The intelligent person’s guide to loathing the festive season

Originally published in The Saint, December '09

Don’t get me overly wrong. I’m a fan of Christmas Day: the food, the presents, the alcohol, even the family bonding; it can actually be rather fun, if you try hard at it, and it’s all over by midnight anyway. Although Boxing Day leaves everyone feeling fat, poor and miserable, it’s still a reasonable pay-off for the day before. And that’s the crux of it – it’s just one, neat, solitary day. But what doesn’t so much get my goat as bludgeon it to death, is the month-long build-up that holds the Western world so tightly in its saccharine grip that I barely survive it without vandalising public property or assaulting a shop assistant.

I fume not against Christmas itself, but against the Christmas season. That interminable period, starting around late November, where we are constantly reminded, through adverts and movies and pop songs, just how very jolly we should all be – and how much useless stuff we should then buy in order to achieve this elevated state of bouncy yuletide bliss. But it needn’t be so. There is a sickness at the heart of the Christmas season – and it must be identified before it is exorcised. Let’s consider the usual suspects.

Today’s most shouty critics of Christmas tend be the New Atheists, led by the lovely Dawkins and Friends club, who are rightly famed for their impeccable manners and tolerant, conciliatory attitude. They argue that an enlightened secular society should have no truck with a holiday that celebrates some tosh about a teenage Israeli (boo hiss) virgin giving birth to some charlatan who could walk on ponds and multiply salmon. This season they’ve even published a manifesto – The Atheist's Guide to Christmas – in which droll chaps like Charlie Brooker and Derren Brown make jokes about how stupid you Christians so, like, totally are. Being an Atheist myself, such a stance is not altogether lost on me. But it is surely the religious aspects of Christmas, what with the injunctions to think upon the poor and be thankful for one’s lot, that are the least vulgar and shallow, and offensive to the eyes and ears. Christian hymns tend to be rather beautiful and Midnight Mass, though alien to my upbringing, is an undeniably graceful ceremony. Surely any sensible person would pick those over flashy multi-coloured lights and crass Mariah Carey pop songs. Religion, if an evil, is certainly the least of the many yuletide evils.

One could also make a shrill anti-capitalist argument against Christmas™. Something about the festive season being a conspiracy perpetuated by evil corporations to hoodwink the decadent masses into buying lots of shiny plastic toys made by Pakistani five-year-olds. Indeed, Christmas has become a gross monument to unthinking consumption – that which stokes the wheels of any free-market economy. And this certainly wasn’t always the case. Every year we feel the need to bankrupt ourselves and take out loans – much to the delight of our banks – in order not to be shown up by the present-buying prowess of those we know and (supposedly) love. But I shall refrain from getting all Naomi Klein over the issue. There are more important things at stake. Things like good public taste.

Come December, high streets become no go areas – and St Andrews’ Market Street is no exception. Walk into any shop, even one that would never normally play music, and you will be subjected to Super Fun Christmas Hits Volume 478, presumably chosen by some cowardly manager under the belief that failure to engage in the Christmas ‘spirit’ – whatever that may actually be – will result in a mass boycott and possibly grievous vandalism by yobbos in elf costumes. Christmas music – is there anything more offensive to common decency? Sure, many Christmas songs are simply jazz standards – and intelligent, cultured people are supposed to like jazz, right? Well, not jazz songs about snowmen and sleigh rides. I once worked in a Waterstone’s over Christmas; the music still stalks my nightmares. And then there’s the flashing lights – why do they need to flash? – and the inflatable reindeer and the fake snow and I really could go on but I’m running short of bile. All the above is founded on the notion that vulgarity is fun. Those who spit in their mulled wine at the sight of fat inflatable Santas are apparently missing the point – Christmas is supposed to a communal exercise in bad taste, stupid. This, as Karl Marx would say, is a case of false consciousness. It simply needn’t – and shouldn’t – be the case.

To conclude, the objection that any intelligent misanthrope should have against the festive season is not that it is expensive, founded on a historical lie, or a shady capitalist conspiracy. It is that it is an unnecessary orgy of bad taste that reduces the otherwise noble human race to gurning toddlers who soil themselves at the sight of bright colours and dribble at the sound of jingle-jangle pop tunes. So, to you all, I wish a merry Christmas. Just remember to destroy that inflatable reindeer in a fun, cosy bonfire and invite all your friends.

Border angst

Originally published in Tribe, November '09

China and India – they have their differences. Not least concerning where one country ends and the other begins. While the Western media lavishes print and airtime on Indo-Pak spats over Kashmir, India and China continue to engage in abortive diplomacy over their shared borders.

