HOW MUCH WOULD BUCKINGHAM BUCKLE

Buckingham’s woeful timetable of apologies

Today the queen of England placed a wreath on the memorial of martyrs of Irish freedom struggle, and also observed silence at stadium where the British soldier killed many Irish people. The same stupid queen and her most inane son, wanted to skip the visit Amritsar to avoid the Jalianwala controversy and of course refused to apologize.

The British parliament believed that such an apology would serve no purpose. Just for those who don’t refer to history so much, Dyer wanted to revenge the attack on two English ladies and as a consequence ordered firing on an unarmed assembly of people that too on Baisakhi, which is a very important festival in the Indian and particularly the Sikh calendar. As a result of the firing, official British estimates claim, 250 people died but the Indian estimates place the number at more than 1000. The number bungling has continued in India since the time of the British and the brown sahibs are still following the gora sahib strategy of manipulating statistics.

The bagh was once owned by Maharaja Ranjit Singh, and derives its name from Jalles clan that owned it.

Clearly Dyer was a cold blooded murderer. He was tried in Britain and … Painful to know, he went on record to say that “they deserved it”. Of course there was no remorse. The massacre was followed by martial law and a crawling order.

Sympathetic British public raised a purse of £20,000 for poor Dyer. The then Lt Gov of Punjab O Dwyer, condoned his action.

You can blame the Raj, Brig Gen Dyer, Elizabeth or Victoria or who ever. It is all about Indian character. I have always argued, it is all about Indian character. We lack national character. We have no concept of a nation. We lack pride. We don’t attribute too much to national honor. Caste and clan honor yes indeed. Dyer was a brute Britisher with false and exalted notion of duty toward the Union Jack. But the people who followed his orders and fired on the helpless crowd were all Indians. Did not one have the courage of conviction to refuse such an order.

Also, I would like a typical empathetic Indian, hate to call spade a spade and look at it from Elizabeth’s perspective. She has apologized to the Irish people. She apologized to the Maoris of New Zealand. One of our troupe apologized for the “stolen generation” of Australia. Blair apologized for potato famine of Ireland. Where does the poor woman’s woeful timetable of apologies end.

LIFE REVISITS YOU

Childhood was pretty much protected and sanitized. I was brought up supervised and chaperoned like a girl. My mother, off work hours and intermittent to examining patients would keep an eye on what my brother and I did. But at the same time, I was allowed freedom to grow. It was a delicate balance that my parents would achieve.

Of course, like any child would, it was normal for me to detest the third eye following me at all times. More so because, most of my friends came from creolized families where the traditional mores were somewhat diluted to levels of practicality and convenience and that what was western was sometimes quite desirable.

One occasion that I do recall, when I was in class IX, my class organized a trip to a movie. It was IKT ( Insaaf ka Tarazoo). I was not allowed to go. My mother believed the theme was stupid and scenes vulgar. Though, she had not seen it herself. Then another movie was planned. This time it was a largely innocuous family movie of Amol Palekar. I was again denied permission to go with my class, as watching too many movies was not indicative of good upbringing.

In those years, spending time with class mates out of school in party clothes was too much of a charm to stay away from. The dejection from the denial was perhaps too much for me to hide and out of sheer pity, I was allowed to join my class. But there was a caveat - I would be accompanied by my grandparents – the third eye and of course my younger brother, who like an appendage accompanied me to all my outings. I was happy about my brother and never grudged it. But the grandparents stuff was very embarrassing.

Trust me, if you would ask me today, my grandfather, an educationist, bureaucrat, and man of great erudition is one who I admire most in my family. But, that is today. Then, I was if not ashamed, at least very apologetic about my grandfather. His usual attire when he stepped out, was a black achkan (Indian tunic) and a churidar, and Gandhi cap. He drove a car as grand as him – a 30 year old Landmaster, the previous avatar of the ambassador. So this outing was no exception and he donned his achakan, churidar and Gandhi cap and with my grandmother in tow, the family strutted to watch the movie with the class. Of course, his attire got him special treatment, which he was quite used to and always expected.

But what mattered at that age was, what your friends think about you and particularly what the girls thought about you. And they did not find this normal. Particularly, when I was not a diminutive, under-confident and meek fellow shying away from facing the world.

But now when I am parent, I behave the same with my two sons, both bold and confident. Athletic. The only saving grace is that I did not force my wife to sit in the hall with them but park herself in the café outside the theatre for 3 hours while they watched a movie. Life revisits you in many ways.

