Politicians Wasting Parliament (and the taxpayer's) Time: Reposted

As part of the ongoing process of salvaging some of my old blog posts from www.sawf.org, I found one that seems particularly apt given the political drama/farce once again unfolding in India.  Sadly enough, this post was written in 2001, entire decade ago which makes it even more depressing!

A bit of context: I moved back to India in 1995 after living and working abroad and thus got my first taste of Delhi as a weird mix of a phoren-return (a rarity in those days), a UP-ite and having never lived in the capital. Because of family, friends and work, I got to see the workings of that city and how much of it is based on lies. Media, politicians, business, activists all work hand-in-glove no matter what image they present to the aam-aadmi.  The post below was a combination of disgust at what I observed as well as a belief I still hold: that truth shall set us free, that the young people of India are its future, and things can be changed.  I repost this not to depress the readers but more as a reminder of how far we still have to go:


2001: Most days when you switch on the TV, you find politicians bickering away at each other. So you can imagine my surprise when I found politicians of various parties in complete harmony, agreeing with each other, supporting each other's arguments, presenting a picture of complete bonhomie. 

Of course, if you watch DD's broadcast of parliamentary proceedings (which I do, as a particularly nasty example of reality TV), you would know that such bonhomie isn't quite extraordinary. Seconds after staging dharnas, storming the wells, and screaming themselves hoarse, and moments before the cameras are switched off, the opposition and treasury benches have been spotted backslapping like the best of friends. The surprise, therefore, wasn't that they were all "langotiya yaars" beyond the camera lights, but that they were willing to show it on international and national television.

I suppose, the issue at hand has to held responsible for such a public demonstration of affection. You see, the politicians on TV were all justifying the need for voting a huge pay increase for themselves. And that, we all know, is an issue that cuts across party-lines and unites our political classes ever so much better than a national crisis or calamity.

"We get paid Rs. 4,000 a month," said one MP, "and we are required to maintain two homes, one in the capital and the other in our constituency." This was a particularly favoured explanation for the MP pay increase. Even the younger politicians, ranging from Arun Jaitley to Omar Abdullah came up with the facetious reasoning that "improved pay packages will make MPs more honest." On one show, Renuka Chowdhary, the party-hopping fireball explained that "MPs should be paid at least as much as a Joint Secretary. After all, our children need to go to school too." Touching logic, if only it held water. For three basic reasons: 

• one, because the official pay package forms a small part of the remunerations, legal and illegal, that MPs receive; 
• two, because greed has no limit and raising the pay package even up to 12,000 will do little to support the lifestyles adopted by many of our MPs; 
• and three, because a Joint Secretary is actually required to do some work for the benefit of the nation and people, which MPs never do.

Starting with the first point, the Government of India foots the bills for MPs transport, housing, telephone and other utilities. Party coffers assist with other perks. The government also provides each MP with funds to develop their constituencies, very little of which actually reaches the people it is intended for. Finally, there are a number of other "donations" that MPs receive from private and corporate sources. In ten years of being the Chief Minister of Bihar (a proxy one for some of that time and an MP of the Lok Sabha as well), Laloo Prasad Yadav has amassed wealth that confounds the most ambitious among us. This champion of the "down-trodden" declares that property worth crores of rupees is "inherited" from his ancestors (yes, the very same poverty-stricken ones who suffered for the proverbial do bigha zameen). Ironically enough, Laloo's property today outstrips many folds that of the largest upper-caste zamindarsin the same state.

Even a better case in point is that of Phoolan Devi, who was killed in the very same week as my father retired after a long career with the central government. Her property - self-acquired - is estimated in crores, and all of it has been acquired in the last ten years of her political adventure. Meanwhile, my father - after forty years of honest, honourable, and sometimes dangerous, service to the nation - has little but personal pride to show for his efforts. And lest we forget the argument offered by our MPs, my father earned more money - per month - than the MPs.

Which brings us to the second point: will a three-fold increase in pay really make MPs honest? Living in Delhi has been a real education for me. And the lessons have been simple: most politicians live life King-size, and all checks and balances be damned. Starting with flashy cars, satellite phones, and watches worth a few lakh of rupees, there is hardly an MP who can be said to represent the poorest of the poor in this country. Lavish weddings, iftaar parties and "party meetings" bely the MPs' current claim that they are short of cash. While on the topic, let us not forget the foreign holidays that are paid for by the taxpayer's money (the same taxpayer who - in many cases - cannot afford monthly trips from Delhi to Bhatinda).