A large chunk of eastern Jammu and Kashmir State, Aksai Chin, is still occupied by China and stated as part of Xinjiang Province – although this barren mountainous tract is considered too useless for India to take serious action. The more contentious area is found in India’s North-east – the state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China fleetingly occupied in the 1962 Sino-Indian war. This border conflict was short but gruelling; much of the combat took place well above 4,000 metres. A ceasefire on 20 November, called exactly one month after the first Chinese offensive, restored the border to the McMahon Line, leaving Arunachal within India. Yet China still claims it as ‘South Tibet’; Arunachal is altogether unfinished business.

While the protracted negotiations and political stalemate render the whole thing thoroughly dull and un-newsworthy, occasional incidents highlight the intensity still felt on both sides. The latest is the Dalai Lama’s visit to the ethnic-Tibetan town of Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh – just a yak’s spit from the Tibetan border, and one of the towns captured by the Chinese in 1962. On 8 November, His Holiness descended from the clouds (by helicopter) and was met by Arunachal Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu, flanked by over 800 monks. Over his four-day stay in the 300-year-old Tawang monastery, the ‘living god’ staged religious discourses and performed multiple pujas. The visit marked 50 years of his arrival in Tawang, fleeing to India after a failed uprising in Tibet, and the pretty mountain town was replete with colourful posters of his grinning face and a rash of Tibetan flags.

Prior to the visit, Chinese officials lobbed a volley of aggressive statements at India, condemning it as a deliberately provocative act. China furthermore used the incident to restate its claim on large parts of Arunachal Pradesh, and called for new talks over the existing border. Ma Zhaoxu, a foreign ministry spokesman, declared that "China's stance on the eastern section of the China-India border is consistent, and we firmly oppose the Dalai Lama's visit to the region. This further exposes the Dalai clique's anti-China and separatist nature." A visit in October by the Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh, to campaign in the state elections, attracted similar charges of ‘disturbance’.

Despite the insistence of the Dalai Lama’s spokesman that his visit was a purely ‘spiritual’ obligation, he has in the past made overt political statements regarding this sensitive area. On 4 June 2008 he publicly affirmed Tawang as a part of India and reiterated the validity of the McMahon Line established by British and Tibetan representatives in the 1914 Simla Agreement. It must also be remembered that Tibet, prior to the 1950 Chinese invasion, was a theocracy – now such a dirty word – and the Dalai Lama remains both the political and religious head of the Tibetan state in exile.

The visit, of course, inflames that other great spanner in Sino-Indian relations: India’s longstanding accommodation of the Tibetan government in exile in the quiet, scenic hill station of McLeod Ganj in Himachal Pradesh – not to mention the 120,000 Tibetan refugees now living in India. The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is repeatedly labelled by China a ‘dangerous anti-Chinese separatist’ – never mind that he now pursues the Middle Way Approach, dropping demands for outright independence in favour of greater internal autonomy: the Chinese government would retain control of diplomacy and defence, but allow Tibet to be governed by an elected body. Yet Indian support remains the lifeblood of the Tibetan movement; and this, coupled with belligerence over borderlines, means Sino-Indian relations will remain frosty for the foreseeable future – much to the cost of both nations.

Amartya Sen, the welfare economist and all-round sage, has been at pains to highlight the centuries of cultural exchange that once existed between India and China. He paints an enlightened age, roughly from the first to the eleventh century, where Chinese monks and scholars (much the same thing) regularly visited India to soak up such radical innovations as Buddhism and Ayurvedic medicine – and the courtesy was, of course, amply returned.

But that all seems like a long time ago. Nowadays, such is the suspicion – if not outright contempt – felt by Indians towards the Chinese that those from North-eastern states like Manipur and Nagaland, known for their mongoloid features, are regularly subjected to racist abuse on visiting the Aryan-dominated ‘mainland’ of India. And such is the alienation felt within Manipur towards the mainland that Korean films, television soap operas and pop music vastly outsell conventional Bollywood product.

India’s North-east is a secret kept from much of the world. It is by far the most ethnically and culturally diverse corner of India; tribal identities reach an intensity worthy of sub-Saharan Africa. Separatist movements are endemic – for instance, the burgeoning insurgency in Nagaland, which seeks an independent homeland for the indigenous Naga tribe. Arunachal Pradesh, with its overtly Tibetan people and culture, finds itself similarly lost. Its links to mainstream India, geographical and cultural, are remote; but absorption into Tibet will bring the heavy hand of the Chinese state, which will only show contempt for their cultural institutions. Better the devil you know, it would seem.

A regressive manifesto

To resist change is to condemn your culture to a slow death. To quote Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa's The Leopard: 'Things must change in order to stay the same.'

But continuity is everything; the past and present can't just ignore each other. Today, most notably in our political culture, change is worshipped in and of itself. Politicians clamour to be seen as 'progressive', each with a vision of a 'progressive society'. But progressing towards what, exactly? And when has a politician, or indeed anyone, said 'well, I'm regressive, actually, and I propose no change whatsoever?' When Barack Obama speaks of 'change', he feels little need to qualify it; rapturous applause follows automatically. The word, much like 'progress', is emptied of meaning, and becomes little more than a religious invocation to the sky-gods of social progress. If you go on chanting it, it's just gotta happen.

