- By Sanjay Jha
I have begun writing a book, partially planned and partly triggered by the bizarre events that have unfolded in Mumbai in recent times. Albeit one will try and do justice to the complex conundrum that is India—an unfathomable mystery beyond normal human sensibilities, I am prepared for the long haul. Over the last week we have had chaotic madness sweeping the city of Mumbai and leaving it’s millions of denizens fairly shell-shocked and feeling acutely embarrassed and highly agitated . Rahul Gandhi’s appropriate and valid observations on Indianness with reference to a united fight by Indian NSG commandoes against 26/11 terrorists met with an outlandish and downright abominable response from the Shiv Sena that had many heads reeling in mighty disbelief.
Shah Rukh Khan’s comments on IPL players from across the border has also unleashed a reprehensible unfortunate backlash from India’s famous parallel power center based out of Matoshree, Mumbai celebrated in cinematic form by legendary Amitabh Bachchan in a film called Sarkar which was termed a commercial success. It even flouted a sequel. In retrospect, you can understand why the grand old patriarch of the Thackeray family runs his own law school. A sense of false grandeur settles which is accentuated by years of pip-squeak , pusillanimous politicians at the helm . Soon, one genuinely believes that a quasi-centre of power is a legitimate logical corollary of social and political circumstances. The Shiv Sena and MNS , unlike us stereotype cynics and standard critics , actually genuinely believe that they have intrinsic relevance in our national life . This is also buttressed by the fact that they have scant respect for state leadership whom they believe to be equally circuitous. But the “Marathi manoos” is just a convenient ploy, part of the larger master-strategy of playing linguistic politics to espouse the divisive “ sons of the soil” theory. But more on that later. First, India’s dichotomous, asymmetrical, and peculiar ironies.
- India is the toast of Davos, Switzerland while back home in the commercial capital of Mumbai the very concept of one-India is being threatened. What a contradiction!
- If statements such as “ Mumbai is for all Indians” and “ India belongs to all” is breaking news , then can we imagine the abysmal levels to which our public standards have sunk? .
- How can the Shiv Sena and MNS morally demand that Australian and Pakistan players be banned when they are thrashing, humiliating and hurting their own fellow Indians in their OWN country ? Who is more anti-national, the Australian thugs or we ourselves? Have we ever considered that our own internal saber-rattling and physical assaults on each other may be actually encouraging disgruntled foreigners from treating our country-men with greater disrespect and condescension ? Isn’t India frankly the laughing stock of the world right now? There is an old saying that if your house is not in order, the world will exploit you —-ruthlessly. That is exactly what is happening today. In Australia. In Ireland. The virus may even spread.
- Can you imagine the insecurities, fears and nervousness of the common man in Mumbai when he hears of a local political party that threatens to prevent Rahul Gandhi from entering Mumbai when he represents both the national and state ruling party ? I thought that was the pinnacle of brazenness and the ultimate blatant disregard for law of the land? Some audacity that!
- How can the country allow a self-made decent hardworking man who is India’s unofficial global ambassador and the country’s reigning superstar to be threatened, attacked and bullied by a political party for making personal remarks on team selection for IPL ? It is the government’s responsibility to ensure a 100% secure environment for the release of Shah Rukh Khan’s film My Name is Khan this Friday February 12th 2010.
- The Indian media should know how to distinguish between those espousing hatred and those having a hard-line view. Instead of making every televised debate into an inaudible acrimonious exchange, they should stop inviting the predictable torchbearers of social violence in India into the studios. The democratic option of “ hearing the other side” has run it’s course. In fact, is there any need to debate on whether Mumbai is for all Indians? It is. It damn well is, my friend! Frankly, TV creates a debate where actually none exists.. It is asinine to hype “ Is Mumbai for all Indians? ” as if it is indeed a disputed subject worthy of intellectual stimulation ; this is where Indian electronic media exploits raging virulent discontent by creating a bigger conflagration from practically nothing. It is the Sena and MNS who end up having the last laugh. Think about it, Editors!
