America in danger

When the devil has no horns

Fighting The Outside-Inside Enemy
From The Statesman
25 May 2010

By ND Batra
IMMEDIATELY after the serendipitous discovery of the car bomb at Times Square on 1 May by vigilant onlookers, the New York Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, issued a stern public warning: “We will not tolerate any bias or any backlash against Muslim New Yorkers.” In times of crisis, politicians must put up a brave face and reassure the public that everything is under control. Preventing mass hysteria and violence spilling into Muslim communities as well as maintaining civil liberties has been the biggest challenge for law enforcement authorities wherever terrorists have struck whether in New York, London, Madrid or Mumbai. More so now when a new breed of smart, well-educated and socially assimilated young terrorists, with American accent, with American passports, some with American wives, have begun to appear on the scene, people so normal in their daily lives that you won’t mind helping them; even having a beer with them. What do you do when the devil does not look like a devil?

The Times, London, showed a picture of Faisal Shahzad, the accused New York failed bomber, as a young smiling father holding his new-born child in his arms with a cutline that created what psychologists call cognitive dissonance: “Faisal Shezad has admitted to receiving explosives training in Waziristan.” The self-contradictory picture of a most ordinary naturalised American Muslim young man coming from an elite Pakistani family - the son of a retired Pakistani Air Marshal - has created diffused and widespread anxiety in people’s minds as to who to trust and where the next terrorist attack might hit. Can a visitor to New York take a cab driven by someone who looks like a South Asian Muslim?
Potential target
UNSURPRISINGLY this kind of attack was not totally beyond the radar. The New York Police Commissioner, Raymond Kelley, told CBS “60 Minutes” correspondent, Steve Kroft, that although a car bomb attack was not unexpected, it’s worrisome nonetheless because “they’re mobile…. relatively easy to put together…. You can do it by yourself.” A car bomber can park his vehicle anywhere in New York and time it for a later blast as Shahzad did in Times Square. Not far from it is the Penn station, the busiest railroad hub in the United States that serves 600,000 passengers every day. It too must be a potential target for terrorists. Can one live in New York without being paranoid? But the mind of a jihadist cannot grow on its own; it needs nourishment, psychological reinforcement and the moral conviction to carry out terrorist attacks regardless of the consequences. And Pakistan has been a haven for terrorist ideology and training since long. New Yorkers got lucky this time, but such an attack could happen anywhere in the world, especially in a democratic and open society which by its nature is porous and vulnerable. For example, in spite of the 13 February Pune restaurant bomb blast, no one in India can say that another attack won’t happen.

Nor should the long-drawn out trial, conviction and death sentence of the sole surviving Pakistani gunman, Ajmal Kasab, for the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack give Indians any assurance that another attack of this magnitude would not happen again, especially when the state-supported terrorist groups continue operating in the neighbourhood. So long the Al Qaida and its surrogates such as Tehrik-e-TalibanPakistan (TTP), Jaish-e-Mohmmed, and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) with their Internet recruiting campaigns and terrorist training camps continue thriving in Pakistan, the likelihood of another terrorist attack in the United States, Europe or India is very high.

Last year 41 Americans were accused of plotting or abetting terrorist attacks against the US or abroad, including some that caught the headlines. For example: David Headley, a Chicago American Muslim of Pakistani origin charged with helping the Pakistani militant group responsible for the Mumbai attacks; Colleen LaRose, a Pennsylvania woman, also known as “Jihad Jane,” who was charged with plotting to attack a Swedish cartoonist who had caricatured the Prophet; Nidal Malik Hasan, a US Army major who went on a shooting rampage killing 13 people at Fort Hood Army base in Texas; Daniel Patrick Boyd, a North Carolina man who was charged with conspiring to attack the US Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia and Najibullah Zazi, a permanent US resident from Afghanistan, who plotted a suicide attack on the New York subway system in February but lost his nerve and was arrested. What is the United States going to do? Connecticut Independent Senator Joe Lieberman would go to the extreme and revoke citizenship. “If you’ve joined an enemy of the United States in attacking the United States and trying to kill Americans, I think you should sacrifice your rights of citizenship,” he told the media. Even if it passes constitutional hurdles, Senator Lieberman’s proposal would not solve the immediate problem of uncovering Shahzad’s involvement with Al Qaida-Taliban networks in Pakistan. It might be a warning to some aspiring terrorists but to those who have already been brainwashed and become committed to carry out terrorist acts, American citizenship has no meaning. There is a certain Paradise over there, waiting to receive them.

Some American politicians are considering a move to suspend the Miranda warning in case of terrorist suspects. The Miranda warning is given to a criminal suspect to remind him of his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination before he is interrogated by the police. It is a protection against confession by police torture and is deemed a very important fundamental right. The warning reads: “ You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?”
Warning to Pakistan
TAKE the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian Muslim who attempted to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his underwear while on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan, on 25 December 2009. Soon after his arrest when he was read his Miranda rights, he stopped talking and refused to cooperate with the police. Nonetheless, he is in custody on charges of murder and use of weapons of mass destruction, and is awaiting further legal procedures. Some people argue that doing away with the Miranda warning in exceptional cases would facilitate confessions and save lives especially when dealing with terrorists. But creating exceptions to the Miranda warning is a slippery slope; eventually it might disappear. Americans have much greater faith in technological and diplomatic muscle than plodding legislative solutions to tackle the growing threat of outside-inside terrorism. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unambiguously warned Pakistan: “We want more. We expect more. We’ve made it very clear that if, heaven forbid, an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan, were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences.” The United States might go beyond drone attacks, may even land boots on the ground, however savage they may be. Although the Obama administration plans to reduce its military presence in the region beginning July 2011, nothing is carved in stone. The United States is not going to run away in a hurry, as Afghan President Hamid Karzai was assured on his recent visit to the White House. It is time for the Pakistan military and ISI, the powers behind the democratic facade, to heed the voice of Uncle Sam, Pakistan’s major financial benefactor, who will brook no existential threat from any quarter. But this is also in Pakistan’s own national interest, a nation that has suffered so many self-inflicted wounds in order to spite and to inflict pain on its neighbours.
The writer is Professor of Communication and Diplomacy at Norwich University

Ode to Singapore

Printed from
The Times of India
Some Creative Messiness, Please
N D Batra, Mar 19, 2010, 12.00am IST

Singapore is an obsessively orderly and tidy society. You begin to feel the difference as soon as you disembark at the Changi airport and smoothly glide through Immigration for a taxi that zips through the city under unobtrusive and ubiquitous security cams. If there is an accident five miles ahead of you, i have been told, you would be alerted. The city knows who is doing what; nonetheless, it gives you a genuine feeling of openness, safety and comfort, if you follow the rules. Law enforcement is another obsession here.
A Malaysian-Indian family who recently moved to Singapore told me that this is the safest place for women. In many ways, the measure of a civilised society is how safe its women, whether in hijab, sari or miniskirt, feel when they use public transportation, taxis or walk its city streets at night.

Singapore is perhaps the only country in the world that has banned chewing gums, whose discarded messy blobs are a disgusting public nuisance. Since the unintended and terrible consequences of the 1920-33 prohibition experiment, it is unthinkable that Americans would ever accept this kind of draconian law. But Singapore is different. Unsocial behaviour (chewing gums, spiting paan, etc) and unruly people that disturb social harmony and tarnish the Singapore brand are unacceptable. If it could, the city-state would like to get rid of foreign workers from South and South East Asia, whose nasty social habits, drunkenness, littering, spitting, loud music and public urination are intolerable to Singaporeans.
Many Singaporeans shun the lowly work that foreign workers do and look down upon them from their highrise air-conditioned homes. So auxiliary police officers (APO) patrol areas where foreign workers live and congregate - areas such as Little India, the Golden Mile Complex and other places - in spite of the fact that there is no evidence that foreign workers commit more crimes than local Singaporeans. The arrest rate, according to police figures for 2007, for foreign work-permit holders, was 227 per 100,000 as against 435 for Singaporeans; nonetheless, the country's largest newspaper recommended that "labour contractors and employers make it a contractual duty to brief guest workers thoroughly on the dos and don'ts of life in a tidy society".
Foreign workers in construction, manufacturing and service industries are vital to the Singapore economy, and there are 856,000 of them out of a total foreign population of 1.25 million. But the new budget being discussed now in parliament would impose a progressive levy on companies hiring foreign workers, hoping that hiring restrictions would motivate companies to automate and innovate, thus, increasing productivity.
Higher productivity would require fewer unskilled foreign workers and more highly skilled Singaporean workers. It is doubtful Singapore will ever be able to do without foreign workers, whether high-skilled professionals or low-level construction and domestic workers.
For many Singaporeans, 1.25 million foreigners are too many but the trouble is that Singaporeans are not making enough babies. The fertility rate is one of the lowest in the world. Educated Singaporean women are career-oriented; and, besides, they are professionally extremely competitive with male workers. What makes child-rearing so difficult in Singapore is the paucity of infant care for which the going rate is, in Singapore dollars, $1,000 to $1,500 per month for two to 18 months toddlers. The government gives $600 to full-time working mothers. Some expectant mothers reserve a seat in an infant care facility as early as two months into the pregnancy. The most impressive achievement of Singapore is the mutual acceptance - not merely tolerance - of each other among its various ethnic and religious groups.
Commenting on inter-religious harmony, senior minister Goh Chok said, "Singaporeans are also blessed because many religious organisations reach out to (the) larger community, not just cater to their own flock." The self-congratulation was prompted by the decision of the Ramakrishna Mission to offer 60 parking spaces to Bartley Christian Church worshipper next door for their Sunday services for which the mission built a special gate on its compound. Inter-religious and inter-ethnic recriminations are almost absent.
Recently when a pastor criticised Buddhism and Taoism, whose practices are followed by most ethnic Chinese constituting Singapore's overwhelming majority, his remarks were regarded as socially unacceptable. Singapore politicians, city planners, architects, educators and think-tankers aspire to make the city a hi-tech global hub of trade and commerce that competes with Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai, a goal that is not difficult to achieve.
But to become a great centre for the arts and culture, like New York or London, Singapore needs unbridled freedom of speech and expression, and some tolerance for the creative messiness that accompanies it. It is freedom of speech in all its manifestations that enables a nation to generate an abiding grand narrative or a myth that binds its people. Today Singapore is a very neat, prosperous and liveable city. It is free from civic violence but its civic life is dull. The city-state has no great heroes. It has no grand story to tell the world.
(The writer is professor, communication and diplomacy, Norwich University, US.)

