid and information programme abroad. What is needed is increased investment in soft power, the complex machinery of interdependence, rather than in hard power ~ that is, expensive new weapons systems”. Although fighting terrorism requires hard power, the attraction of the soft power, “is much cheaper than coercion, and an asset that needs to be nourished”. Just as trade with China and rising prosperity has changed the Chinese people giving them new hopes and new dreams, as you saw during the Beijing Olympics, a similar policy might transform North Korea, Iran and Pakistan as well, as it is happening today in Indonesia, the largest Muslin democracy in the world that has crushed Islamic terrorism and is showing rapid economic growth.

All battles ultimately have to be fought and won in the minds and hearts of the people. Effective global communication, wrote Edward Kaufman in The Battle for Hearts and Minds, “strengthens the traditional triad of diplomacy, economic leverage, and military power and is the fourth dimension of foreign conflict resolution...Perceptions change when outside information challenges certain assumptions”. More than anything else it is the US institutions of higher education, global philanthropy and to some extent corporate America, in spite of its shortcomings, that make the US a most attractive country.

The post-Bush administration must explore new directions in international relations instead of using only pre-emptive power. It is important that the US use the cultural power of its global media to present an alternative view of reality to the rest of the world. Unlike the spectacular but catastrophic invasion of Iraq, the results of such cultural engagements would not be immediately visible but they would be long lasting.

(ND Batra is professor of communications at Norwich University)

Tagore's Legacy

Life sketch of Rabindranath Thakur (Tagore)

By RAJAT DAS GUPTA (KOLKATA)
rajatdasgupta@yahoo.com
& rajarch@cal3.vsnl.net.in

Birth : 7 May 1861 AD
Demise : 7 August 1941 AD
Nobel Laureate : 1913 AD

Born at Jorasanko in Calcutta in a Brahmo family, Rabindranath Thakur was the youngest of his siblings. His grandfather Prince Dwarakanath Thakur earned his fortune from his trade, lead a luxurious life, an atheist but tolerant to all beliefs, was very Western minded promoting modern medical science which was a taboo even in the Tagore family, while Ayurvedic, the Indian medical science, ruled the roost in this entire sub-continent. He was widely traveled and died in England. Rabindranath’s father Maharshi Debendranath Thakur (“Maharshi” is an appellation for the sage-like persons) was a strict monotheist according to the preaching of Brahmo religion [in contrast with Brahminism- see note (**) at the end] and was averse to deity worship which his other family members did not give up. He was a failure in pecuniary and estate matters in which Rabindranath fared better when he had to take these over in his mid-twenties.

Rabindranath was a truant pupil both in Calcutta and England and eventually a confirmed drop-out from the formal educational courses including Bar-at-Law which more than he himself his elders had aimed.

Nevertheless, his scholarly/cultural/spiritual heritage and family environment, where such values are deeply imbibed, much more than made good his shortcomings in schooling. He was married at the age of 23 and thereafter he had to look after the huge feudal properties he had inherited, mostly located at the then East & North Bengal along the Padma river. Then, for a decade spent his time in that superb natural environment – “a meet nurse for a poetic child”.

In 1901, he came down to Santiniketan (where his University Viswa Bharati situates – about 4-hour train journey from Calcutta) the meditation place for his father Debendranath which he had shaped up in the model of Tapoban (wilderness for meditation) of ancient India, where learned sages in recluse would perform their worship and meditation along with giving lessons to their pupils on scriptures like Vedas, Sanskrit language and other classics. In that milieu of Tapoban, a gift of his father, Rabindranath built up his Viswa Bharati (=World University) true to its name which, since early twentieth century had been a pilgrim place for the scholars, poets etc. from various parts of the world, especially Britain, Germany, China, Japan etc. While this influx still continues, it is a pity the heavenly serenity there left behind by Rabindranath in 1941, when he had passed away, is alarmingly polluted by urbanization as well as onslaught of mod culture. In his learned article “The Tagore Connection” published in The Statesman on 9 January 2001, Dr. Martin Kampchen (a German scholar now translating Tagore in German language) reports about the institution ‘Ecole d’ Humanite’ in Switzerland – “ Its founder Paul Geheeb and his wife Edith were in touch with Tagore for about 10 years, almost until Tagore’s death. The impression these educationists made on each other was deep and lasting. Anybody who is aware of Rabindranath’s educational vision, can make out the similarities between Santiniketan and the Ecole d’ Humanite in Switzerland except that this vision is still thriving at Ecole, but, alas, is it still alive at Santiniketan?” Many like Dr. Kampchen are apprehensive about the finest humanistic culture at Santiniketan that ever evolved on our earth. Tagore built up this great institution under acute financial stress. Yet, the values he had built up there cannot be measured in terms of money. After independence of India in 1947 the Central Govt. of India took up the charge of Viswa-Bharati under the aegis of Jawharlal Nehru, our the then Prime Minister which solved the financial crisis. Yet, the regret of many eminent persons concerned about the institution’s future is – “earlier Viswa-Bharati had everything but money; now it has money at a high cost to everything else.”

Yet, sometimes there is a silver lining in the cloud. The Statesman in its Kolkata supplement of 3 December 2001 (Monday) reports encouragingly. The newly appointed Vice Chancellor of Viswa Bharati Dr. Sujit Kumar Basu has planned to open mini Viswa-Bharatis, one each in Japan, France and the U.K., to spread Tagore’s heritage in the fields of art, literature and music and thus to reach out to the world outside in the centenary year of Viswa-Bharati. Surely, the Bengalis will extend their wholehearted goodwill to Dr. Basu and eagerly watch his vision shape up. Like Switzerland, these places also may prove better host of Tagore’s ideals in contrast with Santiniketan amidst the all round corruption in West Bengal.

Rabindranath, however, never isolated himself from the rest of the country in his pre-occupation with his Viswa-Bharati. A fervent patriot, a number of his songs inspired freedom fighters against the British rule to whom the Poet had extended his active support also and was a suspect of the British Govt.. Interestingly, his song- “Jana Gana Mano Adhinayaka …..” is the national anthem of India while another song- “Amar Sonar Bangla, Ami Tomay Bhalobashi… (O my golden Bengal, I love Thee)” is the national anthem of Bangladesh, thus, he is the only Poet in the world whose songs enjoy the status of “National Anthem” in two different sovereign countries. Again, the Indian one is the only which imbibes the liberal concept of internationalism, a line of which is “Purba Paschim Aashe, Tabo Singhsana Pashe …(East and West come, By the side of Thy throne)”. After the historic carnage at Jalianwalabagh (in Punjab) in 1919 by the British police, when the freedom movement was at its peak, the Poet renounced his Knighthood to outlet his torment. As he described to Maitrayee Devi, while he was intermittently her guest at Mangpu (near Darjeeling) during the last few years of his life – “ They (British people) took it as a great insult. In England people are very loyal. So, this disavowal of the King did hurt them very much……”

Yet, he was against the negative spirit of the then Swadeshi (or National movement), loaded with sentimentalism losing the wider human perspective. His conflict with Gandhiji on this issue made history. Many of course opine that Tagore in his zeal for internationalism, missed some home realities of that time.

Thus, entangled in national and international life streams side by side with his enormous preoccupations in shaping up and driving forward his dream institution Viswa-Bharati, the Poet met all his domestic obligations as a dutiful head of the family. His love and affection for all his kith and kin was as anybody else’s. But remarkable was the calmness with which he had frequently faced many tragedies including death of his children and other near and dear ones.

While various events in the Poet’s life will go down in history with losing significance, eternal will be the vast literary treasure he left for us, or so it should be as many implore, to keep elevated the human mind and soul from mundane mediocrity. Poems, songs, short stories, novels, satires, scientific dissertations and even his personal letters rising to the level of belles-lettres did spontaneously fount from his pen since his early teens till his death, in which aesthetics/spiritual perception, wits etc. of highest order run through. Far from being an authority in Tagore literature, I have not shown the impertinence to make my work all pervasive which, in any case, seems to be an impossible task even for an erudite. I have only nibbled here and there of this vast treasure to present a few of its gems in English language, however incompetently.

Yet, I think, it will not stand on the way of exposing the greatness of the Poet as each piece of his work, big or small, is a window to the panoramic perception of the Poet of the wonders of Creation and his other noblest human faculties. The magic of his words also transmits instantly to the readers/audience to raise them to the lofty level of the Poet’s intuitions, however momentarily. Assimilation of Upanishada (4000 year old Indian scripture) in his blood props up his bewilderingly vast literature with its bewildering high quality, excelling all eschatology ever discoursed. Whit surfaces most in his oeuvre is his life long quest for the ever evasive Eternal Truth which, nevertheless, has been the pursuit of all great thinkers of all time and place, Maybe, the following poem sums up well this futile search of man –

Asked the primordial Sun
To the nascent Creation
“Who are you?”
But no answer he knew;
Years rolled by –
As on the Western horizon did lie
The Sun at the day’s end,
In the solemn hour when light and shade blend,
Asked,.” Who you are?”
Followed no answer.