It reminds me of an impenetrable anthropology essay I once read by some Maurice Bloch fellow on the Medina circumcision rite: language is deliberately removed and distorted from its conversational context by the village elders, so as to mystify and better subdue the populace. Rather like Bloch himself. But I digress.

Ironically, contemporary worship of change is founded on traditional Whiggish notions of social progress; namely, that the laws of evolution apply equally to the social sphere: as society 'progresses', it simply has to improve, shedding its 'unfit' features and institutions as it goes. This Darwinian picture takes us all the way back to James Frazer's The Golden Bough, where a progression from 'magical' to 'scientific' thinking is posed as a historic inevitability. The conflation of tradition/change, negative/positive – or indeed vice versa – is both risible and harmful. Be wise to it.

I shall leave you with a quotation from that great Victorian statesman, Benjamin Disraeli, that I shall one day make into a large red bumper sticker and flog to fellow regressives like myself:

'In a progressive country change is constant; and the great question is not whether you should resist change which is inevitable, but whether that change should be carried out in deference to the manners, the customs, the laws and the traditions of a people, or whether it should be carried out in deference to abstract principles, and arbitrary and general doctrines.'

Aid as power

Originally published in Tribe, November '09

Once a darling of international aid donorship, Sri Lanka now finds itself short of wealthy friends. Its waning popularity is a result of unscrupulous conduct: both in the in the final months of the civil war, decisively won last May, and the burgeoning rehabilitation of the island’s north-east, formerly under the sway of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) a.k.a. the Tamil Tigers. Most newsworthy among the misdeeds was the gratuitous and indiscriminate shelling of remaining ‘Tiger strongholds’ – home to some 30, 000 Tamil civilians – which began in earnest on the night of 17 May. And then there’s the continuing matter of the displaced Tamils, a good 250, 000 of whom remain interned (unlawfully) in military-run camps, unable to return to their (largely non-existent) homes – although nearly 6, 000 were released on 22 October, with 40, 000 to be resettled in the coming few weeks. But demilitarisation has yet to even begin; in fact, chief of defence staff General Sarath Fonseka has announced an increase in the armed forces by 50 percent, to a towering 300, 000 men, of what is already the largest army per capita in Asia. And so, for fear that it hasn’t properly ‘learnt its lessons’, the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka has been subjected to mounting censure by the nominally principled countries of the West.

For a nation dependent since birth on aid and loans from Europe and America – its long relationship with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) began in 1950 – the consequences of such misbehaviour have already moved beyond stern scolding. In the EU, for instance, the second biggest export market for Sri Lanka after the US, there has been talk of rescinding the current duty free access for Sri Lankan goods – largely comprised of cheap readymade clothes – due to poor implementation of core international human rights and labour treaties and conventions. This would sorely wound the export-focused clothes industry, already reeling in the financial crisis, with dozens of factories closed in the last couple years alone.

And so, thirsty as ever for cash in the era of post-war reconstruction, and faced with a drawback in Western aid, Sri Lanka has sought to diversify its aid relationships towards rising Asian players such as China, India and Iran. This has been accompanied by new bilateral relationships, tilted heavily in favour of the donor. For instance, India’s financial help has been rewarded through securing Indian state investment for two thermal power plants near Tincomalee. But, helpfully, these Asian donors show far less interest in human rights and transparency. In the words of Sri Lanka’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Palitha Kohona, ‘Asians don’t go around teaching each other how to behave’. Furthermore, a flip to Asian big-money fits nicely with anti-imperialist (i.e. anti-Western) rhetoric, a defining component of Sinhalese nationalism – now more deafening than ever in the wake of the comprehensive annihilation of Tiger militarism.

But Sri Lanka’s new Asian friends have provided more than just cash and expensive weaponry; they have also done their bit to iron out humanitarian gripes – namely, in exerting the necessary pressure to pass the resolution on Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council on 27 May. This exonerated the regime for its conduct in the war, blamed the civilian casualties entirely on the LTTE, and ruled against any monitoring mechanism to keep the government in line with humanitarian norms. And sanction from Asian nations was crucial to the eventual granting, on 24 July, of the USD 2.6 billion loan from the IMF; the UK, France, Germany and Argentina abstained from support.

That Sri Lanka – or indeed any third world nation – could find a financial lifeline outside of the West would have been implausible even a decade ago. But that it can now readily turn to the likes of China and India raises disquieting questions about the twilight of Euro-American world dominance. The World Bank and the IMF can no longer lord it over the developing world with their structural adjustment programmes, when Asian alternatives exist that demand no such obligations. The ‘moral’ leadership of the West, justified or otherwise, is beginning to lose its currency. The sea-saw is tipping eastwards.