Experience shows that larger pay packets do not prevent greed. If that were the case, we would live in a highly simplified, moral utopia. Past fifty years of history show that politicians who cannot be corrupted - ie, Lal Bahadur Shastri, - manage to avoid greed, despite having unlimited riches within their grasp. Others - and the Nehru-Gandhi family is a good example - are corrupted to such a level that no amount of wealth (or tragedy) can sate that ever-burning need for more. After all, as the Hindi proverb says, once the lion tastes human blood, it turns into a man-eater. And that is exactly what has happened to our political classes: easy black money has spurred them on to greater heights of greed and corruption.

Now we get to the final point: what is it that our MPs do for us that we need to pay them more out of the tax payer's pocket? There has been an argument made in the past that India works despite its government. In the past half-decade, and with the help of liberalization, this statement has travelled far toward becoming a fact. India is now slowly moving towards a stage where the government is becoming increasingly superfluous in the daily lives of most of its citizens.

And in part, the politicians themselves are to blame. The bulk of this year's budget session was devoted to clamours of resignation by the opposition instead of informed, rational discussion of the budget proposals. The budget was finally passed with only the most cursory of discussions. During that session, the treasury benches had protested the disruption of parliamentary proceedings.

The current parliamentary session has again seen disruptions of parliamentary proceedings, where the house has been adjourned for hours on end and sometimes, even till the next day. This time, the treasury benches are carrying out the disruptions while the opposition has been protesting such "unparliamentary" behaviour.

And just for the taxpayers' information: each day of the parliament session costs the country approximately 2 crore rupees! And the new proposal for MPs' salary hike will cost the nation approximately 23 crores more every year. The question before the nation is simple: Should we pay these MPs more to stage high cost, low quality tamashas and nautankis?

There is one possible solution: For each day that the parliament is disrupted, the disruptive MPs must be made to pay a fine. After all, if each working day of a parliament session costs 2 crores, it is easy enough to calculate the cost of each wasted minute. And let us fine the party (since these disruptions are pre-planned and sanctioned by the party chiefs) not the individual members.

So if a party's members rush into the well and hold up proceedings for ten minutes, let the responsible party foot the bill for those ten minutes. If the parliament is forced into adjournment by disruptions, let the party foot the bill for the entire day. At the end of the session, let the collected money from these fines go back to the tax-payer. This does not mean handing it back to the exchequer, or development agencies that do little, or even NGOs who may be manipulated by their governmental links. Instead, let the income from this "disruption" fine go into providing across the board income tax relief.

Let our MPs put such a proposal into practice first. Then, perhaps, we can talk about giving them pay raises.

Walk down Lucknow's Memory Lanes: Reposted

Thanks to a twitter exchange about Lapata's beautiful post on Lucknow, I was reminded of a long-standing task. I used to write for the apparently suspended www.sawf.org many years ago and have been promising myself that I would salvage some of the posts from there for my own blog.  Thanks to the exchange today, I re-post my piece on my memories of Awadh:

In my mind, Lucknow stands for the delicious fragrances of ripening Dussheri mangoes, the subtle flavours of melons and the fragile elegance of chikan work. Of course, Lucknow has a lot more for the tourist, but then I was never a tourist there - my association with the city dates back nearly three decades.

Back in the old days, Lucknow exuded a faint aroma of localized power, layered with the famed adab. Everyone was excruciatingly polite and elders spoke in hushed, horrified, tones of the deteriorating decorum in Vidhan Sabha (State Assembly). And while the Lucknow-wallahs may prefer to forget the presence of the latter in their midst, the building is one of the most interesting examples of Raj architecture. In fact, Lucknow is an architecture-buff's delight. Subtle elegance distinguishes the havelis in Malihabad, the Imambara, the gateways, and the Governor's residence, despite the difference in historical periods and architectural styles. The famous La Martiniere school hearkens back to an era of knife-edged trouser creases and scones with tea, whereas the exquisite turn of the (last) century buildings of the Lucknow University campus would make for a fantastic architectural tour, were they not so sadly decrepit.