Yet, “God freely reveals His secret to the worthy” (as was told about Newton), only a bit of which they can pass on to us..

(**) Brahmo is a religion established in the early nineteenth century by Raja Rammohan Roy by way of defection from the Hindu religion with domination of Brahmins at that time while the whole Hindu community was ailing under the caste system, depriving the vast majority of the people of their legitimate social and economic rights. While the object of the Brahmos was to fight out all these social evils, it also aimed to stop the conversion to Christianity which the rebel younger generation in Bengal, newly enlightened by the Western education, had opted for at that time in large number. One of the major evil custom Rammohan fought against was the ‘Sati’ system under which the young widows used to be burnt alive in the pyre with their dead husbands often to usurp the estates of the dead husbands by their relatives that would otherwise be inherited by the widows had they been allowed to survive. He persuaded hard the then British Govt. to ban ‘Sati’ while the latter hesitated a lot to interfere with the customs of the Hindus,
however inhuman. Rammohan traveled to England to press upon the Indian Council there, overseeing the governance of the Indian colony of the British, to abolish this cruelty at the earliest. Eventually, Rammohan in his death bed heard the good news that the bill of banning ‘Sati’ was passed by a single majority vote. After his death Rammohan’s was buried at Bristol in England.

**********************************************************************
Prelude to Nobel:

A few English scholars played important role to win the Poet his international accolade, the Nobel Prize. Rothenstein, one of them, was the first to discover the Poet while he had visited the Poet’s ancestral home (toward the end of the first decade of the twentieth century) at Jorasanko (North Calcutta) as a guest of the Poet’s nephew Abanindranath Thakur who was a renowned painter, his fame reaching Europe and, thus, earning high esteem of Rothenstein and of many others. Interestingly, Abanindranath never traveled far and wide, as, it is learnt, he was allergic to travel, and rarely crossed the boundaries of the then undivided Bengal. It is also learnt, it is Abanindranath who was supposed to visit Delhi to meet Rothenstein there but, somehow, the reverse followed. At Jorasanko, Rothenstein did not miss the beaming personality of Rabindranath at a gathering there, and on his enquiry, learnt from Abanindranath that Rabindranath was his uncle and a poet. So, had Abanindranath overcome his lethargy for travel and really visited Delhi to meet Rothenstein there, Rabindranath might not ever have been a Nobel Laureate and would remain a lesser local celebrity of Bengal. Another mishap was, when Rabindranath went over to London at the invitation of Rothenstein, he lost his manuscript of Gitanjali (see next paragraph) in a London underground tube which, of course, he got back courtesy British Railway else this trifle slip would have been enough to deprive him of this international accolade.

It is a shame that until the Nobel was conferred on the Poet many leading academicians of that time at home would not recognize this rare genius in human history. However, it is his own translation of a number of poems, which he had translated in Santiniketan to compile in a book titled “Gitanjali” (Offering of Songs) which were eventually read (on the 30th June 1912, it is said) in a gathering of a good number if top litterateurs of England of that time, that had paved his way for the Nobel. The Poet’s own description of that evening in London, as he had narrated to Maitrayee Devi in Mangpu (near Darjeeling), while he was her guest there shortly before his death (in 1941), may be found interesting by the readers. The following are the quotes from Maitrayee Devi’s book “Tagore By Fireside”, a translation by herself of her original Bengali book “Mangpute Rabindranath” (Rabindranath at Mangpu). Thus how the Poet had narrated that evening in London –

“When I first started translating them into English, I never thought they would be readable. Many have insinuated that Andrews was doing it for me. Poor Andrews felt sorry and ashamed. When Yeats arranged a meeting of distinguished people at Rothenstein’s house, I cannot tell you how embarrassed I felt. Yeats would not listen to me. He was undaunted . A galaxy of big people came. Gitanjali was read. They never said a word. They listened in silence and in silence they left – no criticism, no approbation, no favourable remark, no encouraging comment. Blushing in shame and disgrace, I wished the earth would have opened and swallowed me. Why did I ever listen to Yeats? How could I write English, had I ever learnt it? I was filled with remorse. I could not raise my head. Next day letters started coming, they flooded in, overflowing with enthusiasm. Everyone wrote. Then I realized they were so moved that evening that they dared not talk. English people are reserved, it is their nature. It was not possible for them to express their feeling at once. What a surprise it was, unexpected and unimaginable. Friend Yeats was pleased. “

How the Poet reacted when the Nobel had finally come through? Well, he said that it (the Nobel) was like a tin can tied up to the tail of a dog (the urchins’ favourite game) who can no more move around without making noise.. The flip effect of Nobel was the award money eased out the financial stress of Viswa-Bharati and soon put the institution on the international map to its great advantages, which the Poet acknowledged, though at the cost of its earlier solitude and peace. (Refer poem “Asha” to be seen in next publication)

Don't Cry For Nano

Beyond Nano

Dear Mr. Batra,

Subho Vijaya to you and Mrs. Batra. This is how we Bengalees wish our near and dear ones after our Durga Puja which has just concluded.

Next, I would congratulate you having snatched away Nano from W. Bengal to Gujarat. I admire Mr. Modi having done it without any fuss and without extending any undue and unethical advantages to Tatas. My hunch is, it is the fear of exposure of these undue advantages that the Tatas have turned their tail to W. Bengal. The unbelievable pampering of the Tatas by our Buddhadeb Bhatterjee & CPI (M) which was already in the air, has been transparent by virtue of putting up the terms with the Tatas on website for a few hours under public pressure which was, however, withdrawn on a snub from the Tatas. But for the few hours it was there on the website, were enough for the smart people to download it and make it public. Of course, after withdrawal of the Tatas it is a non-issue and won’t be rubbed any more. Yet, it appears, the Tatas have by no means just written off these advantages, particularly the easy terms on which they acquired the land here. They will retain the land and will revert to Singur to start their operations at some opportune moment in future, at least on the portion they had from the so-called ‘willing’ farmers who have accepted monetary compensation for their land.

Over the last 3 decades CPI (M) turned West Bengal into a graveyard of industries which went to the top position in industrialization among all the Indian states during the time of Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy. With no nobler object, but to tide over the election round the corner CPI(M) wanted to showcase Nano even by ruthless destruction of agriculture and dislodgement of the farmers from the most fertile land in the country, a most horrifying recent record of cruelty and human rights violation.
On the other hand, Modi’s wisdom is exemplary, having sold a Govt. owned land to the Tatas at market price which was an expansive grazing ground for cattle. Needless to say, re-habilitation of the cattle will be much less complex than the humans’ while no significant damage to agriculture will follow.

The really knowledgeable persons, who are ignored by our present Govt., opine that West Bengal is suitable mainly for agro-based industries. The agricultural sector itself employs people in Crores at the field besides creating jobs in Lakhs at the industries related to it, say, jute mills, rice mills, textile mills, paper mills, sugar mills, oil mills etc. Again, while agriculture independent industries (e.g. Nano) add glamour to the life of a handful of well-to-do people, agriculture supports life of the entire mankind. I came across an argument that the agricultural produce of Singur is worth on Rs. 20 Crore annually while Nano’s would be in many a thousand Crore. Without going into the accuracy of these figures, one might argue, the oxygen we breathe has no commercial worth and does not at all figure in our GDP. But, thereby, the essentiality of oxygen to sustain our life is by no means diminished.

Honestly, I am happy that Singur has sent one important message across the country that the process of destruction of agriculture is basically an imbecility and cannot go on ad infinitum. It is also a signal that a de-industrialization uprising is on the horizon at least for those industries falling within our traditional concept, continuously adding to global warming and leading the earth to disaster. Maybe, our future is in the IT and other knowledge industries as it appears from your columns.

Yours sincerely,

RAJAT DAS GUPTA

Kolkata-India

The End of America?

America ain’t collapsing but…

From The Statesman

ND Batra

'For the want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for the want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for the want of a horse the rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the enemy, all for the want of care about a horseshoe nail.'
--Benjamin Franklin

Today we are much more connected with each other than in the good old times of Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States, a man of immense genius who invented the lightening rod and the bifocals and published Poor Richard’s Almanack, among his other great deeds of innovations and inventiveness. In fact the whole world, like a massive web, has become so interconnected that a slight tremor ripples through the entire global eco-system. The collapse of a bank in New York might dry up credit flow in South Korea, sink stocks in Russia, or trigger a financial stampede in India, prompting the governments to take extra-ordinary protective measures.