Atlas Must Not Shrug

9 February 2010
The Statesman

The American fantasyMr Obama And The Dream Of Exceptionalism
By ND Batra

THE hope that Barack Obama the presidential candidate raised in the hearts and minds of his ardent supporters, who saw in him a redeemer like Abraham Lincoln, has begun to fade.
Mr Obama has turned out to be more like Cardinal Barberini in Bertolt Brecht’s play Life of Galileo, who unlike the Church would not “set myself up against the multiplication tables” and “the physical facts.” And when he is elected to become the Pope, he raises hope not only in Galileo, but the whole scientific community. But as Barberini gets ready to make a public appearance, and gracefully assumes the vestments of the Pope, he acquiesces in the demands of the Inquisitor. Barberini, the Pope, embraced the Church fantasy of the earth-centric heavenly order as Mr Obama, the President, has embraced the Bush rhetorical fantasy of saving the Homeland from evil doers. There is little difference between Mr Bush’s determination to break the “the axis of evil” and what Mr Obama said during his Nobel Peace Award acceptance speech, “Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince Al Qaida’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history, the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.”

Mr. Bush would have been equally comfortable with these words. As Galileo was let down by his hero Barberini, many Americans must be feeling let down by Mr. Obama, who has now become part of the system that must fight evil.

The governing mythsGREAT historical crisis have to be mythologized in order to make them and their resolution acceptable to people in a “morally significant way.” The persuasive power of the overarching and governing myths, the meta narratives, like the Virgin Land, Ground Zero and Homeland, comes from their ability “to produce and conserve national traditions”. Therefore, they “function as unacknowledged legislators that regulate people’s thought and behaviour” says Donald E. Pease, a distinguished literary scholar and social critic at Dartmouth College in his thought-provoking book, The New American Exceptionalism.

The myths of the Virgin Land, the Wild West, the New Frontier, and American Exceptionalism, reverberate throughout American history, giving rationale and moral significance to the domestication of Native Americans into reservations, as well as nation building at home and abroad, says Mr. Pease. “The Virgin Land” stands for an America that is an “open national landscape that fostered the construction and realization of self-reliant individualists,” a fundamental bonding fantasy that melded the people with their land. Divisiveness is natural to humans. The sudden end of the Cold War and the consequent disappearance of the “Other,” the Soviet Union from American consciousness exposed a terrifying geo-political faultline in American society, which though not visible during the George HW Bush administration due to Operation Desert Storm, subsequently found a strong expression in two contesting visions: Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America enclosing the red states and Bill Clinton’s multicultural New Covenant, covering the blue states.

The government’s mishandling of the fundamentalist Branch Davidian church at Waco in 1993 and two years later the Oklahoma City bombing exposed a nation violently divided against itself. The traumatic events of 9/11 closed the faultline in the nation’s geopolitical psyche and provided the state with an opportunity to mythologize the World Trade Center site as “Ground Zero,’ a thumbnail glimpse of Hiroshima, what the “Other” might have done to America if it had WMD. “The Shock and Awe” was a brutal response to the attack on the Americans’ self-image of being an exceptional people, people of the Virgin Land. The horrific event restored to the American people their meta-narrative as a “collectively shared state fantasy,” which united them once again, as they had been during the Cold War. The Bush-generated state fantasy of protecting the Homeland by waging a global war on terrorism nullified the Clinton-Gingrich divisive fantasies and reunited America, but transformed the nation from citizenry into a domestic protectorate, much like what Supreme Court Justice John Marshall in 1830 had done to Native Americans’ homelands. In order to fight the enemy who wanted to destroy the fantasy of American Exceptionalism, Mr Bush ushered in emergency rules by enacting the US Patriot Act that suspended the rule of law and abridged freedom, the very rule of law to protect which he wanted to fight the enemy in the first place. Re-conceptualizing Guantanamo Bay as a foreign country enabled the Bush administration to put it outside the jurisdiction of US courts, thus, turning the inmates into “unlawful enemy combatants,” beyond the protection of the Geneva Conventions. By creating such “master fictions,” the administration succeeded in engineering public consent, thereby making the American people complicit in the state’s violation of the rule of law, according to Mr. Pease.

By expropriating “We the people” into Homeland Security State, it also deprived the people of their right to citizenship. But how the administration’s fantasy work or propaganda succeeded in doping the tri-part structure of co-equals in power and the news media for so long is not explained. The news media nonetheless asserted its freedom on 28 April 2004 when “60 Minutes” broadcast the horrific pictures of Abu Ghraib prisoners that shocked the world. Americans learned that they were repeating the acts of violence that had been committed against the slaves as if the past they had been trying to disavow had suddenly surged up through the subconscious terrain. The hatred and cruelty never went away, it seemed. “Man on the box” looked a figure of sacrifice as well as a slave being lynched. “The images mobilized opposition to the occupation in the name of Abu Ghraib prisoners who had been victimized by this oppression,” says Mr. Pease. Abu Ghraib was a turning point in American consciousness. Exceptional people do not do such things. The war against terrorism was being fought through culturally degrading images.

Shame and sorrow
ALTHOUGH “the pictures of these repugnant forms of violence” created a deep sense of shame and sorrow amounting to compassion, the support for war would continue, argues Mr. Pease, “as long as US public remains captivated by the spectacles of violence the state had erected at the site of Ground Zero.” And Mr. Pease issues a prescient warning: “If US enemies were so “barbaric” that they would not surrender even in the face of these acts of degradation, US troops were in it for a long haul.” Such has been the hold of the Homeland-the Virgin Land on the people’s imagination that they went on supporting the war until they heard the heart-wrenching cry of Cindy Sheen, the mother who lost her son in the war but refused to accept the war in Iraq that “redefined maternity as sacrifice for the cause of nation.” Support for the war had been declining. How much it was due to Cindy Sheen, whom Mr. Pease compares with Sophocles’ Antigone, it is difficult to say; but along with Abu Ghraib and the non-existence of WMD, the Bush-created rhetorical fantasy had begun to dissipate. “The order to come,” Mr. Pease says, “will not begin until the global state of emergency is itself exposed as the cause of the traumas it purports to oppose.” But that would still leave us with Af-Pak and Yemen; North Korea and Iran. Some would strongly disagree but the fantasy of American exceptionalism, which Mr. Obama has embraced ~ “the American dream, the perfectible Union, and the land of promise “ ~ needs a fourth grand theme: America ~ like Atlas ~ must accept the responsibility of “having the weight of the world on his shoulders.” Otherwise who will take care of poor Haiti? Atlas must not shrug.

(The writer is the author of Digital Freedom. He teaches communication and diplomacy at Norwich University)

Information Curtain

Beating Cyber Insecurity
ND Batra
The Times of India
10 February 2010

Just when I was wondering whether to entrust my research work to a "cloud" computing website Evernote, a service which i could access anywhere, or get MyPassport, a portable drive the size of an iPhone so easy to slip into my pocket, i received a jolt. A sudden malware hacker attack crippled my desktop. Panic-stricken, i felt that all my work would be gone and i would have to do it all over again.
Unlike a powerful company like Google that could trace where the recent hacker attacks had come from, what was stolen and who to blame, i could do no such thing. When i called the company that was the vendor, it was someone in India who told me that for $59 they would rid my computer of the malware. All i had to do was to hand over to them "virtual" control over my computer, which in good faith i did by just clicking "yes", and in about three hours i was able to resume my work, nonetheless without any assurance that it wouldn't happen again. When i asked the Indian geek whether the confidentiality of my files remained inviolate during the remote cleanup process, and would be respected in the future, he assured me that the company concerned had no malevolent interest. But who knows? My files, my work, my privacy, have been exposed to strangers.
Maybe I became an accidental victim, or perhaps some hacker tried to use my computer as a trap door to hack others. Everyday millions of people involuntarily expose themselves during their online searches to marketers whose major interest is profiling them for precision ads that match their gender, income level and lifestyle; but also to hackers, who steal identities including passwords to hijack their e-mail and bank accounts. Last year it happened to a Kolkata friend whose e-mail was misappropriated by a hacker. He did not know until i alerted him, something i was able to do because someone from Kuala Lumpur using my friend's name and e-mail asked me to wire him money to a hotel where he had checked in to attend a conference on AIDS. Somewhere, he had lost his wallet including his credit card. The writing style and the way the name of my friend was spelt raised a red flag and i held back on the impulse to rush.