- The attack on the controversial ex-police chief Rathore , terribly regrettable as it was is a statement on the rising disillusionment and anger of the common man with India’s legal –justice system, police force, rampant corruption and a whole grocery list of grievances . One should note that the attacker was not even related to the victim; it is a sad and sorry tale even if he was supposedly unwell. India is currently looking a disturbed society , extremely stressed and essentially lonely.
- In the midst of all this Sharad Pawar, the next President of the International Cricket Council makes a visit to the residence of the Shiv Sena chief to offer an olive branch ostensibly to allow the Australian cricketers to play in the IPL. By the way, the Home Minister of Maharashtra is from his own party NCP. His visit, informal and friendly as it might have been based on personal equations, weakens the common man’s faith in institutional governance.
When I was in school I remember a chapter in social studies that explained the uniqueness of India; our unity in diversity. May be it is time some of our politicians went back to school.
Historian Ramachandra Guha, in an article on the website IndiaTogether , reflects on the Mahatma’s return to India as a crucial turning point in the evolution of our freedom struggle. We reproduce the article in full:
This year features a spate of anniversaries highly relevant to the multiple pasts (and possible futures) of Indian democracy. In the first month of 2010, the Indian Republic completes sixty years; in the last month of 2010, the Indian National Congress will mark one-hundred-and-twenty-five years of continuous existence. A third relevant date, which just went by, is January 15, 2010, the day on which, 95 years ago, that Congressman and patriot, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, came back to his homeland after two decades of life and struggle overseas.
The challenge that confronted Gandhi on his return was to convert a campaign of urban elites into a mass movement. Till then, it was easy for the British to dismiss the Congress as a front for lawyers and other English-speaking professionals seeking the loaves and fishes of office. Gandhi felt this criticism keenly, and sought to refute it.
First, he encouraged the Congress to function in the vernacular, building up provincial committees that operated in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Oriya and in other languages of the people. Next, he brought in peasants and women, two groups that had previously been excluded from the proceedings. Third, he campaigned to abolish untouchability and to promote Hindu-Muslim harmony, seeking to answer the charge that the Congress was a party of banias and Brahmins. Fourth, he worked to nurture a second rung of political leadership that would work with him in deepening the social base of the Congress and make it truly representative of the nation-in-the-making.
In the short-and-medium term, Gandhi was successful in all but the third ambition. The rejection of colonial provincial categories – the Madras Presidency, the Bengal Presidency, and so on – through the creation of local Congresses based on language proved to be a superbly effective link between the metropolis and the periphery. Through the 1920s and 1930s, the nationalist message was conveyed through the medium of newspapers and magazines printed in languages other than English. The flow was not unidirectional; rather, the concerns of the different linguistic communities were also brought to the attention of the All India Congress Committee. Long before Amartya Sen, Gandhi had concluded that a person had multiple identities – and that it was perfectly consistent to be both Bengali and Indian, or Kannadiga and Indian.
It was also Gandhi who brought the rural masses into the freedom struggle. Operating in the vernacular helped here; as did his dress and lifestyle, which resonated far more with the peasantry than the turbans and suits of an earlier generation of Congress leaders. Peasants played a notable part in the Non-cooperation movement of the 1920s and the Civil Disobedience movement of the 1930s, although, as historians such as Shahid Amin and David Hardiman have demonstrated, they were motivated more by their own livelihood concerns – lower taxes, higher wages, freer access to forest and grazing resources and so on – than by abstract political categories such as ‘nationalism’ and ‘anti-colonialism’.
From the perspective of the modern feminist, some of Gandhi’s statements about women appear to be less than emancipatory. He was opposed to contraception, for example, and decidedly ambivalent about the role of women in the workplace. At the same time, he extolled their character and goodness, and considered them more courageous than men. At first, he was hesitant to allow them to offer satyagraha, but his reservations were overcome by his independent-minded colleagues, such as Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay and Sarojini Naidu. In the end, thousands of women courted arrest during the salt satyagraha of 1930 and the Quit India movement of 1942.