Last week, in the first attempt, when the US House of Representative defeated the $700 billion proposal to bailout the financial system, it was clearly perceived as a stunning rebuke to the Bush administration, Congress leadership and other smarty-pant dealmakers that they had not explained themselves to the American people, most of who now regard Wall Street as a nest of thugs worse than 9/11 terrorists. It’s a terrible failure in communication at a time when the American people need to understand how their daily lives are connected with what happens in Wall Street and how its collapse would spin the global economy out of control and plunge it into an irreversible downward spiral. Whether you like it or not, global economy is anchored in Wall Street. Grasping quickly the anger and frustration of the American people and what might happen to the already weakened economy that has been rapidly shedding jobs (159,000 in September alone) if the credit pipelines remained frozen, the Senate revised the bailout proposal to incorporate some of the most popular demands including tax breaks of more than $150 billion for families as well as businesses. The new proposal also included increased Federal protection for bank deposits from $100,000 to $250,000, among other popular though economically less sensible provisions. In other times this kind of wheeling-dealing would have been called pork-barrel politics but this is how American democracy works sometime. The House members, confused and flabbergasted, followed the Senate lead and passed the bailout package with grim faces and muffled protests, as if a heifer were being led to the slaughter house.

It is doubtful nonetheless that these measures would quench the rage of those who are convinced that Wall Street investment bankers and tycoons, those who count their working hours in millions of dollars and have fail-proof golden parachutes, those whose greed and incompetence plunged the country into an unprecedented financial crisis, apart from triggering a global chain reaction that left no country untouched. To calm the mood of vindictiveness that has gripped the entire nation, Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Con) said, “We can take a cut at Wall Street, but Wall Street won’t feel the brunt of the pain.” The pain is not only being felt by the common man on the Main Street who has become a victim of the opaque financial system over which he has no control. The pain is also being felt by cities, counties, school districts and even states, because due to their limited cash reserves and the non-availability of credit, some of them cannot meet their payroll obligations. Car dealers can’t sell their cars unless customers can get credit, thus, locking up millions of dollars on unsold car lots. Perhaps the most desperate plea to unfreeze credit pipelines came from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California who asked the Federal government last week for an immediate loan of $7 billion to maintain the government operations. He was quoted in the New York Times for having written to the Treasury Department that “The federal rescue package is not a bailout of Wall Street tycoons — it is a lifeboat for millions of Americans whose life savings, businesses, retirement plans and jobs are at stake.” But how do you explain this to Joe Sixpack or a hockey mom whose son might not get a college loan?

A similar sentiment was expressed by Bill Novelti, president of American Association of Retired People (AARP), one of the biggest and most powerful lobbying groups in the United States, who said, “It is no secret that people are angry about bailing out Wall Street. But Wall Street is us. These are our stocks, our retirement funds and our futures.” Millions of retirees depend upon a healthy functioning Wall Street for a steady flow of income. When a chill wind blows through Wall Street, some retirees wonder what they might have to give up; a prescription medicine, perhaps?
Wall Street cannot die, though you see some Asian investors salivating over the prospects of pecking over the carcass. Fan Dizhao, an investment manager at Guotai Asset Management in Shanghai, was quoted by Ariana Eunjing Cha of the Washington Post saying, “The United States may be grappling with its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, but these are the go-go days for China.” And because of the “mountains of cash,” which China has built up through export, he said, “It is inevitable that we will take the US’s place as the world leader.” If you believe that China’s “mountains of cash” and America’s “mountains of debts” are not interconnected, pay heed to Ben Franklin, “For the want of a nail…”

ND Batra is professor of communications at Norwich University)

The Sacred and the Profane

Heavenly and earthly seductions

From The Statesman
ND Batra

Is militant Islam creating psychological conditions under which a person’s desires and dreams become compelling needs?

According to psychologist Abraham Maslow, there is a hierarchy of five primal needs that drive human beings to action to seek satisfaction. The motivating needs include physiological, safety, social, esteem and self-actualisation. Maslow said that a person would tend to fulfil his physiological needs for food and shelter first before he sought to satisfy other higher order needs. But experience shows that once the basic needs of food and shelter are satisfied, some people would seek to satisfy other needs simultaneously instead of seeking their satisfaction one after the other in a hierarchical order, as Maslow propounded. In fact the need for self-actualisation, realising one’s potential, summed up best in the slogan “We shall meet in Paradise,” may become so paramount in a person due to indoctrination that he may minimise or even forego other needs. For example, extreme skiers and mountain climbers do forego safety for the sake of their highest need, self-actualisation, doing the impossible, climbing Mount Everest.How advertisement, one of the most widely practised forms of indoctrination through seduction, creates and transforms our desires and wants into compelling needs is a fascinating field of study that should not be ignored by counter-terrorism experts. Just as the culture of consumption has been driving the Chinese people from Mao’s Thoughts to KFC and Pizza Hut (the owner Yum Brands is the biggest restaurant chain in China), the culture of eternal life/ Paradise that Islamic militants, Al- Qaida and its decentralised networked franchises, preach to the Muslim youth, has been driving them to jihad suicide. Both cultures promise fulfillment: here or the hereafter; as did Communism. The subliminal seductions of jihad are no different in the final analysis from what Communism had to offer in the bloody days of Leninism and Maoism; but you know what happened to the Soviet Union and Mao’s China.

Communism could not withstand the onslaughts of free society consumer culture and its endless capacity for self-renewal. Communism collapsed as a dream falsified. So would militant Islam if confronted the same way. In other words, those fighting terrorism must understand that they will not be able to win the battle against terrorism without replacing the promise of afterlife with the promise of gratification and fulfillment that liberal culture offers today. Mass media and advertisement have turned the West, as it is happening in India and China, into a culture of choices, although it wasn’t always so. Beginning with the Penny Press in the early part of the nineteenth century and later on through yellow journalism of Randolph Hearst, American news media began to depend increasingly on advertisement revenues.

Business and industry needed advertising to reach the masses in order to increase sales. Thus began the symbiotic relations among the three ~ the media, advertising and industry ~ to create the mythical American consumer whose desires must be measured and valued and be transformed into compelling needs. By turning malls into places of work, leisure and pleasure, marketers and advertisers have been transforming shopping into an enjoyable experience. Shop until you shop again, leaves little time for any thought for the afterlife. In the next few weeks India will be celebrating Diwali, which, like Christmas in the West, is gradually becoming a secular marketing experience and a major driving force for the economy. And Id-ul-Fitr festivities are going the same way, blending the sacred and the secular. Just look at Dubai.

By bringing consumers into a desirable media mix, by segmenting population into demographics and psychographics and by demanding media companies to create cultural programmes that not only support commercial products but also create a cascade of gripping needs, advertisers have created a culture of desire that makes people work harder so that they can buy and consume more. Every year, for example, the auto industry comes up with new models with varied psychological appeals and lucrative incentives for the consumer to get rid of his old car even if it is in a good condition and go for a newer model.

In the United States, advertising industry created “soccer and hockey moms” and told them that they needed a van to chauffer their children from school to the ballpark. Until the oil crunch, admen had made SUVs a vehicle of choice for many Americans. After 9/11, auto-manufacturers saw the consumer need for greater security and SUVs gave a feeling of strength and power like armoured vehicles. So even if everything goes well with Tata’s Nano, how long will the Indian consumer with rising income be satisfied with the four-wheel itsy-bitsy contraption? Advertisement is nothing but using all the available means of persuasion, to paraphrase Aristotle. Advertisers have been using target marketing to reach and persuade their audiences effectively. Similarly, instead of looking at the Muslim population of a country as a monolithic mass, it should be segmented demographically for specific messages. For example, the message for a Muslim woman with her overpowering needs for family and children has to be different from what is aimed at the youth.

No Muslim woman wants her son to be blown to pieces in a suicide mission so that he could go to Paradise.

Ultimately militant Islam like Communism would wither away by the seductions of consumer society with its promise of happiness in a world of here and now rather than the false glory of Paradise that jihad promises through press-button sudden death experience. It is going to be a long hard struggle, but the battle must be fought in the battlefield of ideas, desires, wants and needs. The news media and satellite networks that do not hesitate to broadcast messages from Islamic militants would have no problem, if paid well, for airing captivating commercials that persuade Muslims to reach for their wallets rather than explode remote-controlled bombs.Earthly seductions would ultimately win over the destructive culture of the myth of afterlife.

(ND Batra is professor of communications at Norwich University)

End of free-market capitalism?

Surviving the financial tsunami

From The Statesman
ND Batra

What will be US President George W Bush’s legacy to the world: an unfinished war on terrorism and global financial meltdown? In a subdued voice all that he could say initially was: “The American people are concerned about the situation in our financial markets and our economy, and I share their concerns.” But of course the government is doing much more than simply watching Wall Street blow up. Earlier the government took control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored gigantic home finance agencies, not only to help promote market stability and to ensure a housing market recovery but also to assure foreign debt buyers that their investments were safe. The Federal Reserve and the Treasury acted not too soon to prevent the collapse of one the world’s biggest financial companies, the American International Group (AIG), a development that could have given a fatal blow to global financial markets.