It was a set-up. Not every fraudulent act can be traced, especially when the data thief could be anywhere. According to the FBI, individuals in the United States lost $264 million in 2008 to cyber thieves. Hacking for robbing money from bank accounts and stealing credit card numbers is seldom reported in the media lest it should cause panic in the public. Nonetheless, it is a widespread international crime. But that's not what Google has been worried about. Nor is it so much the question of free speech and censorship or hacking the Gmail accounts of dissidents that drove Google to come out openly and flatly accuse China of ignoring China-originated hacking. It is widely acknowledged by security experts that internet hackers, clandestinely supported by some home governments, are hunting for bigger assets including valuable source codes, intellectual property and military and corporate secrets.

Google is a global brand name but in its fundamental digital reality it is nothing but a source code. If you steal the source code, you can clone Google or even build a better Google. That's why Microsoft jealously guards the Windows underlying code though it allows programmers to build hundreds of applications on its platforms, as do other software companies. Code is the Thing, to paraphrase Lawrence Lessig of Stanford Law School. Software architects and code designers control the creation and flow of knowledge necessary for everything from developing new life-saving drugs to iPhone and missile interceptors.

Between China and the US, there is a tremendous knowledge gap that cannot be bridged without massive appropriation of technology, whichever way it might occur. Sami Saydjari, a former US National Security Agency (NSA) official, told the media that China's military may be a most important source of hacking skills for which it is said to support "hacker hobby clubs with as many as 100,000 members to develop a pool of possible recruits". China has 380 million Web users, a massive pool from which arise footloose hackers who steal credit card numbers, conduct corporate espionage and attack military installations.

The all-knowing Chinese authoritarian government cannot be innocent about its citizen hackers. Google is in the knowledge business and is technically capable of uncovering where the attacks emanated but the problem is so serious that the internet giant has decided to seek the help of the NSA to prevent further assaults on its network. Besides, Google has the political clout for mobilising the power of the US government and the international community in confronting China on the issue of free speech and of intellectual property misappropriation. The foundation of the knowledge society is trust, not "the information curtain".

The writer is professor, communication and diplomacy, at Norwich University.

Kolkata MUST rise

Kolkata MUST rise
ND Batra

Ashok Malik’s “A Place Time Forgot” (TOI) is an intriguing commentary on what Jyoti Basu and CPM did or failed to do in West Bengal during the three long decades of complete sway on political power in the state.

Interestingly, his commentary builds upon what historian Rudrangshu Mukherjee wrote in the Telegraph (“Minds in thrall”), explaining the compelling historical circumstances and the powerful influence of men like Rajani Palme Dutt in the “conversion” of privileged young Bengalis like Jyoti Basu and others to communism.

Between the two commentaries, however, there is an intellectual gap, which puzzles me. For example, what kind of political apparatus and propaganda methods CPM used to keep the otherwise intense and individualistic Bengali mind enthralled for so long? How did “a closing of the Bengali mind” occur?

For more than a decade I wrote a weekly column for a Kolkata newspaper and I used to receive lot of e-mail messages from readers. One of my readers describing CPM’s political method of command and control used the expression “goon-o-cracy.” Is this the same as “cadre-cracy”? Why did the news media and the academia succumb to CPM’s influence? What was CPM’s meta-narrative or state fantasy that captured the minds of the people?

What a historical coincident! In 1977 when Jyoti Basu became the chief minister of West Bengal, Deng Xiapeng had ushered in the “Beijing Spring.” Consolidating his political control over China, Deng started gradually opening up the country to marketplace economy and foreign direct investment.

In 1979 Deng visited the United States and China never looked back. Instead of making frequent visits to London, Jyoti Basu should have come to New York. Johnny Walker depressed him, perhaps; California wines would have uplifted his spirits and done some good for West Bengal.

Kolkata and West Bengal are too important to be consigned to the dust bin of history or the catacomb of time past. Thanks to India’s dynamic federalism and diversity, some states like Karnataka, Gujarat and Maharashtra have followed different models and have very done well. Gujarat, for example, has been growing at more than 11.5 percent during the past five years. In spite of Ahmedabad 2002, Gujarat is a very cheerful place to live and work. I know because I lived and worked there before I moved to the US. Open markets create open minds. And that’s how the Bengali mind would liberate itself from the tyranny of the past three decades.

A different kind of renaissance would begin, one based on information technology.

Jyoti Basu like Vladimir Lenin will be forgotten.In India’s best national interest,

Kolkata MUST rise and shine and compete with Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai. It is not a pipe dream; it is an economic and political necessity for India’s “look-east” policy.

Unbowed and unafraid

Unbowed and unafraid
ND Batra
18 January 2010
From The Statesman

The biggest challenge to China’s one-party authoritarian rule comes not from its peripheral regions, Tibet or Xingjian-Uygur, but from its heartland, writes ND BATRALIKE Chinese dissident and democracy advocate Liu Xiabao who, on Christmas Day, was jailed for 11 years for “incitement to subvert state power”, many Chinese intellectuals must wonder, perhaps like TS Eliot’s J Alfred Prufrock, “Do I dare… Do I dare disturb the universe?” Most would rather make money than risk their lives for political freedom.

But those who dare must keep in mind that whoever disturbs social harmony and the peaceful rise of China’s becoming a dominant global super power with his seditious and insidious ideas must be silenced. China has little tolerance for the noise and chaos of democracy. Last year, human rights activist and environmentalist Hu Jia was sent to prison for three-and-a-half years for his subversive writing. In 2005, another writer, Shi Tao, was convicted and sentenced to a 10-year jail term for leaking a Communist Party internal memo to an outside non-Chinese website. And foreigners must behave if they want to do business with China, or borrow from its trillion-dollar kitty, or want to use its diplomatic leverage with North Korea and Iran, or plan to do something about global climate. China can do all this and much more.

In fact, whatever China does or does not do at home or abroad impacts the rest of the world. Many countries in Asia and Africa envy China and would like to emulate its freedom-neutral, export-based model of rapid economic growth.But in spite of this, China is terribly afraid of upsetting its delicate applecart, afraid of the power of ideas of men like Liu, who refuse to bend and bow before the might of the one-party authoritarian rule. It has been much easier for China to condemn the Dalai Lama, a “splitter” of the motherland and a “devil in a monk’s robe”; but is undecided on what to do with Liu who, at the time of 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, was a visiting scholar at Columbia University but returned post-haste to China to participate in the protest, for which he had to spend 20 months in prison.

While the rest of China has been going from economic peak to economic peak to dazzling Olympian heights, it must be puzzling for Beijing to understand why the 54-year-old Liu still talks of human rights and democracy. For his persistent writing about socio-political conditions in China and his contribution to Charter 08, Liu was held in custody for more than a year before a formal indictment.

Charter 08 asks for fundamental rights, the rights to which people in Europe, the USA, India and other liberal democracies have become so accustomed to that they seem so natural, including, for example, separation of legislative, judicial and executive power, legislative democracy, an independent judiciary, freedom to assemble and form groups, freedom of expression and religion, civic education, protection of private property and, most of all, a federated republic. Ten thousand Chinese who are reported to have signed the document since its inception on 18 December 2008 form only the tip of the iceberg.

In December 2009, Liu was subjected to a hasty trial from which not only his wife was excluded but also the news media. Liu, who has received international accolades for his fearless human rights advocacy, will not be allowed to write anything during his prison term because under current Chinese law he will lose all his political rights.International protests do not matter to Chinese authorities, who are determined to maintain their hold on power in the name of social harmony and economic growth. Since Liu’s arrest in early January last year, several organisations, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders, Poets, Essayists and Novelists as well as many prominent writers (Salman Rushdie among them) and Nobel laureates have appealed to Chinese President Hu Jintao, but to no avail.

Even President Barak Obama raised the issue during his meeting with President Hu Jintao in Beijing last year. But having declined to meet with the Dalai Lama, Obama’s commitment to human rights in China seems rather dubious in comparison with his predecessor, George W Bush’s call for democracy and human rights.Secretary of state Hillary Clinton, thanks to her new found political pragmatism, seldom talks about Chinese human rights, though as First Lady, when she visited Beijing in 1995 to attend the UN Fourth World Conference on Women, she forthrightly told her Chinese audience, “Freedom means the right of people to assemble, organise and debate openly. It means respecting the views of those who may disagree with the views of their governments.” Liu Xiabao and the Charter 08 signatories are asking for the same thing; and they won’t go away.

The biggest challenge to China’s one-party authoritarian rule comes not from its peripheral regions, Tibet or Xingjian-Uygur, but from its heartland, from people like Liu Xiabao.