Thus, as Madhu Kishwar once pointed out, more women participated in Gandhi’s campaigns than in movements led by any other man in modern history. In this respect, he was conspicuously more successful than ostensibly more ‘modern’ and less ‘chauvinist’ leaders such as Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh and even Nelson Mandela.
One of Gandhi’s less-noticed achievements was his making leaders of followers. Vallabhbhai Patel was given charge of building the Congress party; Jawaharlal Nehru of reaching out to the youth and to the West; C. Rajagopalachari with taking the nationalist message to south India; Maulana Abul Kalam Azad with taking this message to Muslims. The delegation of responsibility was also followed with regard to the constructive programme; thus J B Kripalani was asked to set up khadi centres, J C Kumarappa set to work on reviving the agrarian economy, Zakir Hussain was charged with designing an educational curriculum. In later years, the trust reposed in them by Gandhi helped these men make substantial contributions to the political and cultural life of the nation.
However, Gandhi’s activities were not quite as successful with regard to the Dalits and Muslims. One major political rival of the Mahatma was B R Ambedkar, who insisted that Gandhi’s attitude towards the lower castes was patronising rather than wholly sincere. A second and even more substantial rival was M A Jinnah, who argued that Gandhi’s Congress was merely a vehicle for the interests of the Hindu majority. The latter claim gathered so much force that in the endgame of Empire, the Congress could not hold on to its vision of a single and united India.
It is a mark of Gandhi’s greatness that these rivalries made him redouble his efforts to make Dalits and Muslims feel being part of India. Although he had been at the receiving end of much bitter polemic from Ambedkar, Gandhi persuaded Nehru and Patel to appoint him law minister in the first cabinet of independent India. The special provisions for Dalits and adivasis in the Indian Constitution also owe much to Gandhi’s concerns.
Gandhi saw Partition as a colossal defeat for his ideas. Yet, in many ways, it was the period after Partition that saw him at his most noble, as he sought, by personal example, to stem the religious rioting. He succeeded in bringing some sanity back to Calcutta, and was at work on the same mission in New Delhi when he was murdered by a Hindu fanatic. After his assassination, the governor of West Bengal, C Rajagopalachari, wrote: “May the blood that flowed from Gandhiji’s wounds and the tears that flowed from the eyes of the women of India everywhere they learnt of his death serve to lay the curse of 1947, and may the grisly tragedy of that year sleep in history and not colour present passions.”
Rajaji’s prayers were answered in good measure. The rioting stopped, as the rioters, shamed and embarrassed by the death of Gandhi, put away their weapons. Meanwhile, Gandhi’s follower, the prime minister of India, urged his colleagues not to make this country a “Hindu Pakistan”, to ensure that Muslims and other minorities were granted, in theory as well as in practice, the rights of equal citizenship.
The Republic of India came into being through the patient work of countless men and women. The Congress party was likewise a collective enterprise. That said, it was one Indian, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who did most to ensure that our political system would be based on democracy and pluralism. It was the same man who did most to make the Congress party a truly national institution. In a few days, the citizens of India will be called upon to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the Republic. Later this year, members of the Congress party will be asked to celebrate the one-hundred-and-twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of their party. Had Gandhi chosen to stay on in South Africa, however, the Republic would have taken a different, that is to say, less democratic, shape.
As for the Congress, had Gandhi not returned home, it may still have been a club for English-speaking gentlemen. ⊕
Mathew Idiculla, a young friend with an avid interest in law and public policy, just launched his blog with a post where he draws our attention to the significance of Jan 26. Here are excerpts from his post:
It is in a funny way we treat important dates. August 15 is a day of celebration. It gave us independence … What does January 26 mean to us. Few people see beyond the unabashed display of arms and the President’s speech because we do not go into what it really stood for. The need to understand the history behind 26 January comes from the fact that only the past makes 26 January 26 January.