When a $13-14-trillion economy shakes, it causes a global earthquake. No one is even trying to stop the spiral of gloomy news. The mighty dollar has been falling in value, causing pain and anxiety. Consumer confidence is down and people are holding back from spending on durable goods such as cars, appliances, business equipment, electronic equipment, home furnishings and fixtures, and house wares and accessories. There are fewer buyers of houses even though house prices have declined substantially during the last two years. To stem the slide, Mr Bush and Congress came up with a $152-billion stimulus plan under which most taxpayers got from the government $300 to $1,200; but consumer spending did not lift the sagging economy.

Only six months ago, Mr Bush ritualistically said, “We believe in a strong dollar policy and we believe, and I believe, that our economy has got the fundamentals in place for us to be, to grow and continue growing more robustly, you know, hopefully more than we are growing now.” But the global market does not listen to Uncle Sam any longer. In fact when Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned during the second day of his semi-annual testimony before a congressional committee that even some banks might fail due to bad real estate loans, the stock market shrank in mortal fear. And no one believed him when he said that the overall banking system was in good shape, when Merrill Lynch had gone begging for billions of dollars of cash infusion from foreign government-controlled sovereign wealth funds. The levers of political power in Washington DC have little effect upon Wall Street, which runs on its own convoluted logic, alternating between illogical exuberance and uncontrollable panic.Today uncertainly and fear rule, though the recent massive infusion of liquidity by the Federal Reserve and European and Japanese central banks have firmed up the market for the time being.

It is rather strange that for Americans prosperity is so much tied up with the economics of the housing market. Market finance, in spite of all econometric models and theorising by economists, is essentially nothing more than a herd psychology of fear and hope.

Due to poor home mortgage lending practices verging on greed, banks started giving loans on low adjustable interest rates to people with poor or even no credit, hoping that since home prices were going up borrowers would re-finance their loans based on increased home equity.But sometime in this hope-and-faith-based financial system the weakest link snapped, lenders and borrowers started losing mutual trust, and whatever earlier seemed to be a blooming housing market turned into an empty myth, a speculative bubble that burst resulting in stampede and panic.

As the low initial interest rates on adjustable subprime mortgages were re-adjusted, borrowers defaulted and foreclosures began to rise. Even for the good borrowers, interest rates went up. Falling housing prices created negative equity, which made the mortgage relative to the value of the house much greater. Some people who bought houses with small or no down payment simply walked away, because their houses were worth much less than they originally bought for. There is nothing more humiliating for a person than losing his home to bank foreclosure, but many people swallowed their pride.

Foreclosures added to the market glut, so home prices kept sliding down and Americans began to feel less surefooted. Spending on non-essential goods, going to restaurants, buying a new a sofa, for example, seemed less necessary to many; and they postponed buying a new auto for another six months or even year. Banks shrank in fear lest consumers defaulted, so they pushed up the lending bar thereby reducing credit availability, which adversely affected economic activity further. So when Mr Bush thought that a tax refund would bring back spending and stimulate the economy, it was on the assumption that millions of small trips to malls would have an escalating effect, preventing the much-feared nightmare of recession from becoming a reality.

But neither he nor his advisors understood what was happening until they saw even trillion-dollar financial institutions with global tentacles like Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and AIG in danger of being sucked into the black hole.Now that the unbridled trust in the self-correcting mechanism of free-market capitalism has been belied, the US government’s massive intervention to save the financial system from total collapse, you might say, is no different from what an authoritarian government, socialist or capitalist, would have done in similar circumstances.

The point is that in an increasingly globalised financial system, the role and the authority of the government, instead of decreasing, has become more important than ever. If the state ~ the ultimate saviour ~ were to wither away, who would come up with a trillion-dollar rescue package to mop up the toxic assets created by global corporates?

(ND Batra is professor of communicationsat Norwich University)

America: A nation divided for good reasons

The US is a nation divided for good reasons

From The Statesman
ND Batra

The American people observed the seventh anniversary of the 11 September terrorists’ attacks under the patriotic triangulation of God, the USA and Terrorism. The triangulation, the equivalent of space-age global positioning systems, enables the American people to be aware of the threat to their existence, the American way, relative to the known positions and undeclared intentions of the US’s enemies, and makes Americans see the world differently, whether they support Senator Barack Obama or Senator John McCain for the presidency.

If you are visiting the US for the first time, you might feel there’s too much of God here. That’s perhaps the first cultural shock you might feel on arrival but very soon it wears away because the American people don’t give much meaning to it, not as much as does the Islamic militants’ resounding cry, Allah O Akbar. And Americans invoke God often because sometime they have nothing else to say. Driving through the Pennsylvania Dutch countryside, a visitor would find it hard not to notice the billboard admonishing: “Everyone shall give an account of himself to God.” The US dollar bill says, “In God We Trust.” When someone takes an oath of office, he or she has to repeat after the person who administers the oath, “So help me God.” If you sneeze, someone will say, “Bless you,” even if the person does not know you.

Most Americans invoke God as a social crutch, much as a Frenchman would say bonjour (which, perhaps means, pardon my ignorance, that French wine and women are the best), unless Americans feel stressed and threatened as happened in the aftermath of the 11 September terrorist attacks when they mixed God with patriotism to make heady booze that would have blown your head off. It is also true that, more than ever, American political discourse, including whatever wisdom spouts from the White House, is suffused with references to God despite the constitutional brick wall between the church and the state.

You can’t live in fear and be free and so invoking God makes you feel free from fear. But to be free means to make your choice. Making a choice also includes choosing your own God, monotheistic or polytheistic; or even the God-particle that the CERN lab in Switzerland is trying to discover. It is not the government’s business to tell an American what God to choose, thus spake the US Constitution, and so ruled the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on 26 June 2002. The decision came after a lawsuit filed by a physician, Dr Michael Newdow, an atheist who complained that his elementary school daughter’s First Amendment rights to be free from God were violated when she was given no choice but to “watch and listen as her state-employed teacher in her state-run school leads her classmates in a ritual proclaiming that there is a God, and that ours is ‘one nation under God’”.That does not mean that atheists have no place in these US, except that they should not take their atheism too seriously.

Not all states require the Pledge of Allegiance to be included in the school day but half of the state legislatures have made its inclusion a requirement. Making the situation murkier is a 1943 US Supreme Court ruling that children cannot be forced to recite the pledge, though the school’s public address system may recite it. In matters of religion, the government shall remain uninvolved, that is the constitutional mandate. Until 1954, the Pledge of Allegiance included the phrase “one nation indivisible”, but to fight the godless communism, the Soviet or Chinese variety, Congress changed the pledge to include “one nation under God.”

The wall between church and state seemed to some extreme secularists to crack a little bit. And since then God, not a sectarian one, Catholic or Protestant, but a generic God, a mythical Supreme Deity, has found a frequent place in public discourse. In a 2-1 ruling, Judge Alfred T Goodman of the Circuit Appeal Court ruled that the pledge that we are a “nation under God” is identical to saying that we are a nation “under Jesus”, a nation “under Vishnu”, a nation “under Zeus”. Such a profession violated the First Amendment mandate that the government shall stay neutral in matters of religion. It would send a wrong message to impressionable children that if they did not participate in the recitation of the pledge, they might become “outsiders”, the judge wrote.

The court discovered a glaring contradiction in what the US Constitution professes and what the American people want to believe and practise. The pledge excludes some polytheists who worship multiple gods and goddesses; atheists and agnostics; or those like the Buddhists, who believe in nirvana, a state of supreme bliss, tranquillity and purity that is attained when the self is absorbed into the Infinite. It has been argued that the recitation of the pledge that includes “one nation under God”, is psychologically coercive, because it forces people to accept monotheism as the sole religious path available to them. The pledge not only violates the Constitution but also negates cultural pluralism. It violates freedom of choice. We should return to the original wording in the pledge, “one nation indivisible”, so it is argued.

Most Americans, like the dissenting Judge Ferdinand F Fernandez, however, dismissed the fear that the US might become a theocracy because of the inclusion “under God” in the pledge. The appeal court’s ruling was overturned by the US Supreme Court decision in 2004.

Late Justice William Rehnquist said, “To give the parent of such a child a sort of ‘heckler’s veto’ over a patriotic ceremony willingly participated in by other students, simply because the Pledge of Allegiance contains the descriptive phrase ‘under God’, is an unwarranted extension of the establishment clause, an extension which would have the unfortunate effect of prohibiting a commendable patriotic observance.”

But Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, the young and the feisty running mate of Mr McCain for the presidency told Mr Charlie Gibson of ABC News last week that “God has a plan”.