(The writer teaches communication, media law and diplomacy at Norwich University. He is also author of Digital Freedom and is working on a new book, This is the American Way)

Tagore's Pasarini

The Hawk Maid
By Rabindranath Tagore

[Translator’s note: Poem ‘Pasarini’ from the book ‘Bichitra’, written in February, 19341.]
Translator- RAJAT DAS GUPTA (Kolkata) - e-mail: rajatdasgupta@yahoo.com & dasguptarajat@hotmail.com

The Hawk Maid depicts the inherent passion of the humans to perceive the origin of life which remains ever mysterious to us. Our mundane existence keeps our concentration with the narrow perspective of our daily business and other temporal most of our life Yet, there are some escape moments, maybe more towards the end of our life. On 3 January, 1938, 3 years before his death, the Poet wrote to his poet friend Amiya Chakraborty –
“My mind craves to move far where, within myself, I am trying my creations. One means is science, with which I had my pilgrimage through the stellar space and time. The universal network which webs my existence with the same light as of the inconceivably distant nebulae, I have surrendered my whole heart to its pull, which is dragging me towards that infinite mystery where is latent the significance of life and death with some eternal purpose which is being conveyed towards the Infinite, all through the Universe.” ‘Hawk Maid’ is a wonderful flash of this profound philosophy of the Poet.]

Hawk Maid, O Hawk Maid,
In daytime at rialtos thou had trade,
On thy way home
Freely did thou roam
Took seat under a tree,
Thy earnings left free
In thy basket unnoticed,
And where thy ponderings did flit!

There the land
Blurred with ruddy sand,
Basked in the wintry sun
The tender leaves of the Banyan,
The breeze tepid
What euphoria did breed,
What message did whisper
In thy ear?
The water in the river
Flashes light afar,
What hymn plays on
In thy meditation!

The primordial memoir
In thy vein does stir,
So in the vegetation around
Life itself found;
In autumn end at high noon
In thy clay playroom
For ages to search its clue
In games of varied hue,
Amidst the meadow solitary
Takes away the curtain contemporary,
Thy mind,
With the lighted firmament combined,
Sees close to the eye,
In thy heart plays up high
That solemn hymn
That goes within
All pervasive time,
Emanating from that supreme rhyme
Of the Universal dance,
That took thee to trance.
All calls urgent,
Towards the horizon lent
Of the world familiar,
Losing track of time there;
All around without a message,
Neither any proclivity does trace,
The voiceless sound
The stark summer does hound;
Sigh of the vacuum
Reticent does roam.

Hawk Maid, O hawk Maid,
To-day thou played truant to thy trade.
Thy merchandise, the river ghat, (a)
Thy home, and the mart,
Days of cacophony, far recede
To the eternal message to cede,
Thy person and heart are keen,
Imploring deliverance serene.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Note: (a) landing to the river

Obama's War and Peace

Obama’s Afghanistan war and India
ND Batra
India has vital interest in the success of President Barack Obama’s surge-and-exit strategy for destroying the Al Qaeda-Taliban nexus and plexus in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Af-Pak region is not a passive sanctuary for the Taliban-Al Qaeda; it is the global supply-chain hub of terrorism.The US Federal prosecutors have charged a US citizen David C. Headley for aiding and abetting Pakistan-based Islamic terrorists who perpetrated the honorific bombing in Mumbai last year that killed 170 innocent people. Five more American citizens of Pakistani origin have been arrested in Pakistan for their suspected links with the Taliban-Al Qaeda and for planning to commit jihadist terrorist acts. Mr. Obama reminded the American people at West Point that the paramount goal is “to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future.”

It is an existential war against a global menace from which no one, not even Pakistan can escape, despite the fact that it nurtured the Taliban and has been providing safe havens to Al Qaeda. Although Mr. Obama strongly disagreed with the Iraq War which he regarded as a war of choice, the lessons of the war and insurgency cannot be lost, especially how the Bush administration’s well-planned troop surge worked enabling the US to handover security responsibilities to the Iraqi government.

Mr. Obama is not looking for a closure or an endgame because there can be none so long the United States remains an indispensable global power. Finishing the job does not mean quitting. Sixty-four years after World War II, the US maintains a significant military presence in Germany and Japan, as it does in South Korea since the armistice in 1953.

Central Asia is too important to be left to jihadists; or any aspiring power to dominate the region. Other countries may be rising but the United States is not declining. In fact the United States too is rising, even during the recession. Since the new surge-exit strategy announcement, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, two most powerful cabinet members who have played a decisive role in shaping the new military thinking, have been going around on public forums to explain how the job will be done and how much flexibility is built into the exit date which the president set as middle of July 2011.

Secretary Gates, who also served the Bush administration in the same capacity and was responsible for the successful surge strategy in Iraq, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the mid-2011 exit strategy would be the beginning of transfer of security responsibilities to the Afghanistan government keeping the ground actualities in mind, nonetheless, with continuous partnership with the United States.

Success is not being conceptualized in binary terms—success/failure—but rather as a continuum, for which there will be assessment outcome metrics. Exit strategy is not abandonment, as Secretary Clinton told the Armed Services Committee, “We will help by working with our Afghan partners to strengthen institutions at every level of Afghan society so that we don’t leave chaos behind when our combat troops begin to depart.” This sounds a tall order to the naysayers, who wonder: Can Afghanistan secure itself? Can it govern itself?

Can it manage its borders? Again, these questions do not require yes or no answers but rather how much Afghanistan can do on its and how much help it would need from the US and the 43-nation NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan, which committed another 7000 troops in addition to the 30,000 troop surge announced by Mr. Obama.Except for Tony Blair’s reluctant Britain, Europe showed little enthusiasm for the Iraq War. But for fighting the Taliban-Al Qaeda in Af-Pak, European countries, who have been victims of terrorism, London, Madrid, Paris, for example, are absolutely committed.

A day after Mr. Obama announced the troop surge, the Nato Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, spoke unequivocally, "What is happening in Afghanistan is a clear and present danger to our citizens. Instability in Afghanistan means insecurity for all of us."

When the United States and Europe work together in solving international security problems, the probability of success increases as it happened in the Bosnia-Herzegovina War (1992-1995), the post-Yugoslavia break up tragedy that led to international conflict resulting in the ethnic killing and massacre of more than 100,000 people. Though belated, the Nato intervention brought the war to an end.

The hope of bringing peace to Af-Pak rests on the US-Europe strategy and concerted action, in which India must play a constructive role to protect its own national self-interest.

(ND teaches communications and diplomacy at Norwich University, US)

US and India

The Feeling’s Mutual
Sharing values, India and US have much to offer each other
N D Batra
From The Times of India
24 November 2009

Today, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visits the White House, he will face the diplomatic challenge of his lifetime.

Seeking reaffirmation of the warm relations that began with Bill Clinton and saw an upsurge during the times of George W Bush will be a Himalayan task to accomplish. Especially after President Barack Obama’s China visit during which he acquiesced to Beijing’s hegemonic ambitions in Asia.

But what better way to warm up the dinner conversation than to avow the shared values about which Obama reminded his stone-deaf Chinese audience: “These core principles, freedoms of expression and worship, of access to information and political participation, we believe are universal rights.” And who could better embody these universal values than a Sikh gentleman politician from India!

It is important not to forget that the United States is more than the White House; that political power is decentralised and distributed; that Congress matters; that Republicans are not dead; and that there will be time to rectify the misguided statement in the Obama-Hu Jintao joint communique that China has a role to play in South Asia. The declaration sounds ridiculous considering that China is afraid of meeting with a humble Buddhist monk.

Let’s think about the positives. US perception of India is changing for the better, thanks to the mature and savvy ways India has been managing its internal and external affairs. For example: the aftermath of the Mumbai terrorist attack; keeping up economic growth despite the global financial crisis; the India-China verbal pyrotechnics arising out of China’s flagrant territorial claims and the Dalai Lama visit to Arunachal Pradesh; and the contribution to Afghanistan’s reconstruction in spite of chaotic conditions. India is viewed as stable and open, and an attractive place to do business.

US goodwill towards India is undiminished, in spite of the Obama administration’s effort to up-end its relations with China. Few Americans want China to play any role in Afghanistan and Pakistan, contrary to what Obama told his bankers in Beijing. In contrast, most Americans do believe that the US has an abiding interest in India’s gradual but steady rise as an economic and diplomatic power. Asia is too important to be left to a single country to exercise hegemony, as the recent Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Thailand also acknowledged.

The forecast that India would become a responsible economic power was not ignored at the summit. Braving the recession with the prospect of 6.5-7 per cent growth in the current fiscal year has rekindled hopes that 8 to 10 per cent economic growth in the future is achievable

Looking at the phenomenal economic rise of China and, consequently, Japan’s efforts at repositioning itself in light of new realities, it is all the more important for the US to establish a long-term cooperative relationship with India. It also must be understood that for most Indians America’s attractiveness is genuine and is based upon its dynamic culture and values. American culture is perceived as a culture of open minds and open roads that lead to the free marketplace of goods and ideas. It is a culture of optimism that holds the prospect of expanding human possibilities. Americans fervently believe that global poverty can be eliminated and sickness can be cured.

The Clinton Global Initiative and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, for example, are built on the faith that the human condition can and must be improved. India shares these universal values.

Americans fondly hope that, as China keeps growing, it would open itself to other cultural influences including free expression and democracy and, therefore, US-China interdependence is good for keeping the peace. Scholars like Joseph Nye of Harvard argue that a country can become attractive by engaging other people rather than isolating them. So if trade with China and rising prosperity have rechannelled the Chinese people’s energies and given them new hopes and global dreams, a similar policy might work for other countries too.