26 January, unlike popular belief, stood for Independence. … [On] 26 January, 1930 was the day India promulgated the declaration of Independence or the pledge of Purna Swaraj. On that day we declared ourselves an independent country, no longer under the clutches of the imperialists. The Declaration began “We believe that it is the incredible right of the Indian people, as of any other people, to have freedom to enjoy the fruits of their soil and have the necessities of life, so that they may have full opportunities of growth… if any government deprives a people of these and oppress them, the people have a further right to alter or abolish it”
It was the first time the Indian National Congress had declared complete independence and it was Gandhi who drafted it. The declaration said- “We believe therefore, that India must server the British connection and attain Purna Swaraj or complete independence… We hold it to be a crime against man and God to submit any longer to a rule that has caused this fourfold disaster to our country.” The Home Rule movement and the Nehru Report (under Motilal Nehru) had earlier advocated only for a dominion status of India within the British Empire. In December 1928, Mahatma Gandhi proposed a resolution that called for the British to grant dominion status to India within two years, which was later reduced to one year, failing which the Congress would demand for complete independence.
So after one year of British apathy, at the midnight of December 31, 1929 at a massive public gathering in Lahore, Jawaharlal Nehru declared “Purna Swaraj” or complete independence from the British and asked the people to observe January 26 as Independence Day. The Tricolour flag of India was hoisted by Nehru on the banks of the river Ravi in Lahore and later Nehru and his colleagues danced around the flag post. On January 26, 1930, the declaration of purna swaraj was publicly issued and people all over the country celebrated India‘s Independence day and this day was celebrated every following year.
…
On the eve of August 15, Nehru began his celebrated speech “Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.” Sadly not many understand what it means. The tryst with destiny was the pledge India had taken long years ago- on the 26th of January 1930. However the pledge taken in Lahore, couldn’t be redeemed in full measure due to Partition. So the 26th of January is in no way subsidiary to the “independence” day. In fact even after August 15th, India was only a dominion which had not formally relinquished all ties with the British.
26 January also gives us an opportunity to introspect whether we have lived upto the values of the pledge. The declaration of January 26 says “The British Government in India has not only deprived the Indian people of their freedom but has based itself on the exploitation of the masses, and has ruined India economically, politically, culturally and spiritually” It further speaks on how a normal Indian is heavily taxed, how the village industry has been destroyed, how customs and imported British goods are undesirable. It also spoke of how “The rights of free expression of opinion and free association have been denied to us” and how “the system of education has torn us from our moorings and our training has made us bug the very chains that bind us”.
Where have we reached 80 years after this declaration? Has the injustices decreased or has it been reaffirmed more so in the recent years? Its important to take one hard look at ourselves and the nation and try to reach an answer conscientiously. The extreme contradictions in the country does not paint a rosy picture, hence we must deliberate- where we have reached, which direction we are now heading and where we must be ideally heading.
… It was on November 26, 1949 that the Constitution was formally enacted, not on January 26, 1950. 26/11 stood for the spirit of the Constitution not the burning Taj. August 15th stood for partition, tragedy and the dominion status not independence or celebration. January 26 represented freedom, the promise of independence and the formation of the nation-state, and not just the Constitution and parade.
Hence January 26 is a day to celebrate. … Perhaps its time to recognize the freedoms January 26 stood for. It’s time to analyse whether we have redeemed the pledge we undertook 80 years back. It’s time to resolve to take more actions in furtherance of the vision of January 26 …
On 28th of December 2009 the Indian National Congress began a year of celebrations to mark its 125th anniversary. The party started commemorating the occasion from the 28th of December at the local level in order to make people remember all the struggles of the party in the last 125 years . Here’s a timeline of the Congress party from 1885 to 2009 .