The war against carbon

Originally published in Tribe, October '09

This isn’t just about wet polar bears. This is about droughts and cyclones and sinking islands. Or at least this is the disaster-speak through which eco-warriors have, with remarkable success, made anthropogenic global warming one the hottest issues of our time. Predictions of imminent ecological doom – once the preserve of foam-flecked conspiracy-mongers – have become respectable, and rear themselves on a daily basis in our newspapers and televisions.

The December climate conference in Copenhagen, therefore – which aims to forge a multi-lateral agreement on reducing carbon emissions between the world’s heaviest polluters – has been hailed as a last-ditch attempt to save our planet and ourselves, before we all sweat to death. This is to be a truly global deal – an effective replacement to the somewhat un-global Kyoto Protocol – and it is crucial that the rising economies in the developing world, most notably India and China, be not spared the pain. Yet, the contradictions, both moral and practical, within the green agenda become fully apparent on the world stage, where it has an ugly run-in with that other burning issue: international development, whose imperatives tend to get in the way of the War Against Carbon.

Now here’s an inconvenient truth: developing nations would rather like to industrialise. They wish – the impertinent fools! – to be like us; to have our disposable income, our wide consumer choice, our glacier-melting holidays in far off countries. Herein lies the problem; cometh the industry, cometh the carbon dioxide. The rhetoric of the green movement is, of course, decidedly anti-industrial – chimneys bad, vegetables-farming good. Our industrial revolution, which provided us with the wealth and global dominance we still (just about) enjoy today, is now a sin that needs to be atoned for – and a terrible example for ‘them’ over in Africa. Such an attitude harks back, consciously or otherwise, to a golden age of wholesome sustainability – which, in a feat of condescension, has led to the lionising of the subsistence lifestyle led by much of the third world poor.

The green movement is a child of the West, and is perfectly suited to a jaded, post-industrial mindset; it stems from those who have relatively little to loose from the closure of ‘dirty’ factories. It furthermore fits the mood of the recession – rather than being lamented, a scale-down in a nation’s productivity can be celebrated as a victory against carbon. In July, Britain’s climate change secretary Ed Miliband announced substantial cuts in manufacturing, energy production, transport and housing – which ecstatic commentators described as ‘nothing less than a green revolution’. In the politics of decline, a ‘low carbon future’ is a future of low ambitions – and it is this that has led eco-troopers like the Guardian’s George Monbiot to celebrate the recession: ‘Is it not time to recognise that we have reached the promised land […] Surely the rational policy for the governments of the rich world is now to keep growth rates as close to zero as possible?’ But such an argument becomes instantly perverse when transposed onto the third world, for whom growth rates are hardly a matter of decadent whimsy.

Little ground will be won if reductions in industrial output in the West are met by an escalation in industry in the developing world – we shall simply witness a see-saw motion, with the likes of Brazil and China taking on our role as elite polluters. No, such nations mustn’t be allowed to ‘get away with it’. And so the administration of Barack Obama – in what amounts to eco-imperialism – has embarked on a diplomatic offensive to cajole rapidly industrialising nations to commit to similar carbon-reduction targets as the West. The reaction has been predictably belligerent. During Hilary Clinton’s visit to the country in early July, India’s environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, stated that India would accept no binding emission cuts, because they would interfere with development goals. And, in the run up to the December conference, developing nations have increasingly demanded that developed nations accept far more draconian targets than they – as a means of atoning for past eco-sins, but also to account for the fact that they, the developed nations, are still by far the biggest polluters.

In light of this, it is hard not to envisage the conference as a mere gentlemen’s agreement between wealthy nations, leaving the rest of the world to get on with the hackneyed job of feeding their poor.

Death of fairies

Originally published in Himal Southasian, July '09

Fire-side tale-telling, once prime-time after-dinner entertainment among families in Bhutan, is fast being replaced by the flashier diversions of TV and internet. In fact, some have claimed that the fairies and dragons are already dead. But emergency action is already underway.

The Center of Bhutan Studies (CBS), in association with the International Centre for Ethnographic studies in the US, organised a three-day conference in Thimpu – starting June 29 – to resuscitate the neglected princes and princesses of legend, and preserve this corner stone of their heritage. It was attended by nine foreign participants and ten Bhutanese folklorists, and Her Royal Highness Ashi Sonam Dechan Wangchuck opened proceedings. In her speech, she lamented the rise of new media and the inroads it was making into the oldest and most potent expression of individual and cultural creativity. She blamed its demise for weakening of social bonds and moral values in primarily urban areas, and urged mothers to repeat to their children the stories from their childhood.

Such a measure may seem a little desperate, even comical, as with the institutionalisation of any organic, cultural practice. You can imagine the scene: rows of bored government and press officers, listening to an enthusiastic entertainer tell the one about the monk and the squirrel. The associated, ‘optional Bon festival and village story telling tour’ will further massage cynics. But this is a country that still prizes growth in Gross National Happiness above any shallow, economic considerations, like alleviating poverty or building infrastructure. A story telling conference is simply par for the course.