What is needed most is investment in regional and global networks for economic interdependence, rather than assertion of military power. In this respect, American civil society and its universities are far more persuasive in presenting the US to other people than anything the government can do. Brand America too makes the US attractive. When an American apparel maker opens a factory in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh or Indonesia, it spreads feelings of goodness among the people.

Extremists cannot stop Indonesians or Bangladeshis, for example, from improving their economic condition by making themselves smart for foreign direct investment. Therefore, bonding American national interests with other nations’ strategic interests is the key to the management of regional conflicts for which India can offer the US a great partnership. The impact of joint exercise of India-US smart power will be felt across central Asia, ASEAN and beyond the Indian Ocean – a topic of great interest for Prime Minister Singh and President Obama to explore when they break bread in the White House.

The writer is professor, communications and diplomacy, Norwich University, US.

Publication: Times of India Mumbai
Date: Nov 24, 2009;
Section: Editorial;
Page: 16

China's Global Economic Diplomacy

Bullish In China Shop
China uses economic muscle to build global influence
From Times of India
N D Batra

China is using its growing trade power to enhance its global influence, especially in Africa, Latin America and Asia where it is perceived as an all-weather friend. Since opening up its economy in 1978, China’s foreign trade has been growing by leaps and bounds. In 2008, its foreign trade volume exceeded $2.56 trillion – 70 times more than what it was 10 years ago, according to the US-China Business Council. China has now become the world’s largest exporter, beating Germany, reported the World Trade Organisation.

To fuel its booming export-driven economic growth that has been averaging 9 per cent for more than two decades, China desperately needs to access, on a long-term basis and with accelerated pace, oil, minerals and other natural resources. No wonder it has been establishing listening posts, bunkering facilities at friendly ports and in some cases developing altogether new harbours to protect ocean routes and sea lanes to ensure an uninterrupted flow of goods and materials with its trading partners especially in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

With $73 billion annual Sino-African trade, mostly with Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, the Republic of Congo and Sudan, for example, China is Africa’s second largest trading partner next only to the US. African countries welcome China’s low priced manufactured goods, foreign direct investment as well as development aid for building railroads, dams, schools, roads, hospitals and fibre-optic networks with no strings attached, no human rights questions asked.

China makes resource-rich countries offers so attractive that they just cannot refuse. These offers are long-term trade and development opportunities bundled in benign aid packages that invariably include diplomatic support for authoritarian rulers, arms sale and, occasionally, debt forgiveness. Today, Chinese multinational corporations are engaged in scores of hydropower, oil, gas and mining projects in Myanmar. In March, China signed a $2.9 billion agreement with Myanmar for construction of oil pipelines for transporting crude oil from the Middle East and Africa via Myanmar to China.

After a savage victory over Tamil Tigers in a long-drawn-out bloody civil war that resulted in the death of around 70,000 civilians, Sri Lanka’s economic and diplomatic relations with China have seen a tremendous upsurge. Sri Lanka has granted China rights to develop an exclusive economic zone, the first for any foreign country. Recently, China signed two significant developmental projects worth $350 million with Sri Lanka for construction of the Colombo-Katunayake Expressway and the Hambantota Bunkering Project – a major part of the multibillion-dollar Hambantota Port Development Project substantially financed by China. China is building the $1 billion port to use it as a refuelling and docking base for its navy to patrol the Indian Ocean and protect its oil supplies from the Middle East and Africa. Since March 2007 when the Sri Lankan government signed the agreement, China has given it all the necessary aid including arms and diplomatic support to crush the Tigers.

Addressing a ceremony to mark the completion of the first phase of a power plant built with Chinese assistance, presidential advisor Basil Rajapaksa, younger brother of Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa, called China “a major stakeholder” in the island nation’s reconstruction and development. Interestingly, the ceremony was attended by a group of Chinese Buddhist monks from the Shaolin Temple including its chief priest Ven Shi Yongxin. A statue of the Buddha, another gift from China, will be installed at the plant. Diplomacy is the art of persuasion by all available means, regardless of what China says about the Dalai Lama. Diplomatic relations elsewhere have not been that easy. Consider, for example, the announcement in August of the China-Australia $41 billion liquefied natural gas deal, which highlights China’s economic importance to Australia. A month earlier the Chinese government had cancelled a scheduled visit by vice-minister He Yafei to Australia in protest against Canberra’s decision to grant a visa to the exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, who lives in the US and was scheduled to appear at the Melbourne international film festival and the National Press Club. Australia did not buckle under Chinese pressure, but it trembled in fear.

The point is that, as China pursues its trade-driven diplomacy, it simultaneously strives for other vital national interests whether it’s Taiwan, Tibet or Xinxiang. Whatever it takes, naked bullying or tremendous buying muscle, China will not hesitate to intimidate others to submission. The case of Rio Tinto, a British-Australian mining giant, is an instructive example. When state-owned Chinalco’s plan to acquire a major stake in Rio Tinto was blocked by public hue and cry, the Chinese government cried foul and accused some of the latter’s executives of spying (the charge later changed to bribery). Rio Tinto’s Shanghai-based executive Stern Hu was arrested along with three others. Australia, like India, remains befuddled about how to deal with China, which uses massive bargaining power not only to have the best trade deals but also to advance its global diplomatic agenda, which is cultural, territorial and hegemonic.

The writer is professor, communications and diplomacy, at Norwich University, US.

Tweet by tweet...the revolution

Printed from

Message Is Loud And Clear

N D Batra
4 September 2009

On Twitter, the message is the thing. The medium is not the message, contrary to Canadian media scholar Marshall McLuhan's theory more than a generation ago that the meaning of a message is shaped and controlled by the medium in which it is embedded. On television, for example, the news sometime ago about the sex scandal in Kashmir provoking chief minister Omar Abdullah's impulsive offer to resign would have given us a different feeling and perception about the troubled Valley's political problems than if the story had been read in a newspaper. Call it the filtering effect, which in Twitter is minimal.

Twitter is unique. If you can't compose your thoughts in 140 characters, the maximum length allowed in Twitter, try something else. Buy an ad page, write a blog or stand up on a soapbox and harangue the world. In Twitter, the message dominates the medium and thus can carry an awesome punch, the impact of a direct force. ''Marg bar dictator!'' they chanted and tweeted and YouTubed ("Death to the dictator") in Farsi and English in Tehran in recent post-election rallies protesting the reported rigging that re-elected Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iranian president.

We saw how last November mobile Mumbaikars tweeted in real time about the Pakistani terrorist attack that killed 163 people, an event that highlighted the unprecedented role of new social media in our daily lives. And, in fact, tweeting about the Mumbai attack has become an important case study on American campuses.

"There's a plane in the Hudson. I'm on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy," tweeted Janis Krums on January 15 with the photo of the US Airlines that had belly-landed on the Hudson River, not far from New York's LaGuardia airport where the plane was struck by a bird. Before news media crew could get to the scene, Americans were stunned watching the rescue of passengers tweet-picture by tweet-picture, ferry by ferry.

From cybercasting ethnic riots in China's Uighur and Iran's cheating mullahs to accidents, from airing personal grievances to promoting business and services, people are using Twitter in myriad ways. But if you tweet publicly, be careful. Someone might feel offended and file a defamation suit. That happened to a Chicago tenant Amanda Bonnen who tweeted, ''Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's okay.''

She was complaining about a water leak that had occurred in March making her apartment mouldy which Horizon Group Management, the realty company, had failed to fix. America is a litigious society and Horizon asked for $50,000 in damages, but whether the court takes it seriously or not is another matter especially when everyone from janitors to senators and Hollywood celebrities is urging us: Follow me on Twitter. Celebrities, who can't tweet, hire ghost Twitterers. But some do it themselves and get into trouble, as with Courtney Love.

Courtney Love, an American rock musician who was married to the grunge band Nirvana's singer-guitarist Kurt Cobain, tweeted against her clothes designer about excessive billing for custom clothing. She fumed in her shrill irreverent ungrammatical rant, ''oi vey don't f--- with my wardrobe or you will end up in a circle of corched eaeth hunted til your dead.'' Last March, Dawn Simorangkir, the clothes designer, filed a suit against Courtney in Los Angeles superior court for defamation, invasion of privacy and emotional distress, making it one of the myriad free speech (First Amendment) cases regarding the emerging social media. "The law is an ass" and can hit anyone with any leg at anytime, so a business should be careful before suing anyone.

The power of Twitter comes from its brevity and, as it evolves, it becomes a mass organising tool as well as a global listening post for the collective brain of a community. One reason why Barack Obama's presidential campaign was so successful against all odds was the deft use of social media including YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, MySpace, BlackPlannet.com, LinkedIn and many others, which helped him raise millions of dollars to fund his political campaign. His message through the social media reached the younger tech-savvy mobile generation and his campaign kept the sites updated with the latest videos, photos and campaign messages.

Since entering the White House, Obama has continued to be in a political campaign mode, out of habit and out of necessity, especially when struggling to have his massive health reform Bill passed by Congress. Apart from hopping from one town hall meeting to another, he asks people on his website 'Organizing For America' to "Tweet Your Senator" and urge them to pass the health insurance reform measure that would guarantee health benefits to all Americans, something as revolutionary as the social security scheme passed by Franklin Roosevelt after the Great Depression. When people tweet, powers that be corporations, politicians, democrats or autocrats must heed their voices.