Compiled by Ruhi Tewari & Santosh K Joy
Photographs by Bloomberg, AFP, Hindustan Times
-By Sanjay Jha
Arnab Goswami has started a new trend in broadcast journalism; a reality TV show of a fish market, a slugfest given to the highest decibels. If you saw his TV program on rising food prices on Times Now on January 14th 2010 featuring Brinda Karat , Ravi Shankar Prasad and Manish Tiwari , you would know what I mean. It was an astronomical flop-show. Ms Karat , as is the problem with several leftist spokespeople when speaking on aam aadmi issues , seemed unstoppable and after a point insufferable. Tiwari understandably retaliated with sufficient vigor, while Prasad prepared himself for a vitriolic assault. The paradox is that many news anchors live in a fool’s paradise that if they have guests squabbling like a bunch of soft-heads on a verbal laxative overdose they have hit the jackpot. Secretly, they believe they created real ripples, got the juices going et al. Utter garbage! They forget that their real audience switches channels rather quickly; the cycle is usually as follows, after the initial amusement at the silliness, there is heightened exasperation which culminates with a frustrated sigh. Switch! People rarely return to watch the parody. For Times Now this is now SOP. Firstly, Goswami invites heavy-weight guests. That too in fairly large numbers. Then he chooses to conveniently lose control; I have a sneaky feeling that his helpless loss of words is a deliberate tactic meant to make a viewer feel that Times Now really “ heats it up”. Not working Mr Goswami. It is as cold as a frozen turkey in a Polish subway .
On Face the Nation ( CNN-IBN) Sagarika Ghose landed up in a similar soup with Mani Shankar Aiyer and Lord Meghnad Desai, with Chandan Mitra for the third angle on the same old issue—Jawaharlal Nehru’s legacy , provoked by the media’s favorite whiplash boy Shashi Tharoor. . Aiyer tore viciously into the Lord’s flaky assessment of Nehru even as Mitra made some wobbly points of no relevance. But Mani surprisingly failed to make two crucial points in Nehru’s defense ; India’s first Prime Minister and one of the greatest statesmen the world has ever seen was a man who lived his active political life between two World Wars, when the concept of a big western empires still dominating large sections of the world was not unforeseeable and the risk of new power blocs creating a Third World war could not be ruled out either. India became independent even as war trials commenced and the whole world was still recovering from it’s devastating aftermath. It naturally impacted his entire political philosophy and approach to international relations. Nehru championed for regional and world peace post-1947 because he was convinced that if India led the Non –aligned movement and other peace initiatives with other smaller countries in their fold they would create a suitable buffer for reducing military conflict which actually neither India nor it’s trenchant neighbors could really afford given the massive challenge of human poverty they all faced , including Pakistan and China. The Indo-China War was more a tactical lapse in managing brewing tension as opposed to a strategic blunder. Nehru believed that after experiencing the horrors of western domination China itself would be more accommodating of it’s neighbors in matters which could be solved through mutual negotiations. That the Chinese aggressively pursued the military option is not a reflection on Nehru’s leadership but on China’s obsession with all things land that still surfaces sporadically even today.
Secondly, Mani could have categorically stated that instead of just pinpointing India one should look at how geopolitical relationships have changed so dramatically world-wide post the end of the Cold War, an inevitable aspect of evolution, change and progress. What is the big deal about India’s calibrated closeness to the USA in a unipolar world dominated by Washington ? Wasn’t Prime Minister Manmohan Singh being the first official state guest of Barack Obama at the White House a statement on India’s rising graph and it’s ability to suitably navigate with all the superpowers? Also now that McDonald’s has fought stroganoff for the Russian palate and soon there will be more Starbucks in China than in the US a manifestation of how economic equations now drive political relationships in a more mature free-trade globally integrated world the real big shift ? Aren’t we being antiquated in criticizing a foreign policy valid during it’s time of 1960s, naturally outdated with it’s passage. It is pragmatic politics. It has nothing at all to do with a dumping of the Nehruvian policy.
That Sagarika asked Mani for a public apology for making a personal dig at Desai was equally uncalled for , as there was nothing so unparliamentary or vilifying that Mani really said . Instead, for borrowing blatantly the title from Nehru’s masterpiece The Discovery of India and smartly calling his new book The Rediscovery of India perhaps Lord Meghnad Desai owes both Mani and the Congress an apology .