The conference seeks to identify and celebrate the particular cadences of story telling, the music of the language and the often physical performance of teller. The telling of a tale in Bhutan is often an act of theatre in itself, from the symbolic gestures proscribed to the importance attached to embodying a story’s characters, the voices and all. But one of the conference’s principle aims is to capture the art on video and tape, and so integrate it into the mass media – so they hope.

Stories in the oral tradition aren’t, by definition, backed up on hard-drives; they live and die by those who tell them. The threat of loss is very real. But with preservation comes ossification: the vitality of oral story telling is its mutability, the freedom of the tale-taller to drop and add what he chooses, permitting the stories relevance for each new generation. To set the tales in stone – or rather, megabytes – might well condemn them to future irrelevance, to be discarded in favour of this week’s TV serial. They can only truly survive in the public imagination through re-telling – but this can be achieved equally through modern media. Note how the Ramayana has found a new life in Indian comic books and movies – to Indian kids it is not simply a dusty old text. Such reinventions, though often crass, are not desecrations of the original stories, but merely the natural progression of the art of story telling. To focus overly on the traditional cadences and theatrical tropes, while laudable in protecting a fragile heritage, can only restrict creative adaptation. Folktales must adapt to new media or die a slow, unmourned death.

Elephant boy

Originally published in Himal Southasian, August '09

Pious Hindus have been trekking in their thousands to a remote village in the Nepali Himalaya, to catch sight of a baby with a rare malformation – a headless ‘parasitic twin’ fused to its abdomen. But they don’t come merely to ogle; they are on a pilgrimage to pay homage to an incarnation of Ganesh. The baby boy’s four arms and four legs chime with common representations of the elephant god with multiple arms; this ‘miracle’ is considered no coincidence. Word has got about: Since Risab was born in January, his family has had to welcome some 5, 000 visitors, many from far away districts, a few having walked the entire way. The village can be inundated by as much as a hundred in a day. The father, Rikhi Ghimire, is frequently addressed by pilgrims as the father of god.

But the attitude towards Risab has been somewhat cooler in the village itself. The mother, Januk, fears that many villagers believe the birth to be witchcraft; such superstitions are resilient in rural Nepal, and have been know to give way to violence. What is more, a village priest, Sher Bahadur Bodathorki, has openly accused to baby of being a curse on the village – the fruit of a sin from a past life – and the cause of the delayed monsoon. The late and lacklustre rains have been disastrous for agriculturally-dependent families – the majority of Nepal – and the subsequent anger could prove dangerous when coupled with delusions such as this.

Despite the fanfare, Ghimire family want nothing more than for their boy to have a ‘normal body’. Risab suffers from a condition that afflicts from one in 50,000 to one in 200,000 births. There is little awareness of such conditions in rural Nepal; hence the reaction, both positive and negative. Rikhi has already taken a trip to Kathmandu in search of a medical solution – a lengthy and costly measure from a village a full day’s walk from the nearest town. But, after examination, doctors said they would need to monitor Risab for six months. Rikhi could not afford to be out of work and live in Kathmandu that long. And the necessary surgery would in any case cost upwards of USD 50, 000. There was nothing for it but to return home with Risab.

The needs of the infant are barely met by the impoverished family; he is difficult to bathe, oil and put to sleep. A family of five living in a one-room house they share with goats and chickens, both mother and father toil in the fields through the day, leaving Risab to the care of his maternal grandmother. Yet, despite the burden, Januk is adamant that Risab will not be put up for adoption. A cynic may put this down to the material benefit the child generates for the family; the thousands of pilgrims invariably leave offerings of rupees, and sometimes food and clothes. But this is belied by the great efforts already taken by the father to seek medical help. And perseverance in the face of borderline social ostracism, in a society where the community is paramount, speaks of genuine commitment.

The nouveau obese

Originally published in Himal Southasian, August '09

International health experts are calling for a lower threshold for being overweight and obese among British Southasians – for the blunt reason that they are more likely than their white neighbours to contract heart disease and diabetes. Racial profiling, perhaps, but a conclusion based on core genetic differences.

The call has been directed to Southasians the world over; international standards are currently based solely on research on Caucasians in Europe and America. India has already lowered the prevailing markers based on body mass index – 25 for those overweight and 30 for the obese – to 23 and 25 respectively, on top of lessening thresholds in waist circumference measurements. As a result, an extra 70 million Indians have become 'overweight' or 'obese' overnight. In practice, this means that doctors are obliged to intervene earlier, with drugs or surgery if necessary.