The writer is professor, communications and diplomacy, Norwich University, US.

If China's So Powerful, Why Isn't It More Powerful? | Foreign Policy

If China's So Powerful, Why Isn't It More Powerful? | Foreign Policy

"This week, during the latest meeting of the twice-a-year U.S.-China strategic dialogue, leaders from both countries are talking economic policy. Cabinet members, led by their respective finance ministers and central bank governors, are discussing trade, climate change, the fates of the dollar and yuan, and other vital issues. But there are signs that this dialogue may become bogged down in the same old tit-for-tat economic disputes and fear-driven rhetoric. " Wen Liao in Foreign Policy

Epic Exaggerations

Epic Exaggerations - Edit Page - OPINION - The Times of India:
"Jaswant Singh's expulsion from the BJP, for writing a book on history, shows how powerful historical narratives can be. National narratives can be organised around who the heroes and villains of partition were. India and Pakistan can even go to war around these narratives. One possibility that remains obscured by them, however, is that the holocaust that accompanied partition was not actually willed by anyone. It was just the result of extraordinary political incompetence all round."

Tech giants unite against Google

"Three technology heavyweights are joining a coalition to fight Google's attempt to create what could be the world's largest virtual library." BBC News

India gives Maldives defence help

India gives Maldives defence help

US New Diplomacy

Times of India
Top Article:
Exercise Of Smart Power
N D Batra
27 July 2009, 12:00am IST

Recently, US defence secretary Robert Gates, a no-nonsense seasoned hand from the Bush administration, stated explicitly in Foreign Affairs that "to fail - or to be seen to fail - in either Iraq or Afghanistan would be a disastrous blow to US credibility, both among friends and allies and among potential adversaries".
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton - who recently visited India to reaffirm the strategic and economic bonds built by the previous administration - wholeheartedly endorses Gates's views when he said that because of its grinding poverty and unfriendly neighbourhood, "Afghanistan in many ways poses an even more complex and difficult long-term challenge than Iraq - one that, despite a large international effort, will require a significant US military and economic commitment for some time". Read "some time" as a long, long time, even though it has been often said that Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. Gates has asked for an additional 22,000 troops for the army, for the next three years. An extra 17,000 troops and 4,000 military trainers are being sent to Afghanistan. Do not expect the US to leave the Af-Pak region to its own devices; nor will US presence be against India's national interest.
Gates's national defence strategic vision goes far beyond what has ever been attempted anywhere. A most serious problem that the US military confronts is how speedily it can move forces from one danger zone to another. Gates's solution: build a swift and lethal force fitted with precision-guided weapons, on-the-spot intelligence-gathering by a network of satellites; troops that can be airdropped to a battle zone bypassing existing bases or beachheads. Networked with GPS, unmanned aerial surveillance vehicles and remotely controlled drones that can provide real-time battlefield view, a lighter and speedier force can end the war quickly with fewer civilian casualties.
In the early days of Iraqi operations, swiftness was achieved through maximum cooperation among Special Forces, army, navy, marines and air force, enabling them to act as one cohesive yet flexible force. This strategy that the Pentagon should incorporate into its war manual, according to Gates, will nevertheless not be enough. The army must be trained for the unconventional war carried out by a dispersed and networked enemy that draws its sustenance from many non-state actors sheltering in failing or unfriendly states. Besides, 'GI Joe' should be ready for doing social reconstruction and building civil society for which much more than a smart military doctrine is needed. Neither the Rumsfeld doctrine of 'shock and awe' nor the Powell doctrine of massive force application to serve a well-defined public-supported national interest is enough for the Af-Pak situation.
The al-Qaeda-Taliban asynchronous warfare strategy has made nonsense of every military doctrine. The US needs a new model for dealing with the enemy. "Terrorist networks", Gates has said, "can find sanctuary within the borders of a weak nation and strength within the chaos of social breakdown. A nuclear-armed state could collapse into chaos and criminality. The most likely catastrophic threats to the US homeland ^ for example, that of a US city being poisoned or reduced to rubble by a terrorist attack ^ are more likely to emanate from failing states than from aggressor states." The new defence strategy must take into account "the lethality of state conflict with the fanatical and protracted fervour of irregular warfare" and "wars...in which Microsoft coexists with machetes and stealth technology is met by suicide bombers," added Gates quoting defence scholars. That has been India's dilemma.
While Pakistan's nuclear threat has held India back from taking defensive-offensive measures, ISI-backed and professionally-trained terrorist groups under the disguise of charities and civic societies have been causing mayhem from India's heart of democracy, the majestic Parliament, to its city of palaces Jaipur to its most cosmopolitan corporate and cultural nexus and plexus, Mumbai. The Taliban-al-Qaeda in Afghanistan-Pakistan cannot be eliminated by traditional military strategies. The enemy has to be tracked down "hilltop by hilltop, house by house, block by bloody block", argues Gates, for which "the United States needs a military whose ability to kick down the door is matched by its ability to clean up the mess and even rebuild the house afterward".
Addressing the Council on Foreign Relations before her India trip, Clinton called it the exercise of "smart power...the use of all means at our disposal, including our ability to convene and connect. It means our economic and military strength, our capacity for entrepreneurship and innovation...The question is not whether our nation can or should lead, but how it will lead in the 21st century...America will always be a world leader..." As the Pentagon is "re-programmed" and recalibrated to become a new effective global force, the US cannot forget the much larger potential threat emerging: China's growing mastery of outer space and cyberspace, satellite warfare and cyber warfare. That is where the future US-India strategic dialogue should begin.
(The writer is professor, communications and diplomacy, at Norwich University, US.)

India's Challenge

Imagining post-election India
ND Batra
From The Statesman

India’s elections might seem a trivia pursuit to some observers in the West — just an exercise in ritualistic vote casting by 714 million voters driven by narrow considerations of caste and creed or, maybe, monetary benefits. It is true that most political parties, especially at the regional level, are not motivated by any big ideas or ideological agendas except to jockey for a piece of the pie when the post-election government formation begins to take shape. Neither of the two major national parties, the ruling Congress and the BJP, however, can be accused of having no ideology or lacking a political and economic platform; nevertheless, it is most unlikely that either of them would have a dominant position in Parliament after the election.

Localism and regionalism have been dominating Indian politics for several years and there is nothing particularly wrong with this state of affairs. National parties must reflect and accommodate regional needs and aspirations so that no one is left behind; but they cannot do so if they cast themselves up in ideological straitjackets. Even if a great national leader like Jawaharlal Nehru rises again, India would remain a country divided against itself, which would not necessarily be a disaster. In fact these divisions create opportunities for greater economic and political freedom; and experimentation. You can see the cultural differentiation between West Bengal and Gujarat. That is the beauty of the federal system. You can see how India’s culture of differentiation and the abiding spirit of free enterprise (the Gujarati-Marwari spirit) have been gradually transforming the country into a dynamic economy. In spite of the global slowdown, the economy is still likely to grow 6.5 per cent for the year ending March 2009 and according to Reserve Bank governor Duvvuri Subbarao, “India will be one of the countries that will recover fast.” About a decade ago, India reached the tipping point when economic growth became irreversible, regardless of who would govern the country.

After the post-election realignment of political forces when the new government takes office on 2 June, disciplined liberalisation of the economy ushered in by the Manmohan Singh government would continue. The need for steady economic growth and the role of the marketplace have begun to dominate thinking, which would subsume as well as transcend everything else including local and religious interests. More and more Indians have come to accept the view that the way to prosperity is through well-regulated banking and financial system, free marketplace economy and bold entrepreneurship.

An entrepreneur seeks innovations, builds networks and breaks barriers, and in the process he enriches society as you can see it happening in India’s burgeoning health industry that has begun to draw global attention. In spite of Satyam and the global slowdown, India continues to excite the world’s imagination and investors keep exploring its possibilities. For many global investors India offers another avenue of growth and diversification where they can put their resources to alternative productive uses. Tata, Reliance, Infosys, Tech Mahindra and Wipro are not the only companies for which India has become famous. There is also the 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 in knowledge economy continues undiminished. Knowledge economy depends upon extracting and creating new knowledge from existing knowledge databases.

Although India is far from becoming a full-fledged knowledge economy, this is the trend. Other developing fields such as genetic engineering and high-tech healthcare will hasten the transformation of India in the next decades. But much more needs to be done to “go back to nine per cent... we need the world to recover fully. Private investment demand has to pick up”, said Mr Subbarao. One of the biggest hurdles for rapid economic growth in India is the red tape, which takes myriad forms such as expectations of under the table money; fear of the loss of bureaucratic power due to privatisation; and the fear of foreign direct investment.

The primary goal of rapid economic growth and its ultimate measure is poverty reduction by generating opportunities for employment, especially for the rural people, who mostly depend upon agriculture. Even today rural India is being held hostage to nature’s uncertainties.Technology can break nature’s stranglehold on poor farmers, many of whom have committed suicide. Most rural workers need to 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 would create compelling conditions for the new government, regardless of its ideology, to put its act together and become pro-active in anticipating crisis and solving problems. India has become an integral part of the globalised economy and the country has flourished on the synergy between multinational corporations and the ingenuity of its people for innovative solutions to complex problems. Ingenuity means transcending a system’s limitations by finding an alternative route to reach the same goal. When a creative and ingenious mind hits a block, he gets energised to find another way and improvise by transferring intelligence from one application to another.