- By Sanjay Jha
It started with a standard innocuous private decision of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor to stay in a five-star hotel pending the refurbishment of his allotted government bungalow. Suddenly all hell broke loose as if a dreaded terrorist had just sneaked into Central Hall of the Indian Parliament for a quick cappuccino. Besides being publicly chastised for his errant ways the man who almost became the Secretary General of the United Nations was thereafter followed with relentless energy especially in his now celebrated Twitter. Tharoor can rightfully claim an equity stake from Twitter promoters should India emerge as it’s new bastion as the MOS for External Affairs has done wonders for the brand.
Ever since the initial brouhaha Tharoor’s every tweet has been conveniently hyped, twisted and turned to give the erudite gentleman an image of being the Grand Old Party’s problem child. Tharoor’s repeated insistence that he was merely exciting a debate on his Twitter was met with circumspection if not cynicism. I think the general media believes that Tharoor is just seeking cheap publicity , so why not give it to him with a convoluted slant ? The Times of India’s front-page Sunday buffet and Monday’s continued platter reveals a chronically obsessed media that is clearly twiddling it’s thumbs “ majorly” – the latter being a particularly popular term with many from TOI albeit I am still to find it in either the Chambers or Oxford dictionary as of 11.58 am on January 11th 2010.
I think the Indian media has taken a selective near-animus against Tharoor because Tharoor is just not the conventional politician that you can happily quiz without doing your own homework properly. Politicians like Mani Shankar Aiyer ( he was brilliant in CNN-IBNs Devil’s Advocate swapping seats with Karan Thapar) , Kapil Sibal, Jairam Ramesh, Arun Jaitley, Abhishek Singhvi are invariably a constant pleasure to hear irrespective of whether you agree with them or otherwise. Tharoor brings with him the added flavors of being tongue-in-cheek, globally recognized, author of several books with interests ranging from Bollywood, cricket, culture, politics to international relations, internet savvy, articulate and always thinking out of the box irrespective of the consequent risks in the sensitive area of inner party protocol that he occasionally takes. Yet ironically, more than the Congress party it is our old fashioned media mind-set that finds Tharoor an iconoclast. I wonder if he gives some of our stalwarts an inferiority complex?
Perhaps the fact that Tharoor also has a dapper personality and a charming presence also hurts.
Time(s) to grow up a wee bit!
- By Sanjay Jha
Hi, but was on a much needed vacation hence the long hiatus.
New Year’s began with characteristic color; Vidhu Vinod Chopra , producer of 3 Idiots slamming the media by telling them to stuff it when the latter questioned him on the controversial issue of credits for author Chetan Bhagat. As bedlam broke out, Aamir Khan restrained the irascible Chopra from giving a further demo of his inflammatory temper, while Raju Hirani put on the veneer of Gandhigiri to restore order. But probably Chopra, Khan and Hirani should have gone back to their own scene from the film when Sharman Joshi squeezes out a toothpaste and tells Madhavan to try and put that back in the tube , words once spoken cannot be taken back. Bhagat wasted no time in hitting back with a square punch on the jaw and before long the whole world knew that all was far from well. So let us cut the long chase and summarize in brief , firstly, the two main characters in this petty conflict and then more.
Chetan Bhagat obviously on Cloud 9 after his first pop-fiction book Five Point Someone became an apparent bestseller , was probably too carried away when Raju Hirani, celebrated director of the classic Munnabhai series expressed interest in his work. My feeling is that Chetan, a good old yuppie, was clearly overwhelmed by that event and began visualizing an instant enhancement in his author “ valuations” and a new-found Page 3 celebrity image to really sensibly negotiate commercial terms on a pragmatic basis. Why on earth did he sell full copyrights for a measly Rs 1 lakh is the missing link that no one has looked into with adequate depth, though Bhagat has confessed that Chopra virtually frightened him into meek surrender. Either way, bottomline is that Bhagat sold cheap for obviously other perceived benefits. Frankly, it did get him columnist space and a lot of free media visibility.
