A Modest Proposal: With Apologies to Mr. Swift

I was back in Delhi just after the 2004 US elections. In the taxi from IGI into the city, I ended up with a rather voluble Sikh driver. After enquiring after my family, job, marital status, income (usual Indian-style small talk), he asked a question that stumped me. "Madam," he asked, and you know things are going to go bad when a sentence starts with that - "why can't the Americans get their voting machines to work? We had 100% electronic voting and if the machines can work here in India, then why can't the Americans make theirs work?"

I didn't have an answer for this half-literate yet world-savvy driver from Ludhiana back in 2004, and I have to confess, I still don't have a reasonable response. Even in a country of its size, India's 2003 general elections were a logistical exercise of mind-blowing proportions, involving a voter list nearly three times the size of the US one; elephants, trucks, trains and airplanes ferried voting machines and election officers to remote parts of the country to ensure that citizens could exercise their fundamental democratic right; and in a country of innumerable political parties and unacceptable levels of illiteracy, people turned up to use voting machines to cast their ballots. Forget computers, a nmber of these voters had never had seen anything powered by electricity. Yet they turned up in hundreds of millions to vote, and while there were anomalies, there wasn't an election blooper of the scale that America has indulged in over the past decade.

Another American election is now less than a week away, and I am still stumped: why is this so difficult in America? Already, even during early voting stages, voting machine goof-ups are being reported and discussed widely. A significant percentage of the citizenry and press are terrified that these elections shall be "stolen" regardless of how they vote - a state of affairs not to be seen even in the worst day's of Laloo's Bihar.

Here is one suggestion for the world's "most powerful democracy": Why not outsource the American elections to the people who know how to run them properly? Bring in India's Election Commission - hell, we can even give you a good price - to run US elections for the future. The EC will bring in machines that work, monitors who actually can spot and report voter fraud, and even ethical codes for campaigns including limitations on hate speech and incitement to violence.

Its a logical proposal: After all, the Americans trust Indians to design their military software and manage sensitive health records and financial data. So isn't it logical to rely on that same efficiency to manage their elections? God knows it would be better than relying on the idiots who ran 2000 and 2004 processes.

Of course there is a caveat: given the economic crisis, the Indian Election Commission just might to be too expensive for the Americans. In that case, perhaps, its time to ask an old and tested resource: Bring in the UN election observers. They may not manage the elections, but they will sure file a lot of reports on the violations. And no better time for it: there are a few hundred out-of-work election observers in Zimbabwe who are looking for a new assignment!

Hypocrisy or Just Plain Ol' Hubris, You Betcha!

For the past few weeks, western media has been running stories on how "Hindus are driving out Christians" in India.

New York Times (never the best of sources, but widely read in that country) ran a headline screaming "Hindus Threat to Christians - Convert of Flee." Lets not forget this is a country where the presidential candidate can malign the opposition with the mere suggestion of being Muslim. And when the fury whipped up by the suggestions gets overt, and some voter declares that the opposition candidate cannot be trusted because "he is an Arab," what does the good ole American war hero respond? Not with a lecture about secularism and democracy and human rights of Arabs. McCain came back with how Obama was a "decent family man." As if Arabs cannot be decent family men! And then the clincher - "he's not!" He's not Arab? He's not Muslim? Why does this matter?

Why am I bringing this up? Well, USA is also the same country that periodically issues reports on "secularism" in India! This is also a country that makes a great song and dance about not issuing a visa to Gujarat CM, Narendra Modi, ostensibly for his Hindu Nationalist stance.

Now I am not defending Modi but the hypocrisy generated by the US is quite breath-taking. Palin's speeches are not that different from Modi, and the responses from her Bible-bashin, good ol' American followers is one that you wouldn't find even in the most illiterate village in Gujarat: calls for "kill him", "traitor", "off with his head." And all this for the opposing candidate, not some vague, nebulous enemy within. Lets put this in perspective - how about Advani whipping up the same frenzy about Sonia, with calls for killing her emanating from BJP supporters? Or how about audience jeering "kill him" for Advani at Mayawati's rallies? I can just imagine the headlines that New York Times would publish then.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the pond, BBC et al have been running similar stories. But then thats Britain for you: empire chala gaya, attitude nahin gaya! And the worst drivel comes from the second/third generation "British-Asians." (Indian press take note as they race to adore any firangi-with-Indian-name/skin).

The Guardian's Randeep Ramesh came up with this week's particular gem, and he wasn't even talking of politics, simply films (but how can you be a self-respecting western journalist without throwing caste into any and all discussions about India! Ramesh - discussing the film Omkara - declares: "Whereas 17th-century audiences in England could make sense of the Moor's existential angst, 21st-century Indians could not countenance an "untouchable" leader – a true outsider in society – preferring instead to make sure he had Brahmin blood."

Umm Mr. Ramesh, ever heard of Mayawati? Or the DMK? Or much of the UP legislative assembly? Or much of the Indian parliament (compared with the Oxbridge crowd that runs the British one). The whole point of the "half-caste" in Omkara - set in rural UP - is that he cannot call on any particular "power" base, including that of Dalit politics. In modern Indian polity, he is the ultimate outsider.

So why do I bring this up? Well, when 70% of the Muslim children in a developed country with a welfare state live in povery (UK statistics), any lectures to India (or any other country) smack of imperialist idiocy. And when presidential campaigns in the "world's greatest country" recycle fears articulated by Hollywood's greatest racist creation ("freed" slaves stuffing ballot boxes in D.W.Griffith's Birth of a Nation/McCain and Palin's smearing of ACORN), and the local media gags itself, then all finger-pointing at India becomes not only hypocritical, but even the veneer of virtue slides right off. Frankly boys, clean up your own houses first!

Meanwhile, why is it that the Indian mainstream media isn't willing to talk about this and instead continues to run completely idiotic articles about how Indian democracy can learn from the Americans?

New short story

After a long absence, due as usual to travel and writing, I am back again with an update. The Drawbridge carries a short story of mine in its latest issue. The issue is available in its broadsheet version at select UK bookstores. A sample of my story, Diplomatic Immunity Fatigue, can be found on the Drawbridge website.

The one lesson I learned from the story: don't piss off the cartoonist. Valuable if slightly obscure lesson there!