Let’s see whether God’s plan is descriptive or prescriptive, evolutionary or intelligent.

(ND Batra is professor of communicationsat Norwich University)

Behold US Diplomatic Might

NSG waiver: This day will live in glory for India

From The Statesman
ND Batra

If you had any doubt about the global power and reach of the US diplomacy, you should ponder the one-off waiver that the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) gave in connection with the India-US nuclear deal in Vienna on Friday. The NSG was established in 1974 after India’s first nuclear test to exclude the country from access to nuclear fuel.

Ironically, the same exclusive 45-nation club has now decided to allow India full access to nuclear fuel for civilian purposes, in spite of the fact that India never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The international group’s opposition to the deal came not only from China, as was expected, but also from a handful of smaller nations including Austria, Ireland and New Zealand, who wanted to give India conditional access, which of course India would not have accepted. A nick-of-time diplomatic iteration of India’s long-standing nuclear policy by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee that “India has a long-standing and steadfast commitment to universal, non-discriminatory and total elimination of nuclear weapons”, and that India would observe a voluntary nuclear test moratorium was enough to clinch the deal.

Commending the atomic club action, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, “It marks the end of India’s decades-long isolation from the nuclear mainstream and of the technology denial regime.” The decision will be Dr Singh’s greatest political achievement apart from giving India the momentum of a dynamic 8-9 per cent sustainable annual economic growth. Few politicians have done so much for India as Dr Singh in spite of the fact that he is perceived so unglamorous, non-assertive and ordinary looking.

In some ways India’s nuclear deal with the US is not unusual. In early May, Russia and the US signed a civilian nuclear power deal under which companies in both countries would have access to nuclear technology through joint ventures. The agreement would open up Russia’s huge uranium reserves to US companies and give Russian companies access to the US’s multibillion-dollar nuclear energy industry. From being great nuclear rivals to becoming nuclear partners would be a giant step, if Russia’s recent missteps in Georgia do not dampen the deal.

As the head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Mr Sergei Kiriyenko, said at that time, “The signing of this agreement opens a gigantic field of opportunities for economic cooperation in the large and growing businesses linked to the civilian use of nuclear energy.” That’s what India should also expect from the nuclear deal with the US.

China too is going ahead forging nuclear deals to meet its increasing energy needs. China plans to build 32 nuclear power plants by 2020 at a cost of about $50 billion, an enormous undertaking which can be accomplished only by accessing nuclear technology and markets in the US, Europe, Japan and Russia. China has signed uranium deals with Russia, Australia and Niger. So will India, hopefully.

The nuclear deal will assure India’s growing economy reliable and uninterrupted supply of nuclear fuel, when the last mile, the US Congress approval, is done. The civilian nuclear deal will open to India the world of sophisticated technology developed by the global nuclear powers, the US, Japan, Europe and Russia, with whom India has growing diplomatic and commercial relations.Access to high-end technology is imperative to keep India globally competitive.

The Indo-US deal is about having faith in India to develop as an alternative model of rapid economic growth without compromising fundamental freedoms. Rapid economic growth of the Indian economy will raise millions of Indians out of poverty. Without plentiful and reliable energy sources, however, poverty cannot be eliminated.

An economically dynamic India on a perpetual growth curve will lift its neighbours in South Asia and help make the world more economically dynamic.

Apart from removing hurdles in India’s search for alternative energy sources to fuel its growing economy, the deal will give India a strategic platform in the knowledge industry and encourage research and development in clean energy technology. As Mr Ratan Tata told Mr Karan Thapar of CNN-IBN a little over a year ago, “Over time this will give India a tremendously powerful position in the knowledge industry, in research and development, in high technology.”

From a humble agricultural power to a great knowledge power is every man’s dream in India. India must go beyond information technology outsourcing and capture the corporate global, as it has begun to do, for example, in automobiles and pharmaceuticals.

Clean coal technology, nuclear energy and solar power are practical alternatives for which the US and other advanced countries will open doors to India. France, for example, gets 80 per cent of its energy from civilian nuclear plants and is ready to collaborate with India in nuclear power development. India needs hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign direct investment in building power plants and world-class infrastructure to increase its manufacturing base in order to create employment opportunities for its growing young population.In the course of time a whole new world of sophisticated global technology will be opened to India, enabling it to spur its economic growth further. In return, India has agreed to do what other nuclear powers have been doing under the nonproliferation treaty, that is open some of its civilian nuclear power plants to inspection and continue to observe abstinence on nuclear testing. Its nuclear deterrent will remain off limits.

India’s sovereignty cannot be compromised, if the country continues to be economically and politically strong.
Poverty compromises national sovereignty. Poor, failed states have little sovereignty.

Regardless of who comes to power at the Centre next year, India should have one prime political goal: domestic harmony based on rapid economic growth in the range of 9-10 per cent that reaches the bottom of the pyramid, India’s not so silent masses that need more than the Nano and cell phones and slogans of azadi and freedom.

(ND Batra is professor of communicationsat Norwich University)

Kashmir and Arundhati Roy

Deconstructing Arundhati Roy and her tribe

From The Statesman
ND Batra

Ms Arundhati Roy, writing in The Guardian (UK) about the trouble in Kashmir, makes an interesting self-observation, with an aura of exceptionalism, saying, “For someone like me, who is not a Muslim”, the Islamic idea of freedom is hard to accept. Ah! But what if she were Muslim?

Islam would have been an unbearable burden upon someone born with a free spirit, 451-degree Fahrenheit imagination and a big incendiary mouth (“India’s many torture centres and Abu Ghraibs in Kashmir… The Indian military occupation of Kashmir makes monsters of us all”) for the simple reason that Islam (a non-pluralistic religion with an uncompromising claim for truth about one God the Greatest, the Prophet and the Holy Book), and secular freedom, as she has understood it, do not chime together. It is the same reason why Ms Taslima Nasreen, the Bangladeshi writer, does not find any Muslim country comfortable and has returned to India claiming, “India is my home though Kolkata is where my heart is.” If you open the door, all Bangladeshis will come to India because India has much greater freedom than any Muslin country. India has a future. Only the blind don’t see it.But what is wrong with Kashmiri Muslim separatists who do not find India comfortable as the rest of 150 million Muslims do? Ms Roy is puzzled and wonders, “Those who wish to turn to the Qura’n for guidance will no doubt find guidance there.

But what of those who do not wish to do that, or for whom the Qur’an does not make place?” Uttering such words about the Holy Book (no place in Qur’an?) would have been blasphemous if she were in Saudi Arabia, where as a Muslim apostate she would have been stoned to death or would have been running from one hiding place to another as Mr Salman Rushdie did for years after he had supped with Satan. Unquestioned obedience (to the religious doctrine) is freedom in Islam as it is in the traditional Christianity of which the historical consequences have been authoritarianism, intolerance and the Inquisition; not freedom and democracy which developed only after the Western mind began to unshackle itself from medieval religious orthodoxy.

Visiting the Kashmir Valley on the wings of poetic eloquence and with fire in her belly during the recent protests, Ms Roy hyperventilated about Srinagar, “The city floated on a sea of smiles. There was ecstasy in the air.” Kashmiris were free from fear. All they wanted was freedom from democracy by exercising their right for self-determination so that they could live according to the Shariat as the Taliban are trying to do in Pakistan and Afghanistan. But Ms Roy’s free spirit turned fearful and she began to wonder what would happen to the Hindus of Jammu, when Kashmiris are finally allowed to quit “nanga bhhookha Hindustan” and bravely march to “jan se pyara Pakistan” led by the self-proclaimed supreme leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani. Would they too have the right to self-determination? “Will the hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits living in exile, many of them in terrible poverty, have the right to return?” she asks. And she knows the answer.

Kashmir has seen one of the worst ethnic cleansing in recent history but Ms Roy, like other Indian intellectuals, opinion-makers and politicos, is afraid to call a spade a spade. Amazingly she brackets the fringe people with great writers like herself. Listen to her falsetto agony and self-pity: “What will happen to homosexuals and adulterers and blasphemers? What of thieves and lafangas and writers who do not agree with the ‘complete social and moral code’? Will we be put to death as we are in Saudi Arabia?” (Italics added). That Kashmiri scenario of freedom will be an intolerable nightmare and Ms Roy wants India to wake up and get out of a hellhole: “India needs aazadi from Kashmir...” Half a million Hindus who visit Amarnath every year too will be free from the burden of treading the inhospitable mountains. And the poor Muslims of Jammu, who will be deprived of the blessings of Kashmiri azaadi, too will find their own freedom as rest of the millions of Indian Muslims have found.