The challenge is whether India’s ingenuity can be tapped to undertake collective action to build reliable highways, ports, railroads, power plants and airports speedily enough to handle future growth. Corruption is a serious problem in every society but more so in India. The source of corruption is the unchecked exercise of power. 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.

Public accountability through the media, including television disclosures as well as social networks and blogs, is the key to fighting the menace. If laws are enforced rigorously, the corrupt will find their rightful place in jail. War against corruption and poverty will never come to an end but the media can play a great role in fighting the scourge through courageous reporting. It is the moral responsibility of leaders to create conditions that encourage risk-taking and reward entrepreneurship. It is only through free spirited and full-blooded entrepreneurship that the post-election India can meet the challenge of national, local and regional aspirations.

(ND Batra is Professor of Communications at Norwich University. He is taking time off from the weekly column “Cyber Age,” which he has been doing since 1995, to complete a book about the American spirit of ingenuity and innovation. He will be back with a new column of ideas soon after the book is done.)

Spying on Amricans

Why America spies upon Americans
From The Statesman
ND Batra
The Obama administration is keen to have a clean image at home and abroad. But spying is a dirty business and a necessary evil. The American spy outfit, the National Security Agency (NSA), is under scrutiny again for the right and wrong reasons, for example, that it over-spied and over-collected information on American citizens by tapping their private phone calls and e-mail messages and that its intelligence gathering activities went beyond the legal limits established by Congress last year.

Since NSA’s intelligence gathering is classified, no one exactly knows how much and what kind of excess the agency has committed and how much harm has been done to people’s privacy and civic liberties. Responding to the concern raised by The New York Times last week, the Justice Department promptly assured the public that it has taken steps to comply with the law and re-affirmed that it “takes its national security oversight responsibilities seriously and works diligently to ensure that surveillance under established legal authorities complies with the nation's laws, regulations and policies, including those designed to protect privacy interests and civil liberties." Times have changed. Americans are less ready to give the NSA the benefit of the doubt than they were a few years ago.

In 2008 Congress put stricter controls over the agency’s unbridled spying power that was given to it by George W. Bush after the 9/11 terrorists attacks. The NSA could still collect information by tapping e-mail and phone conversations without court warrants provided the target was believed to be outside the United States; but for domestic spying on suspects who might be collaborating with foreigners it must have the authority of the special court. But Congress did not ask the agency how it would distinguish between domestic and foreign communications as the digital stream passed through the telecommunication system. So the technology neutrality excuse could be used by unscrupulous agents to eavesdrop on domestic suspects for political reasons also.

Although Americans worry about the government agencies spying on them, Internet companies like Google, Yahoo, AOL and others automatically collect and archive huge amounts of personal data, which can be used to profile the behavior of the user. If a company accidently released search queries done by its users, digital crooks could profile the users. It would not be difficult to put together the profile of a web surfer Joe Doe, for example, and what’s preoccupying his mind. The questions a person asks and the searches he makes online reveal his mind. People quietly submit to whatever brings them a feeling of assuredness. Protests against intrusiveness by the government and businesses into their personal lives have become less vociferous.

People are being gradually pushed into a gentle non-obtrusive surveillance society not only to pre-empt terrorists and apprehend child molesters; but also for commercial and financial reasons.It is common knowledge that online surveillance devices are being increasingly used by businesses to track users. Tracking is done inconspicuously and the user can never suspect that he is being traced; nonetheless, the practice is questionable, especially when the website does not declare in its privacy policy. Cookies—small software programs the advertisers put on our hard drives to track where we surf so that they can customize the most appropriate advertising message for us to achieve target marketing, reaching the right person with right message—don’t seem to bother us. But you turn off cookies, though some websites won’t let a person search unless are cookies are allowed. On the other hand, a web bug, also called web beacon, can be programmed to collect whatever data is required without the knowledge of the user.

A web beacon can track whether a particular message, including junk mail, has been opened and acted upon or not. Any electronic image that is part of a web page, including a banner ad, can be programmed to act as a beacon and spy on the user. Search companies claim that the information enables them to personalize the surfing experience when a frequent user visits their portal. Similarly marketing companies use beacons to do demographic research on behalf of their clients, albeit they assert that no personally identifiable information gathered from the beacon research is shared with the clients. Users can opt-out, but most of them don’t know whether the option is available; nor do many of them pay attention to the privacy statement.

Surveillance technologies are not limited to Internet companies. Several companies are using biometrics, face recognition, radio frequency and global positioning system (GPS) technologies, to keep a watch on their properties and track suspects. Many car rental companies in the United States use GPS to keep track of their rental cars. If a car is stolen or is involved in an accident, the company would know the exact location of the car. GPS also enables them to check the speed of a rental car. Airports use digital fingerprint identification technology to conduct background checks with little protest from anyone. Face recognition technology is being extensively used not only in airports but also in ballparks, banks and other business establishments.

The US Customs and airports use body scanning machines to electronically scan a person for drugs, bombs and contrabands. A body scanner electronically scrutinizes a person and projects the image on the screen for examination without the person being asked to take her clothes off. Hundreds of air travelers, including women, are randomly subjected to electronic search.The radio-frequency identification tag (RFID) is another promising security technology, which is attached to a suspect’s baggage as he checks in. The tagged baggage is automatically routed to a security area where it is screened with special cameras and sensors for explosives and other hazardous materials.

Along with the baggage, in the future boarding passes too may have radio-frequency ID tags so that a suspect can be watched as he moves from one airport to another, from country to country via GPS. The only problem is that everyone is given the same treatment.

Both the government and corporate America have a common interest in keeping Americans under surveillance. They want to make their lives safer and better.
Although surveillance has not diminished American innovativeness, creativity and productivity, one does not know its long term effect.

India goes to election

Reflections on India at election time
ND Batra
Fromg The Statesman

The public trust in leaders in India is limited by their parties’ narrow-minded regional-and-caste based ideologies, rampant corruption and unscrupulous opportunism despite their occasional Madison Avenue style public relations image-building. According to the Association for Democratic Reforms, of the 1,425 candidates 222 have criminal records, including “charges of murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, extortion,” and other heinous crimes. The scars and burns of the Gujarat communal massacre in 2002 and the mass killings of poor helpless Sikhs in Delhi in 1984 are still seared into people’s visual memories.

Thanks to television and global media, we saw how ugly and inhuman people can become at times and felt ashamed of ourselves. This is what the media revolution does to a democratic society like India. It never lets you forget the past and it also fuels the desire for change at a rapid pace.

Dr N Bhaskara Rao, writing for the Center for Media Studies, observed that “in the last fortnight of March 2009 there were more than a dozen instances from around the country that we saw news channels showing cash in large volumes being transported or distributed by political leaders in the context of the Lok Sabha poll.” Although this kind of anecdotal observation needs to be vetted by empirically verifiable evidence, perception is reality in the public mind.

While the Internet makes India global, it is television that mirrors the actual realities and can uncover hidden problems including corruption and criminality. Television gives everyone easy access to information and even the most complex topic has to be simplified into terse statements, sound bites and visual moments. Television turns the abstract into the concrete and the visual. It can make corruption and injustice visible.

An uneducated worker or a farmer can easily understand what is happening; and given the Indian habit of building quick grapevine communication, eventually every topic ends up in political discussion, and into the voting booth. So when television shows some parts of India clean and bright, naturally the voters, the urban and rural poor, may ask, what about us, the slumdogs?

With cell-phone cameras everywhere, every “note for vote,” to borrow Dr Rao’s phrase, can be captured for the 24/7 television.

It is legitimate for a farmer on the verge of suicide to ask the question: How can you leave us behind? Trickle down economy has not been good enough even for the United States; but for India the economic growth must reach every nook and cranny, the lowly and the humble, the rag pickers of Dharavi-Mumbai and the rat eaters, Musahars, of Bihar.

I regard it as an assertion of the people’s right for equal access and equal opportunity to share the good life that one sees on television, soap operas and commercials. In other words, the pace of economy cannot be slowed down; rather it has to quicken to meet the rising aspirations created by television news media in India.

Since globalisation, privatisation and free market have begun to create more jobs, there’s no reason why any government, communist or otherwise, could afford to oppose the trend and still stay in power. On the contrary, one sees a growing trend in various states in India for generating competitive advantages to attract direct foreign investments and collaboration.

I have always wondered why Bengal lost Tata’s Nano, the little beautiful car which has become part of the global chatter. Competition: This is the global paradigm shift that Indians must understand. So if Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai rise, can Ahmedabad with Nano in its workshop remain far behind?

In a competitive environment of the free marketplace, the states, communists or communalists, have to position themselves to attract private investments and encourage entrepreneurship. Information technology industry in India has reached a critical mass and in spite of the Satyam scandal it will continue growing.

But India needs balanced development, including massive emphasis on agriculture and rural development to spread wealth and reduce disparities.

This is not to minimise the importance of information technology as an engine of economic growth. The change of government will not adversely affect the information technology base and the trust that Indian knowledge workers have been building for more than a decade. The Satyam hiccup would not change the fundamentals that India is a reliable source of off-shoring for major companies like General Electric, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and others, who value India’s knowledge workforce.