I rate Vinod Chopra as one of India’s finest directors ever; Parinda was a masterpiece of unmatched proportions, and his Khamosh is one of the cleverest whodunits I have ever seen in Indian cinema. And albeit many critics trashed Mission Kashmir, I still rate Sanjay Dutt’s portrayal of a broken-hearted cop seeking redemption as one of his best. Then why do most find the genius Chopra insufferable? The answer is simple— he is now more a money-guzzling shark-like producer than a creative story-teller.
Chopra is clearly made fortunes, and in a fickle as flame industry the maxim is hard-line; the mightier party wins, there is no negotiation with the weak. After a point, success does not just get into your head , it also gets into your bottoms, it’s a systemic spread. Chopra’s hubris in throwing peanuts at an intimidated Bhagat manifests Bollywood’s power-play with naïve outsiders. This time it has boomeranged.
In short, it is the same old story; while Chopra quotes the work contract verbatim on his website, Bhagat talks about the spirit of it’s implementation. There is life beyond a lawyer’s lavishness.
Technically, Chopra is right BUT only up to a point. Bhagat has got paid as per agreed terms and his name featured in the rolling credits as was explicitly stated. So far so good. But Bhagat’s grouse is that while he was earlier given the false impression that 3 Idiots was just an inspirational take-off on the book , the truth is that the box-office monster of a film is in fact a “faithful adaptation” of the book , according to those who have read it. But once rights are sold , it is the producer’s prerogative what he does with it, right? .
The crucial aspect is; did Bhagat get an approved copy of the script ? If he did, Bhagat can go fly a kite in IIM, Bangalore. But did Chopra get Bhagat’s acquiescence recorded if it indeed was made available to him ? If not ( as seems the case) , he is not as tight in contract execution as is being speculated. So is somebody lying? I think the categorical answer is YES. Either way, Chopra is adequately covered by the contract since Bhagat failed to ensure it’s inclusion. Legally, therefore Bhagat is standing on a banana peel in a quick-sand.
Thus, I believe the trigger point that made Bhagat into a Bhagat Singh was the rather disparaging manner in which the 3 Idiots team kept insinuating that the screenplay was a mere 2-5% of the book content because, honestly , that was a darned lie. For any author , good, bad or ugly the copyright is his soul. Bhagat is actually reacting today to perhaps his earlier mortification at being condescendingly coerced into selling cheap and the repulsive relegation of his work . It is his repressed angst erupting like a volcano, and something else.
Neither Chopra ,Bhagat nor trade pundits in their wildest dreams expected 3 Idiots to become such a huge money-spinner . The stakes have altered completely overnight. Bhagat is expectedly morose at the missed opportunity of profuse fame; the season of highly televised film awards which will commence shortly wherein he could have been the cynosure of all eyes, the Prasoon Joshi- kind –of- intellectual breed, a new poster boy of Bollywood. That is why the sudden rush for “ Story” credits. Ideally, he should have covered that flank in his written contract. But he has every right to even now belatedly challenge a blatant misrepresentation by the 3 Idiots camp. He has a right to fame, celebrity-hood, money, power et al that he now so stubbornly pursues. He is deftly exploiting “ grey areas “ as legally he has a lost case.
Chopra, Hirani and Khan have displayed a typical ruthless , contumelious Bollywood streak, they methodically trample the susceptible weaker-party. But this time they were dealing with a smart young man seeking justly his moment in the sun who could match a sarcastic sound byte with an equally sardonic one. It is a fair and square battle.
Chopra should ideally incorporate Bhagat amongst the title-holders for “ story” credits (along with Joshi and Hirani) . They can then walk on the stage together, sing each other’s praises till we blush crimson, all three ( idiots?) suitably compensated and send the appropriate filmy message—all is well!