Echoing Ms Roy’s revelation of how the militancy is miraculously changing to non-violence in Kashmir, Jug Suraiya of the Times of India wondered what India would do if Mr Geelani, and “his followers were to adopt the strategies of non-cooperation and satyagraha…” If Mr Geelani were to develop the true spirit of Gandhian sataygraah and non-violence, he would cease to be the Geelani we know, the man who has never stopped believing that Kashmir being a Muslim majority region belongs to Pakistan and there is no other way except the Islamic way, the doctrine Al Qaida and the Taliban want to impose on all Muslims. The only man who ever succeeded in following Mahatma Gandhi was Martin Luther King Jr, who said 45 years ago, “I have a dream...” And that dream has come true in the rise of Senator Barack Obama, the first Black to be nominated the presidential candidate of a major political party in the US. That is an example of a non-violent revolution.

Mr Suraiya asks rhetorically, “By letting Kashmir go peacefully would the idea of India be subverted? Or would it be enlarged and further endorsed? That is the real import of the so-called Kashmir question: it has become the question of the idea of India, and what that idea means to us.”

Letting Kashmir go peacefully into the belly of the beast, the Taliban, is not my idea of India.

Will “India minus the K-word” (Kashmir) or A-word (Arunachal Pradesh) or N-word (Nagaland) still be India? No. India will not be India. India is much more than a mere geographical, sociological or philosophical idea in the minds of the English-speaking intelligentsia living in their gated communities. India is unlike any other nation, a nation so sharply divided and so diverse, culturally, racially and linguistically, that the only way the sufferings of millions of people can be mitigated, the only way natural and manmade disasters can be confronted and overcome is to keep India together ~ whatever it takes. No nation can survive without statesmanship; or without force.

(ND Batra is professor of communications at Norwich University)

Rabindranath Tagore

Thou Hast Made Me Endless- XV

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941 AD) the Nobel Laureate of 1913 was introduced to the West primarily through the collection of English translation of some of his poems/songs captioned as ‘Gitanjali’ (=Offering of Songs). More translations of his works followed by the poet himself and others after he had won the Nobel, including poems/songs, dramas, short stories etc. However, such efforts were sporadic and sluggish, mostly on individual initiative, which still remain so.

As a result, a vast volume of the poet’s works remains un-translated while, it appears, it is an impossible proposition to translate even a substantial part of the poet’s total works to permit those, not privileged by the knowledge of Bengali language, a reasonably broad view of his myriad creations where unfathomable perceptional depth of top grade aesthetics runs through, literally true to his song “Thou hast made me endless / Such is Thy pleasure”.

Notwithstanding this, an upsurge of Tagore translation took place in the last decade of the twentieth century by virtue of a good number of eminent poets/translators e.g. William Radice, Joe Winter, Ketaki Kushari Dyson, to name a few, all of whom left their valuable contribution to this oeuvre and my book THE ECLIPSED SUN is a modest addition to this. I have put stress on a few aspects of the poet’s works, particularly those in his twilight years, which seemed to me quite inadequately covered so far. The followings are presented mostly based on this book.

RAJAT DAS GUPTA: Calcutta: e-mail: rajatdasgupta@yahoo.com
rajarch@cal3.vsnl.net.in

Poem No: 8 of the book PATRAPUT written at Santiniketan, ( where the Poet’s University “Visva Bharati” situates) on 5th November 1935.

[Translator’s note: Volumes of philosophical dissertations might not have brought home better the Upanishadic perception of oneness of the trivia with the cosmos than this small poem.]

This wild seedling finds way to me,
Yellow and green in her leaves I see,
Flowers are violet, cups wily
To sip light delightfully.
But no answer anywhere
When her name I inquire
She is in the club of the anonymous
Where belong the heavenly stars inglorious.
So, I capture her in my pet name
Piali (*), in my privacy that is her fame. (*)

There, Fuchsia, Marigold and Dahlia golden,
Grace the ceremony of the garden.
But my Piali remains in liberty,
Though in utter ignominy –
Unfettered by distinction of class,
A Boul (**), unsocial, lost in the mass. (**)

But soon the flowers drop and dry
Without clamour or outcry.
Her horoscope – only a few moments’ combine,
The nectar in her heart a few drops fine.
In a short span of time is her journey done,
While ages engulf flaming petals of the Sun;
Her history noted at the corner of a tiny page
With a tiny quill by the Scribe of all age.

Yet, a massive history it does unfold,
From one page to other one can’t behold.
The centuries in their eternal stream,
Their ups and downs in slow rhythm
That raised and buried many a mountain range,
In oceans and deserts brought seas of change,
Along that Time’s flow eternal,
Advanced this flower’s vision primordial.

In this flower’s transience, this vision primordial
Lives all through fresh, dynamic and eternal.
Its end one is to sight yet,
That formless concept, the un-sketched portrait
Remains eternal in some unseen contemplation
That I try to conceive in my imagination.
In which unseen is held Mankind’s trend,
The future, past and present.

· * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

(*) ‘Piala’ in Bengali means ‘Cup’ from which the Poet has coined its feminine ‘Piali’ which also happens to be the name of many a girl/women, not necessarily relating them to a ‘cup’, unlike this flower where its similarity with a ‘cup’ is implied.
(**) Bouls are a sect of people in Bengal, whose concentration is most in the Birbhum district of W. Bengal where the Poet’s University “Visva Bharati” (=World University”) situates. Bouls are remarkable for their highly spiritual songs with their “Ektara” (a single stringed musical instrument) played in tune, which is their heritage for generations. Religious liberalism is also a remarkable feature of Boul song. These are notwithstanding the low educational level of the Bouls particularly in their earlier generations when singing and begging was their sole occupation. Bouls songs have profoundly influenced Tagore’s own music known as Ranindra Sangeet (=Rabindranath’s songs). In the nineties of the last century Purna Das Boul familiarized the Western world with Boul song by virtue of his performances there including America.

Nano: A poltical football?

Becoming a sustainable corporation

From The Statesman
ND Batra

Tata Motors’s Nano project’s difficulties in Singur triggered in my mind a stream of random thoughts as to how a global corporation should build a sustainable enterprise that takes into account not only the government but all stakeholders including the humblest farmer with a “two-bigha” plot of land. But this column is not about the great Tatas, the pride of India.

The idea of what constitutes a company’s individuality, reputation and trust is important. Image and identity contribute to these intangible assets. McDonald’s, Nike, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Chevron, and, yes, even ExxonMobil, for example, are powerful global brands and in many ways they project what the US is all about. Protecting brand reputation, when a crisis hits a company, big or small, is of paramount importance. Successful executives are great communicators and diplomats. They don’t threaten to walk away; they solve problems.

In the age of 24/7 media, corporations have become righteously obsessed with their reputation. Investigative journalists thrive on controversies and apart from serving their own self-interest, they serve a very useful social purpose. They keep corporate America on its toes. Imagine if Enron, WorldCom and other companies that went down the drain because of corruption had been subjected to an intense media scrutiny. Millions of people would have been saved from grief.

Before “60 Minutes” and similar television investigative programmes invite their subjects for an interview, they do their homework. Company whistleblowers and insiders supplement the news media’s own internal investigation.

The important point is that since corporate America cannot ignore the news media, the best thing is to make professional preparations to meet them and give them necessary cooperation. It is important to know how to communicate effectively and persuasively during a crisis so that the situation can be brought under control and remedial measures taken to re-establish the company’s reputation. Today all major corporations scan the burgeoning blogosphere and social networks. Most have their own blogs and they invite their stakeholders to contribute to them. NGOs and social activists have as much access to the news media as any big corporation.

Business culture in India has been changing rapidly and Indians are more open to global corporations today than they were a decade ago. And like Europeans, Indians too demand that global companies maintain the same high standards as they do in the US.One cannot underestimate the importance of the perpetual news cycle for the corporate global and the necessity of having an adequate response structure in place in order to take corrective measures in case the news media inadvertently damage the company’s reputation.

Many corporations use institutional advertisement to inform the public about facts that might have been ignored by the news media. Advertisement is a very important tool not only for promoting products but also for advancing a company’s vision of its social responsibilities. This is one form of communication over which a company has full control. During a crisis, a transnational company should hire the services of local agents and public relations companies. Local knowledge is very important during crises.

A corporation should report to the public about its social responsibility activities in a manner that can stand public scrutiny. Some corporations use their social responsibility activities as a tool of corporate diplomacy to build social capital and goodwill. They use their social capital when hit with a crisis. If a company has a code of ethics, let it be known to the public as to how the company is following the code. Of course, every corporation should have a code of ethics.

Europe might seem to us a house divided against itself, but when it comes to dealing with US global corporations like GE, Microsoft, Apple, et al, or a country like China, EU takes a united stand. Instead of getting help from Washington, global corporations develop their corporate diplomacy. All major corporations, Boeing, Microsoft, Google, for example, have their own corporate diplomats who use the same tools and talents as political diplomats do in dealing with international crisis. Many of them are retired ambassadors, state department officials, and military officers; and they know their jobs.