GPs in the UK concur that a better system is needed for the NHS, one sensitive to racial difference. A distressing proportion of sufferers arrive at diabetes clinics too late to prevent lasting damage – a trend fast increasing among British Southasians. But opinion in Britain is divided over the Indian system. Dr Ponnusammy Saravanan, from the South Asian Health Foundation, called for caution, stating that only limited evidence exists concerning the introduction of drug treatment and bariatric surgery at a lower threshold for Southasians; more studies are needed. Yet the Royal College of GPs is backing a new system – eloquently named 'Qrisk2' – to identify the patients in greatest need of help; a computer-based risk-assessment machine, collating such information as BMI and ethnic background.

Obesity has seen a sharp increase in Southasia itself over the last few years, in tandem with rapid industrialisation and the shift away from outdoor, rural livelihoods – particularly in 'Shining India.' In 2006, the UK-based (and ridiculously named) International Obesity Task Force reported that Southasian countries are seeing rises in childhood obesity congruent with that of Western countries. Consequently, diabetes is rocketing, the majority of sufferers contracting type 2, commonly associated with being overweight. The consequences of Southasia's expanding waistline could prove dire to its social and economic stability, and burden its already-struggling health services to the point of collapse.

Creature from the deep

Originally published in Himal Southasian, August '09

With Indo-Pak relations still reeling from the November Mumbai terrorist attacks, Pakistan has thrown a nervous fit over India’s launch of Southasia’s first nuclear-powered submarine on 26 July. The Pakistan foreign ministry immediately condemned it as a grave threat to regional peace and declared that ‘Pakistan will take appropriate steps to safeguard its security without entering an arms race.’ The strategic balance of Southasia – precarious at the best of times – has been decisively tipped.

Jitters have rebounded throughout Pakistan’s defense community. Captain Abid Majeed Butt of the Pakistan Navy said the submarine would ‘jeopardise the security paradigm of the entire Indian Ocean region,’ and suggested that a nuclear arms race was not unforeseeable. For this is India’s loudest display of military muscle since it tested its first ‘peaceful nuclear explosive’ in 1974. Capable of launching missiles at targets 700km away, the 6,000 tonne Arihant carries up to 100 soldiers and can stay underwater for long periods to evade detection – when India’s antiquated diesel-powered submarines need to resurface constantly to recharge their batteries.

India has made no official statements on the size of its nuclear arsenal; estimates indicate between 40 and 95 weapons – a kit that includes short and middle range ballistic missiles, nuclear-armed aircraft and surface ships. The Arihant adds a ‘third dimension’ to India’s defense capability; previously it could only launch ballistic missiles from the land and the air. India is only the sixth country to have built its own nuclear-powered submarine, after America, Russia, Britain, France, and China. Its military dominance in Southasia is now beyond dispute. India refused to sign the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, rejecting it as discriminatory; and its stubborn independence on defence matters – the last true survivor of the non-alignment ethos – has led to eager diplomatic courtship from America, much to the consternation of Pakistan.

On the Sunday launch, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh waved off criticisms that India had hawkish designs on anyone, and stressed the need for India to keep abreast of worldwide technological advancements – in all spheres, from agriculture to expensive weaponry. There is a clear shift evident in India’s defense priorities from land to sea, giving lie to the notion that the north east and the Kashmir Line of Control are the be and all and end all. And, despite Pakistan’s vexations, India considers the greatest potential threat to come from China, whose naval presence in the region has grown manifold in the last few years – and is busy dismantling India hegemony.

Who's the daddy?

Originally published in Himal Southasian, July '09

Southasia clings to its father figures – Gandhi in India, Jinnah in Pakistan – but since the messy birth of Bangladesh in 1971, its fathership has remained a bone of contention. Split between two dads, the argument is highly politicised; the truth lost any relevance a long while ago.

But on 21 June, the matter was ‘settled’ by the Bangladeshi High Court, who ruled that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s first president, first proclaimed independence from West Pakistan in 1971, just as the civil-war began. Mujibur, in keeping with the Southasian dynastic principle, was the father of Sheikh Hasina, the current prime minister. As with Congress’ political hegemony in India, a link, blood or otherwise, to a founding patriarch legitimises Hasina’s Avami League as the rightful inheritors of Bangladesh.

The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), coveting this quasi-divine sanction, has long advocated its own candidate for Father of the Nation: Ziaur Rahman, who called Independence first – so they claim. For the BNP, Ziaur’s chief merit is to be the late husband of their current leader and former prime minister, Khaleda Zia. As yet there has been no recorded reaction from the BNP to the court ruling, but you can bet your last taka that this ‘settlement’ will prove to be anything but.

The HC decision was a clear attempt to shut down the debate. All claims against Mujibur were condemned as lies, and the court ordered the Attorney-General's office to send a copy of the judgment to the Education Ministry, to ensure that text books took note of this ‘fact.’ Also demanded was the cancellation of the second edition of the third installment of a 15-volume set of war documents, which portrays Ziaur as the announcer of Independence.