PS: The pussy cat gingerly came out of the bag in this entire acrimonious drama . Our man Aamir Khan is truly not the Mr Perfectionist he claims to be . Firstly , he never really read the book on which his film and script was based . Sacrilege indeed! And secondly, Mr Khan actually chided media for asking questions without reading Bhagat’s fiction when he himself was guilty of the same. But after Rs 100 crores and counting, I guess all is finally well !
Happy New Year!
Sonia Gandhi is considered the Indian of The Decade by the Times of India -Crest edition ! here’s why…
- By Sanjay Jha
The last week has been a never-ending barrage of controversial news; Telangana, David Headley, Copenhagen and climate change , liberally interspersed with the sexual marathons of Tiger Woods’s putts , butts and long drives, and of course, cricket. With news coverage becoming increasingly commodity-like amidst this constant jamboree , certain features stood out.
I thought Barkha Dutt’s quick-fire interview with KSR from TRS established beyond doubt that the Congress made a political miscalculation in giving the sharp fellow an early VRS. It has created an absolutely unthinkable chaos in Andhra Pradesh, totally inconceivable till just a while ago when YSR was AKR ( Andhra ka Raja). Full credit to Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Manish Tiwari of the Congress for a valiant effort at sustainability even as the odds mounted with every passing faux pas.
I think Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh is one of our most erudite, articulate and market-friendly politicians with an acidic wit and biting sarcasm. It is good to have a savvy negotiator who knows his onions and potatoes as India’s representative at Copenhagen. It made for amusing viewing , however, as Jairam walked the red-carpet being serenaded by TV microphones on both sides , yet speaking with remarkable equanimity and choosing carefully crafted language to avoid skirting another controversy. The Ayatollah will be pleased.
CNN-IBN has managed to make it’s 9 pm bulletin fairly well-paced with multiple news in proportionate distribution to the importance of the event. It works although with due respects to Rajdeep Sardesai’s regular co-hosts , it is a program that Sardesai is better equipped to make a signature program solo. Unlike Arnab Goswami of Times Now who hogs the complete program with his telltale bulldozing , Rajdeep for all his fire and brimstone is an accommodating senior partner to his visibly impressed colleagues.
The Haagen-Dazs ice-cream ad campaign manifests the chronic bug that bites all “ creative types” ; let’s be different. Frankly, the “ international passport holders” line is neither stimulating, funny nor wacky, it is unalloyed rubbish for which the multinational giant must have paid a whopping sum after midnight-oil burning brainstorming (?) sessions. They have been correctly chastised. First round to apna Amul and vegetarian Baskin Robbins! Maybe American businessmen need to learn from the mistakes of their noble counterparts like KFC, for example, who blundered their way into Indian sensibilities. Both the creative team and General Mills who approved the infantile text have chocolate chip with mint on their faces.
Which brings me to the ridiculous installment of titillating details on the sexual excesses, pun intended, of the most famous face of golf, Tiger Woods. Woods has no skeletons in the cupboards, he has them in abundant flesh in hour glass figures of varying age-groups. Since sex sells 24×7x365 we had Headlines Today promoting it as a tacky Whimpering Tiger and Crouching Dragons ( with silhouettes of skimpy women resembling Sherlyn Chopra look-alikes) . It was not just grossly exaggerated but pointedly stupid; just what does Wood’s manic obsession for just-in-time-demand for instant gratification have to do with an average Indian whose life is stretched daily to merely eke a survival? Just why do Indian TV channels blindly follow the US media has me flummoxed. I can imagine Headlines Today coming up with some pedestrian golf joke when the 18th woman surfaces with her nocturnal tale. Expect the worst.
Anyway, they say that golf and sex are the only two things that you can enjoy without being good at either of them. Clearly from the salacious sound bytes from his grocery-list of surreptitious conquests and 14 Grand Slam titles, Woods was good at both of them. But it is about time we left the legendary master of the green grass alone in his trying moments of self-discovery. Letting people be is part of responsible journalism.