Not pulling out but lying low and waiting for the situation to improve might be a better option for transnational companies when in trouble. Even in Venezuela, the fifth largest oil producing country, some oil companies have decided to stick around, hoping that the situation will improve. In some countries, for example, KFC (Pakistan) and McDonald’s (France), outlets have been set on fire, demolished or boycotted by anti-global activists; nonetheless, business operations on the whole have continued.
Instead of quitting altogether, holding back further direct investment or even curtailment may have a remedial effect. Perhaps Tata Motors should think again these lines. The government’s backing is important but help should be sought as a last resort. Global companies should develop their own public relations, including relations with the local news media and coalition-building with local interest groups.

Although an early awareness/warning system could help predict many problems before they turn into crises, not every catastrophic event can be predicted. An early awareness system shows the potential of various issues that might emerge.If an issue has already emerged and if preventive measures are not taken before it reaches the take off stage, the issue will turn into a full-blown crisis involving NGOs and the news media.As a corporate public affairs expert, one has to cultivate public goodwill and manage public perceptions. Public goodwill is a valuable asset for a global corporation.

The complexity of dealing with multiple stakeholders is very important in understanding the parameters of doing business abroad. Monsanto, for example, had a setback in Europe but not in other countries such as China, India and Brazil. Cultural differences even in India cannot be ignored.
Were Tata Motors an American company planning an operation in India, they wouldn’t have allowed Nano to become a political football.

(ND Batra is professor of communications at Norwich University)

Pakistan Today

If Musharraf couldn’t do it, who could?

From The Statesman
ND Batra
Pakistan and its humongous problems won’t go away. In fact they are spilling into neighbouring countries and beyond.

In its six decades of bloody history, one of the country’s prime ministers Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged like a thug and two others, Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, were unceremoniously booted out from power and forced into exile. When under the pressure of “friendly persuasion” by outside powers, the two political rivals, with no love lost between them, were allowed to return to Pakistan, Mrs Bhutto, a darling of the West, was killed in an election melee and the other returnee, Mr Sharif, has been plotting revenge against the (ex)General who humiliated him in a 1999 putsch.

ince the 1980s when General Zia-ul-Haq seized power, Pakistan has been gradually turned into a nation with a fundamentalist mindset. In varying degrees, every institution, including the Pakistan armed forces and the ISI, has been infused with the fundamentalist virus that spread from Saudi-financed Wahabbi schools. Islamic fundamentalists and the US-financed Afghanistan armed resistance ultimately drove the Soviets out and also factored into the final collapse of the Soviet Union.

When the United States withdrew its presence from Afghanistan leaving well-armed guerrillas behind, the ISI in collusion with Al-Qaida and its financial resources raised the Taliban that overran the country, imposing brutal order on the war-ravaged nation. By any historical standard the ISI-Taliban control of Afghanistan was a remarkable achievement of the Pakistan armed forces. No less significant has been the development of nuclear weapons, which made Pakistan a nation that could not be ignored in the light of proliferation threats and Islamic militancy.

On Christmas Day in 2003 when suicide bombers hit Mr Musharraf’s motorcade ~ certainly not the last attempt to kill him~ many analysts wondered what good was the mighty General to the United States in its global mission of fighting terrorism if he could not protect himself. Against all odds, Mr Musharraf put up a face of being a steadfast ally of the United States in its fight against Al- Qaida terrorism. He cautiously responded to peace overtures from India. But many in the West began to be impatient with him. Some wondered whether Mr Musharraf was fully committed to fighting Al-Qaida; or had another agenda.

But the United States saw no alternative to the man who seemed to control both the military and civilian life.

In the beginning, Mr Musharraf had an aura of “exceptionalism” about him, as if he were a man of destiny. He led a bloodless coup in 1999, promising to end political corruption and take Pakistan into a new direction. He conjured the vision of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as to how he had liberated Turkey from Islamic orthodoxy and made it a modern country. But Mr Mushrraf’s dream died too soon.

When the events of 9/11 forced him to reluctantly break away from the Taliban (whose control over Afghanistan had created an illusion of strategic depth for Pakistan) and join the US war against Al-Qaida, Mr Musharraf invoked the Prophet Muhammad’s political alliances and strategies (even with the enemies) and the Prophet’s final triumph.

Unfortunately, Mr Musharraf’s opportunistic alliance with Islamic parties to build a political base to keep his secular rivals, Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Mr Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), out of power backfired; he unwittingly allowed extremism to grow. In 2002, Mr Musharraf assumed wide-ranging powers, including the power to amend the Constitution and dismiss Parliament. Under the new deal, which Parliament approved with the help of the ruling coalition and the Islamic alliance, the Muttahida-Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), Mr Musharraf’s seizure of power, including all orders and ordinances, could not be questioned “in any court or forum on any ground whatsoever.” Not even the US President has so much immunity for his actions.

The General who would become a civilian one day would continue to have the power to dissolve Parliament ~ though with the subsequent approval of the Supreme Court ~ until his term ended in 2007. The Supreme Court seemed the last best hope for democratic aspirations in Pakistan but he fired the Chief Justice and several judges who might have gone against him and overturned his election as President in 2007 for another five years. Out of fear, like Richard Nixon, he over-reached himself. The lame duck National Assembly passed the constitutional amendment in three days and the Senate rubber-stamped it. Transition to democracy seemed safe for Mr Musharraf’s continuation as a powerful head of the state. But the February parliamentary elections brought his political enemies, the slain Bhutto’s PPP and Mr Sharif’s PML-N, into power.

Initially, Mr Musharraf’s goal might have been to pursue his grand vision of making Pakistan a modern progressive Muslim nation. Apart from developing working relations with the secular parties whose leadership remained exiled and barred from political participation, Mr Musharraf kept up the momentum of building peaceful relations with India through dialogue, trade and cultural exchanges.

Even the Kashmir problem seemed solvable.

But Mr Musharraf failed to comprehend and control two contradictory forces in Pakistan, the militant Islamic extremism that is not only prevalent in the tribal belts of the Northwest but also in the main street as well as the barracks; and the so-called growing legal-eagle educated classes who benefited from the 6-7 per cent economic growth but who saw their last best hope for freedom and democracy in the judiciary not in his authoritarian rule.

On Pakistan’s Independence Day, Mr Musharraf, under the threat of impeachment, begged his political enemies for reconciliation. “If we want to put our economy on the right track and fight terrorism then we need political stability. Unless we bring political stability, I think we can’t fight them properly… Political stability, in my view, can only be brought through a reconciliation approach as opposed to confrontation,” Musharraf said.

During most of the nine years since he seized power, Mr Musharraf exercised absolute power; nevertheless, Pakistan saw little peace and stability. Now with the return of chaotic democracy, Pakistan is still “the most dangerous country in the world,” which the United States cannot ignore. Nor can India.

(ND Batra is professor of communications at Norwich University)

It is India again!

Ring out the gloom on 15th August

From The Statesman

The policy of being too cautious is the greatest risk of all.
Jawaharlal Nehru

Freedom from fear is the freedom
I claim for you my motherland!
Rabindranath Tagore

India’s lumbering democracy has much to celebrate on the Independence Day, notwithstanding whatever happened in Kabul, Ahmadabad and Naina Devi. A rising power knows how to put down petty fires here and there.
India’s culture of “order-in-disorder” and free enterprise keeps gradually transforming the country into a vibrant economy; and in spite of the slow down, the economy is still likely to grow 7.5 to 8 percent for the year ending March 2009, though die-hard optimists still believe that 9 percent will be within the reach.

Quite a few years ago India crossed the critical juncture, that indefinable and momentous point when economic growth became irreversible, regardless of who would govern the country. Now with the realignment of political forces after the Dr. Manmohan Singh’s UPA government won the vote of confidence over the issue of nuclear agreement with the United States, liberalization of the economy will hasten.

The forces of economic growth and the marketplace have begun to dominate and would trump everything else including provincial and religious communalism. Indians of all karma, Dalits, Muslims, Brahmins and others, have come to understand that the way to prosperity is through entrepreneurship. An entrepreneur is a connector, a network builder, a boundary breaker. Look at Kumari Mayawati of Uttar Pradesh, for example.
India has not stopped exciting the world’s imagination and investors keep exploring its potentials. For many global investors India offers another boulevard of growth and diversification where they can put their resources to alternative productive uses. International investors want growth with protection for their shareholders and India seems attractive because its legal system including property and contract law is well developed. Tata Consultancy Services, Reliance conglomerate, Infosys Technologies, and Wipro are not the only companies for which India has become a world leader. There is a growing field of auto industry, biotechnology, petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals, where Indian companies have built international brand names.