Ever since birth, and especially after the shady assassination of Ziaur in 1981, Bangladesh has been bitterly divided between the two political clans. Both propagate their own, self-legitimising history of the nation, in which their respective ‘fathers’ play a starring role. The version that dominates public life at any one time depends on who happens to be in office; school history books are re-written with each shift in power. It is, of course, no coincidence that this HC ruling has happened under an Avami premiership, just six months after a sweeping election victory. Even less surprising it that the cancelled war documents were published under a BNP-Jamaat-led alliance government, by the Liberation War Affairs Ministry in June 2004. Should the BNP assume power in the near future, the High Court ruling over Mujibur might well be annulled – and ‘lies’ will undergo a new definition.

History is always written by the victors. But in a multi-party democracy in permanent flux, you can only cancel so many history books.

Widows for sale

Originally published in Himal Southasian, July '09

What is traditionally the country’s most suppressed and passive community has become a loud member of Nepal’s dissenting chorus. Hundreds of widows rallied in Pokhara on July 16 to protest a cash incentive – announced in the government’s annual budget earlier that week – of 50,000 rupees for men who chose to marry widows. Widows, quite literally, are being put up for sale.

But Pokhara is merely the epicenter of an anger felt throughout Nepal. Widows in 52 out of Nepal's 75 districts have sent petitions to their local administrations. Lily Thapa, who founded the Women for Human Rights (WHR) group 15 years ago after her husband died in the Gulf War, spelt out the objection in moral terms: ‘The offer turns widows into commodities and paves the way for their further exploitation [most notably, domestic violence].’ WHR has documented dozens of cases of women, widowed during the 10-year Maoist insurgency, being duped into second marriages for their compensation money – a trend that can only increase with the new scheme.

Ten years of civil war has widowed hundreds of women across the county – not to mention the many more children who now depend on them alone. The announcement in the budget is a corner stone of the nascent government’s postwar reconstruction program; in this light, it looks all too much like deliberate avoidance of a comprehensive compensation scheme for families in need. Crude match-making is a penny-pinching ‘solution’ to the liability of the fatherless family. Dama Sharma, a Maoist MP whose husband was a victim of the insurgency – and whose party opposes the offer – called for the state to provide vocational training and jobs, to allow widows some measure of independence.

If the reward-scheme stays in place, a new breed of bounty hunter is set to emerge among the Nepali manhood – the widow catcher, scanning the streets for white saris. But said bounty hunter would have to remain aloof from the stigma attached to widows in Hindu communities throughout Southasia. Sati is only a freak phenomenon these days, but widows are often quite literally outcastes in their own villages – in some cases their own families. Achieving widowhood means an immediate loss of status; they are no longer allowed to take part in religious ceremonies, and are forbidden from wearing auspicious red clothing or jewelry – instead, they must wear only white. A widow in your home is bad omen – hence the maltreatment they often receive by their own families.

Ostracism is considered worse in India than in Nepal, although – perhaps as a consequence – it is entrenched in the Nepali Tarai that borders India. Yet Nepal has much to learn from India in the rehabilitation of widows into mainstream society. Indian state governments have special schemes for assisting widows, such as free rations of rice and free use of public transport. But the boundaries they face are largely found within the communities themselves; and this flashpoint is merely a chapter of a protracted story of emancipation among Southasia’s Hindu widows.

Playground stunts

Originally published in Himal Southasian, September '09

Schools in Tamil Nadu have been asked to refrain from hosting ‘risky’ stunts – for instance, hiring a martial arts trainer to drive a motorbike over the hands of prostrated schoolchildren, as happened at a school in Villupuram on 15 July. The show culminated in the same bike riding over a plank placed on top of a small girl, to wild applause from delighted parents.

But the fun was curbed by protests from a relative of the state Higher Education Minister K Ponmudy. Apparently, pushy parents had pressured the school into staging the show to mark the centenary of K Kamaraj, the father of modern education in Tamil Nadu. They assured the principal that their children had been adequately trained in such ‘martial arts’, and remained supportive throughout the event – because, after all, the children ‘offered to lie down on their own’. Such displays are allegedly common, and usually prompted by parents eager to show off their children's prowess. In the small furore that followed, Tamil Nadu's elementary school department head, K Devarajan, announced that it would send notices to all of the state’s 50,000 schools, instructing them to ban any ‘risky stunts and practices’.

Martial arts are a popular pastime among India schoolchildren, and many schools hold special classes. By no means a far-eastern import, India has a long and venerable tradition of martial arts. Varying wildly according to region – and roughly divisible between Northern and Southern systems – its diverse strands are collectively referred to in Sanskrit as dhanurveda. There is much overlap with the principles behind yoga, ayurveda and tantra, such as kundalini (coiled energy) and marmam (pressure points). Tamil Nadu is home to the Dravidian schools of Kuttu Varisai (empty hand combat) and Varma Kalai (the art of vital points). And the hallowed place of martial arts in Tamil culture is visible in many ancient temples, bearing statues of deities and warriors in gravity-defying combat postures.