While Chowk is the standard tourist spot, Lucknow insiders Lahtoosh Road for the real atmosphere. With old shops selling every possible thing under the sun, the atmosphere is similar to that of Delhi's walled city. Tucked behind a mass of junk, discarded furniture and bicycles, shops enjoy decades of loyal family patronage. Decades ago, Hamid bhai, who sends us lovely biryani on Eid, used to mend my bicycle with the same care that he fixed my uncle's in the decades before then. Now, Hamid bhai's son works under the father's eagle eye on my cousin's motorcycles and my nephew's tricycle. (Updated: It is a measure of changes in India in the past decades that his grandsons have different ambitions and education albeit the same soft-spoken Urdu).

Near Chowk is Tunde's kebab shop, famous amongst tourists and locals alike. However, for juicier, softer, incredibly scrumptious kebabs, stand before Tunde's hole-in-the-wall and veer left to the unmarked, smoky shop next door. You'll find that this no-name, no-fame shop serves up infinitely better fare than Tunde's flaunted food.

One bit of unseemly architecture that most Lucknow-wallahs would gladly bypass is the Parivartan Chowk round-about - only if it weren't so difficult to do so, should you wish to get to the heart of the city. Just beyond it, however, is the Begum Hazrat Mahal Park where the Begum of Awadh declared war against the British in 1857. To this day, the park continues to be the main site for political rallies and demonstrations. For the picturesque glimpse it affords into the dynamics of Indian democracy, it merits a visit.

Lucknow's intrinsic links with the dynasties at Delhi can be seen in the city's numerous gardens, the most interesting being Safdarjung Gardens, named after its founder. Located on Ashok Road, this park reflects the Islamic style of formal gardens adapted to India and now serves as a favourite spot for romantic trysts.

Lovers also gather at Hazratganj Road for more sanctioned activity. Originally called the Queen's Way and open only to British carriages, the road now serves as a late night drag racing strip for daring teenagers. Lined with shops, some of which date back to the Raj, Hazratganj is the favourite place to shop for clothes, handicrafts, furniture, antiques and souvenirs. Hazratganj is also a good place to eat and the best choice is chaat seller near the Lee Cooper showroom. So fascinated was he with Lucknow's graciousness that he moved permanently from Mumbai or Calcutta (the story changes with each visit). In addition to whipping up a range of delicious chaat-stall cuisine, his speciality basket-chaat-dahi-tikkis seved up in an edible bowl made of what look like fried-up falooda.

Some of the old shops in Hazratganj stock the famous Lucknow chikan work. While the newer boutiques present fashionable twists on this traditional embroidered linen, the older shops are the best bets. Apart from the kurtas and salwar suits, some of the old families also manufacture bed-linens, tablecloths and lehengas in this distinctive style. Of course, if you want chikan work or other exquisite embroidery created on demand, the best bet is somewhere in the streets of Aminabad, where some of Lucknow's oldest families of artisans produce sophisticated linens and trousseaus on request.

At Nishatganj, shops do brisk business in the shadow of a massive flyover. The right place to buy leather goods from neighbouring Kanpur at throw away prices, the area is also a sale point for quality bhang. And during the day, bookies do good business under the flyover - whether it be a lottery ticket or putting money on an Indo-Pak cricket match or the football face-off in the European League. Surprisingly international and slick, the bookies here are bet crazy. Bring a three-legged horse, a toad that can jump or a motorcycle with a souped-up engine, and you'll pick up more bets in five minutes than in an hour in Las Vegas.

The nearby Gol Market harbours the Ritz Sweet Shop, which provides the world's best moti-choor ke laddoo (take my word as a pukka Banarasi) and amazing dahi-tikki-chaat. The kulfi-falooda here is a daily staple for me whenever I am in the city.

History-buffs head for the Residency, on the outskirts of the old city where British residents were besieged and bombed in one of the worst battles of 1857. The bombed-out ruins in the massive park-cum-corest, the antique guns and cannons that protected it are still visible. One of the buildings has been restored into a small museum and someof the rooms are furnished in the Raj fashion. A small beautiful English cemetary is a chilling reminder of that war.