POLITICIANS OF ALL HUES

One conclusion that I have reached after a lot of reading, analysis and social observation is - politicians everywhere are rotten breed. Many of my wiser friends arrived at this conclusion with much less diffidence than I did. Ingrained in the very nature of politics is the perpetuation of present hegemony, even if it calls for mortgaging the future. So, even when the good people enter politics, although they don’t eschew their good personal traits, but it is the arena or karma bhoomi that urges the behavior that eventually they show.

Look at what Mayawati is doing. The once most elite state of the country is in a shambles - non productive expenditure stupendously rising. She and her likes have presided on the decay of the state. Industry is shy of the state. She is building statues of Ambedkar at exorbitant costs, probably siphoning funds as well in the process, through trusted conduits and channels. The gain and game is incumbency, and the loss is state exchequer’s and what suffers is development for the future. Even though the statues don’t bring jobs to the Dalits, it does give their social being a sense of legitimacy.

Look at what Obama is doing. His country is wallowing in debt. Putting in simple terms, USA is so much in debt that the largest lender to them, that is China can buy them over or at least stake a claim to portion of their land. Or, if this were to happen in corporate world, China would have by now filed a winding up petition against USA. Curiously enough, even though the country is writhed in debt, growing unemployment, crashing real estate, collapsing banking system, and stock market that is moving sideways, Obama has doubled the aid to Pakistan, is leading the barrage against Gaddafi and perhaps will be the first to jump into the fray or Syria as well. So the American experimentalism with Pax Americana has not dwindled despite disastrous performance on social and economic parameters. Besides, all the wrangling and dirty politics over medicare, medicaid, social security and tax cuts is not hidden from the world.

Look at Japan, where for 24 hours post Tsunami, they could not reach meters to measure the radioactivity due to the leak from Fukoshima, and what the extent of leakage was only the best guess of the wise. Yet the ex-prime minister Hutoyama is busy conceiving a grand plot “Harmonious solidarity for the Grand Coalition to Tackle the Earthquake Disaster” to topple Mr Kan.

Look at Russia, corruption rife, mafia still ruling the commercial landscape, extreme poverty in segments still at large, and the geographical extremities like Chechnya and other republics still simmering, the kushti expert ok let me say Judo expert Putin is staging a grand comeback and this time for another 2 terms. His innovative scheme of demitting office and putting his protégé Medvedev whom he dandles on his knees, in his place keeping his seat warm for him to return in grand style is still the uber innovative way of perpetuating political power.

Let us look at the homunculus like French President Sarkozy, who struts around with a wife twice as tall and a confirmed exhibitionist. Instead of turning the country around he is focusing on populist issues like banning burka on public places. A predominantly catholic country will find comfort in banning the burka, but mind you, the burka clad people are coming from its own erstwhile colonies.

But politicians are elected by the people. So does that mean that the rot is down below as well.

PAX AMERICANA - AMERICAN INTERVENTIONISM

So in a single stroke, Uncle Sam bushwhacked both Osama and his patron state - Pakistan. In a curiously conceived stealth operation, USA killed the king pin of global terror, and also exposed beyond doubt the duplicity of Pakistan.

Pakistan is numbed, the hoi polloi in the street are discussing in hushed tones what hit them -a foreign power conducts a military operation right under their noses, exposes both their countries criminal complicity and also its helplessness against America’s military and financial might. To some there is sense of shame, to others, violation of their sovereignty, to a miniscule minority, justice done.

Today I received a joke via sms, no one is safe is Pakistan, not even Osama, everyone is safe in India, even Kasab. Sardonic, yet true. Sad yet undeniable.

Whereas, the purported purpose of this operation Geronimo was clearly weakening the “axis of evil” by liquidating the king pin of terror in his own bastion, the understanding of the timing could be interesting. The sagging popularity ratings of Obama would see a fillip.

In one of my previous blogs, I had mentioned that Americans like a papa and the mild mannered Obama has now proven beyond doubt that he can behave like a Papa. Poker faced he announced to his countrymen, the largest enemy of USA has been gunned down – “we got him”. He is a papa now, and no more a mama. And should he lighten his skin somehow, his second term is pretty much secured.

There is a stark difference between Indians and Americans. Much as Americans love their country immensely, Indians seem to be lacking the concept of a nation or country, but they for sure love their culture immensely.

History witnesses, despite the Vedas very clearly defining the land that constituted Jambu Dwipa ( Island of the Jamun Tree - the pre-vedic name of India, the name used to describe this land before Bharat - yet a territorial or geographical identification by its inhabitants of this nation is weak. Nonetheless, the cultural identification is excessively solid and strong.

One reason could be, that while territorial integrity of India though was defiled many times by foreign invaders the culture remained puritan and predominantly untouched. This was probably due to its assimilative nature of this culture. Since the culture defied definition all external influences were either shrugged off or assimilated. Yet the original form was maintained.