The global buzz that India is full of talented young people who can perform competitively continues. India’s self-esteem is rising; and so is the motivation to excel. Today a young Indian with a professional degree from an American university may want to work for an American company in the beginning of his career but eventually he dreams of returning to India and setting up his own business. Do not call it a reverse brain drain; rather it is the reinforcement of India’s brain power with fresh blood from abroad, a kind of perpetual loop.


India is gradually emerging as a global hub for specialized knowledge processing for global corporations. Knowledge economy depends upon extracting and creating new knowledge from databases and is in a sense value-added outsourcing. Although India is far from becoming a full-fledged knowledge economy, this is a persistent trend, apart from other growing fields such as genetic engineering and high-tech healthcare that will hasten the transformation of India in the next decades. But much more needs to be done to sustain India’s 9 percent growth.

One of the biggest hurdles for rapid economic growth in India, and no one can deny it, is the red tape, which takes nefarious forms such as expectations of under the table money; fear of the loss of bureaucratic power due to privatization; and apprehensions about foreign direct investment (The East India Company syndrome).

Let’s not forget that the primary goal of rapid economic growth and its ultimate measure is poverty reduction by generating opportunities for employment, especially for the rural population, who mostly depending upon agriculture. For centuries rural India has been held hostage to nature’s uncertainties. Technology can break nature’s stranglehold on the poor farmer. Most rural workers should be absorbed into agro-industry, manufacturing and service industries and that again will necessitate massive investment in building rural and urban infrastructure and upgrading the existing one.

Rising expectations at home and abroad are creating compelling conditions for the government to put its act together and become pro-active. India has no choice but to get out of the political inertia, upgrade its clogged roads and overcrowded airports, eliminate frequent power outages and scuttle the red tape.


India is increasingly becoming an integral part of globalized economy and is clearly thriving on the synergy between multinational corporations and its indigenous strength, which come from its top universities, democratic institutions and the ingenuity of its people for innovative solutions to complex problems. That is why the coming of global giants such as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation to broadcasting and Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks to Bollywood is so important. Let there be collaboration and competition for India’s eyes and ears.


What is Ingenuity? It means transcending a system’s limitations by finding an alternative route to reach the same goal. When a creative and ingenious mind hits the wall, he or she gets fired up to find another way and improvises by transferring intelligence from one application to another. The challenge therefore is whether India’s ingenuity can be applied to undertake collective action to build reliable highways, ports, railroads, power plants and airports speedily enough to handle rapid growth.

Corruption is a serious problem in every society. The source of corruption is unchecked exercise of power, of course. Elected officials can be removed, though one might say cynically, only to be replaced by another bunch of hoodlums. But democracies do have methods of dealing with corrupt people in high places. There is a two-fold solution to the problem. Public accountability through media exposure, especially the Internet and television, as the American experience shows, is a strong corrective. Former US senator John Edwards, a hopeless seeker of the White House, for example, has been exposed by the news media for having an extra-marital affair while his wife has been fighting breast cancer.


Secondly, privatization could counter official corruption because it takes power away from bureaucrats and gives it to entrepreneurs and corporate leaders. But they too, as the American experience shows, abuse power. Nevertheless, if laws were enforced rigorously, the corrupt would find their rightful place in jails as many American CEOs have discovered. War against corruption and poverty will never come to an end.


On this Independence Day, let not gloom and doom take hold of us. It is our moral responsibility to create conditions that encourage risk taking and reward entrepreneurship. It is only through free spirited and full-blooded entrepreneurship that India can meet the challenge of becoming an India that our children and grandchildren can be proud of and the whole world can look up to.

(ND Batra is professor of communications at Norwich University)

China Today

Beyond Beijing Olympics

From The Statesman
ND Batra

China seems to be a nation that is inebriated with great expectations about its future, while rest of the world is just struggling to get along with bad debts, spiralling prices and random bursts of terrorism.

From die-hard communism to marketplace capitalism has been a long march indeed, though not what Mao Zedong might have conceived. But that is in fact a great tribute to China’s genius, its adaptability and resilience, creating the perception of China’s relentless and inevitable rise to a global superpower. Today China is healthier, better-educated, richer and more optimistic about its progress than most other developing countries. A recent Pew Global Attitudes Project survey showed that 86 per cent of the Chinese said they were happy with their country’s direction provided by the Communist Party.

China fascinates the global corporate with its controlled narratives of boundless opportunities and more so with the power of its ruling party’s collective will that rules 1.3 billion hardworking, entrepreneurial and yet obedient masses. China has come to believe that since the world cannot do without its inexpensive goods and talents, there’s not much to worry about intellectual property, currency manipulation to boost exports, massive trade surpluses, and rising foreign exchange reserves that end up as US Treasury notes, so no harm done.

Now the whole world is waiting for the 2008 Games to open ~ hopefully ~ under Beijing’s clear blue skies “to refashion the Olympics from a sports and merchandising extravaganza to an engine of political and social change”, as The Wall Street Journal had optimistically put it once upon a time. China won the right to host the Games in spite of its record about human rights of the people of Tibet, the followers of the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong, and political dissidents and scholars, some in jail waiting for a fair trial. Doing business with China is more important than human rights, though Americans along with rest of the world go on paying lip service to the issue. The US House of Representatives passed a near unanimous resolution (419-1) last Wednesday criticising China’s human rights record. President George W Bush will be attending the Olympics but last Tuesday he met a group of Chinese dissidents and promised to raise the human rights issue. China of course protested, and that’s the end.

Trade and the Olympics had little humanising effect upon Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union; therefore, to expect wonders to happen in China because of the Olympics in 2008 or increasing international trade is expecting too much from China’s monolithic system. It is doubtful if rising prosperity would persuade China’s Communist Party to loosen its control over power and become less authoritarian. Since China took the road to capitalism about three decades ago, its economy has been opening up and growing rapidly with its gross national product (GNP) rising to more than 9 per cent annually, which has made the Chinese, especially its elite and entrepreneurial classes, ultra nationalistic and patriotic.

Tiananmen has been wiped out from the nation’s historical memory.

Many long-term economic benefits would accrue from the 2008 Games because the whole enterprise has necessitated massive investment, billions of dollars in infrastructure and information technology to modernise and showcase Beijing for the events. Hundreds of thousands of tourists are pouring into China and the organisers hope that apart from enjoying the Games they would admire the rise of new China. China seeks global acknowledgement and respect for its achievements.

China feels that it can compete with the best without the noise and chaos of an open society like the United States, where the people demand accountability from their political leaders. No wonder Beijing with the help of US telecommunication companies, Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Cisco, has been trying to expand its control into the digital domain. Social scientists say that large centralised political systems break down due to internal pressures triggered by communications technology, unless they have built-in capabilities for adjustment.

So it is too early to say what might happen in China in the age of the Internet, satellites, cell phones and hosts of other wireless, digital, and interconnected sensing devices that are becoming available to the masses. China might succeed in controlling the digital generation and guide it into a nationalistic upsurge as it happened during the recent Tibet protests. Some US corporations cannot stop thinking that by offering selective partnership to Chinese businesses they would be able to co-opt China’s brain-power. For example, after selling its ThinkPad to a Chinese company, Lenovo Group Ltd. in 2005, IBM alerted the public about the inevitability of China’s rise and the need to harness its strength for corporate America. A full-page advertisement amusingly admonished: “The future is a dragon. Do you hear it coming?” The IBM boasted of access to a global pool of Nobel laureates, research labs and no less than 3,000 scientists, engineers and technologists. Instead of paying the salaries of scientists and technologists to solve complex problems, the ad asked, wouldn’t it be great simply “to rent their minds?”

Renting brain-power from China for doing specific jobs may sound more acceptable than outsourcing, but post-Olympics China’s intellectual and manufacturing power may no longer be available for renting. The Japanese too have been hearing the dragon coming. In 2005, the Chinese government permitted loud and sometime violent protests against Japan in several big industrial cities, including Shanghai and Hong Kong, regarding Japanese insensitivities to their bruised feelings.

The Chinese claimed that their feelings had been hurt because some Japanese school textbooks showed no regrets about the atrocities the Japanese troops had committed against them during World War II. There were other reasons. Japan had begun to explore undersea oil and gas deposits in a disputed region of East China Sea; and of course Japan’s continuous strategic alliance with the US regarding the Taiwan issue has been an irritant. When Japan asked for an apology and compensation for vandalism and damage to its diplomatic and commercial property, China said it had nothing to apologise about. Before the street protests, the Chinese government had allowed an online petition drive by millions of Chinese against Japan’s effort to seek permanent membership of the UN Security Council. The unprecedented online phenomenon showed how China could mobilise its masses.

Just as the Chinese authorities aroused the Chinese to come out and protest against Japan, with the same speed they ordered protesters to shut up. The Communist Party is capable of generating and controlling mass enthusiasm through nationalism, as it is doing for the Games now. It will be interesting to see how the Games affect China as the world turns.

(ND Batra is professor of communications at Norwich University)