As children, the Residency was our favourite picnic destination. Long ago, we memorized Subhadra Kumari Chauhan's stirring poem, "Jhansi-wali Rani", here and the lines took on special resonance amongst the ruins. The Residency's extensive overgrown grounds hide many secrets in the form of gravestones, ruins and remnants of old garden trellises. Hidden arbours and clearings make it an ideal place to spend the day.

Thirteen kilometres away from Lucknow, the sleepy hamlet of Kakori is the birthplace of the delectable Kakori kebabs (and of course, the Kakori train robbery by Bhagat Singh and friends).  According to legend, Siraj-ud-Daullah had his chef beheaded because one of his guests complained that the kebabs were too tough. So the chef's assistant took upon himself to improve the cuisine. He marinated the meat overnight in hollowed out pineapples, thus giving birth to the soft Kakori kebabs. Incidentally, this is the only place in Lucknow where kakori kebabs can be found.

Lucknow moves to a slower pace than most cities of its size and a good way to spend an afternoon in at the maze of Burra Imambara. Possibly an erstwhile venue for decadent Nawabi orgies, for a traveller the maze provides a taste of chills and thrills the old fashioned (pre-Jurassic Park) way. Sunset over the incredibly symmetry of the adjoining buildings is a mrvellous conjunction of the best man and nature can offer.

Come nightfall and the perfect Awadhi evening requires a trip to the ancient Carlton Hotel. This refurbished haveli offers a taste of sumptuous Awadhi cuisine in an ambience redolent of languid Nawabi nights. Ghazals and thumris play over the immaculate gardens and soft lights make the haveli glimmer. The best place to dine is outdoors, where old torcehs light up the night. Sit back, sip a beer, bite into a succulent kebab and soak in the mellifluous thumri wafting over the fragrant Malihabadi breeze. Now you are really in the Lucknow of the Awadhis.


Warning: I have left much of the post unchanged from when it was first written, providing only two minor updates. 


Full disclosure: A large chunk of my first novel Nani's Book of Suicides (2000) was written in Lucknow. I still have great memories of that period. 

A Different Angle to Women Reporting on Conflict:Beyond Lara Logan

I must start this piece with a disclaimer (Usual readers: you'll see why this is necessary): At no point do I support or condone sexual violence towards or harassment of Lara Logan or any other journalist or indeed professional trying to do her job.  This piece is NOT about the sexual harassment/violence that women journalists face but rather of the "whitewashing" of the issue in the debate following the much publicized attack on Logan.

As a kid in India, I had family and friends who were/are journalists. Some of these are women. They covered riots, wars, crime, the Union Carbide gas tragedy. They were true heroines and my inspiration.  Growing up in India, writing fiction was not a viable career choice and I always thought that journalism was a respectable, even noble, second option.  Not surprisingly, after finishing my BA, I took up journalism. I worked as a reporter, editor and free-lancer off and on for fifteen years in all sorts of places in Africa, Latin America, India, on stories that ranged from culture to business to human rights abuses.  And I used those skills for a range of media driven organisations: state-owned, private corporation and advocacy groups.

What I learned in those years of reporting convinced me that just as the feminist theories of universal sisterhood had meant the silencing of non-white female experience, the same holds true for the practice of journalism.  Outside India, many of my colleagues were drawn from an internationally motley group, primarily made of Europeans and north Americans.  Most were male. Like many women reporters, I had to work twice as hard to get the "tough" assignments, to prove myself as capable as the men.

But I had a second disadvantage: I also had to prove myself better than the white female reporters. You see, despite self-avowedly "liberal" milieu of the typical international newsroom, an implicit hierarchy still exists. The liberalism of my editors and colleagues meant they pretended to be blind to my race while continuing to assign stories that demonstrated their racist assumptions. And no, I will not go over instances of the prejudice simply because this post is not a whine or a rant!

The colour-blindness played out more oddly at the level of colleagues.  My white male colleagues, for most part, would deal with me without the sexual charge that often informed their interaction with white female reporters. So in a way, my skin colour gave me the added benefit of being sexually invisible as well with the result that I could drink and "hang" with the boys and swap tips without any of the "baggage" that marked similar interactions for my white female colleagues.  This had its good and bad: I developed a great network, felt less sexual pressure, and felt no need to "out-tough" the guys. The bad side was that I felt invisible, was treated by many white female colleagues as the male "runt" of the press club litter and often dealt with visible contempt.  Crossing of race and gender ensured that I was always the outsider.