One can say with confidence that the technology sector will continue to receive the excellent support that it has been receiving regarding infrastructure and developmental policies. ITs foreign collaborators and partners need not have any concern. In fact, whatever party or coalition comes to power in New Delhi, it will certainly make all-out efforts to ensure a growth-friendly environment to attract foreign investment. But at the same time we should keep in mind that since not everyone can go to IIT or IIM, jobs off-shored to India from the United States and Europe would play a marginal role in lifting people out of poverty and raising them into the growing middle-class. There has to be something else, something much more dynamic like the rise of millions of cell-technology mobile small entrepreneurs who can grow like giants.
The next leadership must forge millions of levers to lift India out of poverty.
This much I know that once again India’s millions of electorate will regretfully affirm that the age of giants, those larger-than-life men and women ~ Jawaharlal Nehru (Tryst with destiny), Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (Integration of states) and Indira Gandhi (Liberation of Bangladesh, accession of Sikkim, bank nationalisation that has protected India from the global financial crisis today) ~ is over forever.

Nonetheless, Dr Manmohan Singh has been good enough for the country. He has kept the hurly-burly political alliance together for five years, persuaded the country to accept the path-breaking nuclear deal with the United States, braved the Mumbai terrorist attack, and on the top of it, he has managed to keep up the average economic growth around 8 percent. Now it is the age of exploration of space, outer space, rural space and cyberspace, for which India needs bravehearts, men and women with courage, integrity and imagination.

Song of Tagore

Thou Hast Made Me Endless

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 & dasguptarajat@hotmail.com
Rabindra Sangeet – Songs of Rabindranath Tagore: (Part 2) – 6 samplesTranslator’s note: The songs of Rabindranath Tagore are known as Rabindrasangeet which number approx. 2500. It is no exaggeration to say that Rabindrasangeet has explored every corner of human emotion and perception to give them best possible expression. Their philosophical depth also is unparalleled in the music world. It may be claimed, Rabindrasangeet has climaxed wording of the ineffable in literature of all time. Anybody not knowing Bengali definitely miss this aesthetic treasure. A translation can at best explain the central idea of a song, but cannot surface the wonderful matching of music with the original poesy so intimate with its philosophical/spiritual canvas. Unfortunately, therefore, the best of Rabindrasangeet, with all its humanistic appeal of highest order, will remain confined within the Bengali circle. It may be possible, some highly talented musicians endowed with literary command also, will emerge with versions of Rabindrasangeet in other languages, equally appealing. Such experiment in Hindi has not been disappointing and has gained popularity. Hindi is of course quite close to Bengali which must have been a contributory factor to such success. But the Western languages are likely to pose insurmountable challenge to any such effort. While hoping that some highly talented musicians will some day perform this magic of perfect cloning of Rabindrasangeet even in the Western languages, a sensible suggestion in the meantime appears to be to keep its translation handy while the Westerners (and in general all not having access to Bengali) will give their ear to the original Bengali song and try to perceive its import. Those knowing Bengali can only sympathize those not so privileged for such a plight in their struggle to enjoy a song! Below appears translations of some Rabindrasangeets, with a few initial lines of the original Bengali given in Roman script to enable the listeners to relate the translation to the song.Amra dujana swarga khelana garibo na dharanite
Mugdho lalito asrugalito geete
………………………………………….
………………………………………….
[Notes: The song was composed in early thirties of 20th Century, presumably dedicated to the great revolutionary Jatindra Mohan Sengupta and his foreign (Irish, I guess) wife Nellie Sengupta, who had worked shoulder to shoulder with her husband in the freedom struggle for India. In 1932, on his return voyage from Europe, Jatindra was arrested by the British police near Bombay. He was since interned and eventually breathed his last on 22 July 1933 at Ranchi (in Eastern India). Many a couple dedicated to freedom struggle had similar plight at that time and, naturally we may assume, this song was directed to them all. Yet, its appeal extends universally, beyond a particular milieu, to all the couple whose objective is far beyond a mere happy family life to respond to the cause of service of the people at large.]

To compose the toy of heaven
Is not our aim craven –
In emotional songs occult
The nuptial night to exalt
In nostalgic charm
With a heart infirm
To beg at Fate’s feet
All our imploring to meet –
Is not for us intrepid
Both standing firm in our daring bid.

The banner of love we’ll hoist high
Along craggy path our perilous mission to vie;
The distress of the cruel day
Overwhelm us may;
Yet, for peace to languish
Or consolation we’ll not wish.
If the radar is broke, the sail torn,
To us this will be ever known,
That both of us are there
Even when Death at us will stare.

Both of us to vision the Earth there
And each other;
The desert heat to bear
Not to rush for the mirage mere
Evading truth to self beguile
This glory be ours all the while;
This message oh dearest
Be our heart’s closest –
Till we die
That you’re there; so am I.

* * * * * * * * * * * ** ** *
Tumi hatath haway bheshe asha dhan
Tai hatath paoyae chamke othe mon
…………………………………….
……………………………………..
[Note: God’s revelation to us is off and on in course of our life, without notice or ritualistic processes, but even through the simplest objects of Nature if we keep our perceptions open.]

Thou art my treasure windfall
So my mind does startle.
On my secret travel
Thy abrupt reveal I marvel –
In the wind fragrant
On Thy fancies errant.

Daily as we come and go
Each other we do not know;
Kicking up dust visit many
To convey message hardly any;
All of a sudden Thy flute yonder
Alerts the lost passenger.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * *
Tomar holo shuru, amar holo shara
Tomay amay mile emni bahe dhara
…………………………………….
…………………………………….

[Note: Among the Hindu gods, Vishnu is the protector of Creation while e Shiva is for its destruction. One will agree, concepts of Vishnu and Shiva are more philosophical, rather than religious, to perceive this dual faces of Existence. This song brings out this very philosophical perception.]

You set out as I end;
Such a stream founts as we blend.
For you the light does glitter,
At home with mate you are.
For me is the night,
The stars above only I sight.
You have the shore,
For me the seas roar.
You have station,
Mine is motion.
You preserve, I undo,
You fear, I brave in lieu.

* * * * * * * * * * * * **
Bhenge mor gharer chabi niye jabi ke amare, Bandhu amar
Na paye tomar dekha aka aka din je amar kate nare
…………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………….
[Note: While we are confined to the narrow limits of our life, we pine for a bigger significance of our existence beyond our mundane boundaries. This song wonderfully brings out the distress of the human soul seeking exit beyond its confinement and, in the case of the Poet, I believe the eternal Truth is his quest.]

Who’ll break loose oh
My room’s lock for my bondage to go,
That from me does fend
Thou, oh my friend!
Without Thy sight
Lone days are my plight.
Is the night over
The Sun soon to appear
At the horizon Eastern
My rescue to earn;
By the long road ahead
Thy chariot to my door will be led?
In the sky stars countless
Stare at me blink less
Awaiting the dawn
With Thy floodlight to be gone.
The travelers in the morning
All come amidst din;
Pass their pageants with music
Thy glory to seek
In the flowers blooming
Tunes struck by the Sun’s golden string.

* * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * ** **
Charanrekha tabo je pathe dile lekhi
Chinnha aji tari apani ghuchale ki
…………………………………
………………………………
[Note: Everything beautiful in our life is only transitory. Yet. the Poet’s conviction is that only the eternal Truth manifests in these temporal.]

On the path Thou left Thy footprints
To-day to blot out all its hints.
Pollens of Ashoka (*) rendered Thy dust crimson (*= tree)
Only to be lost in the grass on Thy lawn.
Ends flowering,
Birds forget to sing;
The southern wind ceases
Oblivious, self-forfeits as it pleases.
Yet, the Immortal did they not carry,
In death will end its memory?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
He nutan dakha dik arbar
Janmero prathama subhakshan
……………………………….

[Note: There has been a boom of celebration of birthday parties of young and adults alike in the Western style even in our country with the trite song ‘Happy birthday to you …..etc.’ preceded by the ritual of cutting/eating of delicious birthday cakes to be followed by sumptuous dishes and, of course, the incumbents are flooded with costly gifts from their guests. Thus, the birthday parties do provide plenty of enjoyment. However, it may be interesting to compare this ethos with that which pervades the whole of Bengal during the Kabi Paksha (Poet’s fortnight) which starts on the 25th day of Baisakh (this month in the Bengali calendar synchronizes with the mid April to mid May period), the birthday of the Poet, when the entire clime here is inundated with Tagore’s songs/recitals etc. in various functions taking us deep into the perception of Creation’s mystery, which we badly miss in our said birthday rituals which, one may feel, are in utter mediocrity once one has experienced the ecstasy and philosophical height in Kabi Paksha. Out of many other recitals relevant to the profundity of ‘birthday’ the following song is sure to be heard on this occasion ]

O Ever New, may Thee reappear
Through Life’s holy primal hour;
With the mist torn
Like Sun be Thy manifestation.
From the midst of inane
Thy victory be over its bane.
Let be hailed by Thy glow
And my heart’s trumpet blow;
Music of Life’s marvel
Infinity’s eternal wonder to reveal;
The clarion call to the Ever New be sent
At the advent
Of Baisakh the twenty fifth
For its un-blighting gift.