Yet the same qualities gave me a strange edge while in the field. Even as most Latin Americans recognised me as a foreigner, my dark skin provided a strange protection: identified clearly as not linked to the social, economic, political and military power structures (ie EU/UK/US), and people spoke to me with greater ease.  In Africa and parts of Asia, my Indian-ness was and still is recognised and generally greeted with great affection, something for which I have to thank Nehru's foreign policy and Bollywood films.

Time and time again, locals have stepped in to assist, protect and inform me in ways that were not available to my white colleagues, regardless of gender.  Moreover, my skin colour ensured that I could blend into the crowds in a way white colleagues could not; and sometimes that tiny fig leaf is greater protection than any one can hope for.

There is a more complex aspect to this. Another sort of sexual invisibility protected me in crowds: People often forget that sexual harassment and violence is mostly about power not desire.  Whiteness is an indicator of historic power disparities in many parts of the world (read Fanon, Said, Shohat for the complex arguments of these issues) even though many of us choose to deny or ignore this.  White women thus become symbols of a larger historic imbalance of power than their individual selves, a factor in many of the cases of sexual harassment that not only women reporters but also average travellers face.  In contrast, my colour gives me an unexpected advantage: harassing me provides little redress for historic grievances.  Not surprisingly, I meet camaraderie and respect in places where my white female friends and colleagues only find aggression and harassment. It is an advantage that I have been always been grateful for, though I have done little to win it.

Finally, perhaps there is also a cultural education angle to this. Unlike most of my European and American women friends and colleagues, I have grown up with an acute awareness of power imbalances between genders. There is also greater awareness of cultural codes with clear sense of covering one's body and/or head if necessary without major ideological agenda.  This translates to clothing, body language, even reporting techniques. Even at my most aggressive, I am/was aware of potentially transgressing cultural norms and made subtle adjustments as needed.

This too is a gift - however ambivalent - of growing up in India where we adapt and adjust as needed.  It may also be a result of a postcolonial heritage which has never granted me the privilege of cultural, racial even gendered arrogance/naivete that I often see amongst many European and Americans.  For example, unlike Sabrina Tevernise, I would never assume that walking into an empty hotel and encountering a man would be anything less than risky, regardless of the part of the world. That too is a complex negotiation of culture, race, gender and history!

As a nonwhite women journalist, I recognise that I occupied a strange space when covering international stories. Without ever being told so explicitly by my employers, I knew that my "value" was lower than that of my white female colleagues. And while things have changed in the past decade with increasing number of nonwhite women reporters working for mainstream media, many of the experiences and issues I mention here have not drastically changed as long as one works for a western media outlet.  In frankest of terms, this means that I always recognised that I made less of a story than my American or European colleagues would (For those who question it, compare the media inches granted to Logan vs the temporary detentions of Sonia Verma the Indo-Canadian reporter or Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros in Egypt).  This knowledge informed the risks I took as well as the professional decisions I made.

At the same time, I and other nonwhite reporters can access people and places that many "western" journalists can not, regardless of gender. And that is an advantage that few media outlets can ignore, especially as the power balance shifts away from the traditionally western centres of power. 

Perhaps, to reference Toni Morrison, it is the privilege of whiteness (or lack thereof).  I confess that I have used it to my advantage, as have many other women journalists from Latin America, Africa, Asia.  I also have to admit that it has worked to my disadvantage, although more at institutional rather than human/individual levels. 

As Kim Barker astutely noted: "Without female correspondents in war ones, the experience of women there may only be a rumour."  That is indeed true. But to whitewash the ways in which race and culture inform not only women reporters' functioning but also the response they receive is to be equally ingenuous as maintaining a silence on the issues of sexual harassment and violence.  

I hope these thoughts capture some of my own reactions to the debate triggered by the Lara Logan incident. I write in hope of giving voice to a set of women (and very able professional reporters) who are again being whitewashed from a narrative historically dominated by white middle-class women who position their own experience as universal; in making such a whitewashed case, and with greater access to mainstream western media, they also once again silence many of us who share their gender but not their race.

Update: Eyewitness accounts from Tahrir contradict the CBS statement on Lara Logan incident making my impression of Orientalist narrative that evolved around her even stronger.