However, India schoolchildren these days are more likely to try to emulate Hong Kong screen heroes like Jet Li and Jackie Chan, whose movies enjoy a cult following among Indian youth; and it is doubtful whether driving a motorized vehicle over the palms of young children is in the true spirit of dhanurveda. Nonetheless, martial arts demonstrations are an integral part of a school’s entertainment calendar, especially at ‘felicitation events where local celebrities are honoured – although in this case it was called short by the chief guests: relatives of the higher education minister.

Charm offensive

Originally published in Himal Southasian, August '09

The shadowy profile kept by the ISI is a mixed blessing for the Pakistani intelligence network. Manoeuvring and plotting behind closed doors and maximum security gates, they have long acted with total impunity. But, as a consequence, the ISI are casually suspected of lurking behind any foul play within (and outside) Pakistan, from terrorist training to election rigging to the abduction and murder of political opponents. To put it mildly, they have a public image problem.

In response, they are undergoing a PR-savvy makeover, and throwing upon their unsignposted doors to Western journalists and other habitual critics. In weekly receptions within their wood-panelled offices, liveried servants treat the guests to refreshments, while suited officials introduce themselves fully before showing a series of power-point presentations, where ‘confidential’ details of the Taliban insurgency and the hunt for al-Qaeda are revealed in neat bullet points. All to show the world that they are an honest, tea-drinking bunch who wouldn’t dream of nurturing a Kashmiri suicide bomber.

An ISI official – one of a few now authorised to speak to the press – summed up their new policy of ‘opening up’ to the world: ‘In the past, irrespective of whether we did something, we were getting blamed for it. Now we want to reach out and get our point of view across’. Influencing the local press, through bribery or intimidation, is par for the course; but this is the first time they have courted the international media. Whether these congenial tea receptions will convince is another matter entirely. For the last thirty years their imprint has been unmistakable on the dirtier fringes of government policy: most dubiously, funding and training separatist militants in India-controlled Kashmir, and backing the Taliban’s rise to power in Afghanistan – both strategies that have come back to bite the Pakistani state.

Within Pakistan they are viewed with a mixture of awe and fear; they are ambiguously referred to as the ‘white angels’, on account of the white shalwar kameez they wear while ‘visible’. The omnipresent ears of the military, their tentacles spread through a huge phone and email monitoring capability and an entrenched network of informers. Under Musharraf’s presidency, they abducted hundreds of political opponents, allegedly torturing many of them. Acting under no laws but their own, they are commonly said to be a ‘state within a state’.

But their new strategy has won some small yet notable victories. In late July, the New York Times ran a front page highlighting the difficulties the US surge in Afghanistan has presented Pakistan – sourced entirely from one of those ISI briefings. An ISI official was jubilant about this propaganda coup: ‘That was the first time [a Western journalist] carried both sides of the argument. I think we are getting there.’ But this is merely a PR campaign; genuine transparency is, of course, not the stock in trade of a spy agency. And a ‘friendlier’ ISI suggests a weaker ISI; the loss of the arrogant swagger of the past points to the increasing impotency of the Pakistani state – not something to be welcomed by even the most ardent ISI critic.

Holy mountain, holy profits

Originally published in Himal Southasian, August '09

From Delhi to London, tribal forces have been gathering to protest the opening of an open-cast bauxite mine on Niyamgiri Mountain, Orissa. Slated for September by the British mining company Vedanta Resources, it has been opposed by the native Kondh tribe – backed by Western activists – as a threat to their animist culture and subsistence livelihood.

On July 27, demonstrators gathered outside Vedanta’s AGM in London to put pressure on shareholders – a group that includes the Church of England and numerous county councils. Several activists, including Human Rights campaigner Bianca Jagger, had – ironically – bought shares in Vedanta to secure themselves a hearing in the meeting itself. They argued that the mine will desecrate the local ecosystem and jeopardy the future of the 8,000-strong Kondh tribe, who depend on the hills for their water and agriculture. ‘The mine will damage the cultural and economic rights of the Kondh people,’ said Jagger, also invoking the spectre of climate change. Tribal activist Sitaram Kulisika – for whom the charity ActionAid bought a share in Vedanta, allowing him to attend the AGM – raised the pertinent point that ‘Vedanta directors promised not to mine without our consent.’

Moreover, Niyamgiri is sacred to the Kondh as the home of their tribal deity, Niyam Raja, who lends his name to the mountain. The potency of Niyam in protecting the Kondh over the millennia has been inextricably bound with the ‘wellbeing’ of the mountain. The issue is one of both material and spiritual welfare – hence why Kulisika appealed to the assembled shareholders to safeguard ‘our livelihood and our god.’ Meredith Alexander, head of trade and corporates at ActionAid, cast the Vedanta’s plans as a move to ‘flatten the heart of the Kondh's culture.’

In Orissa itself, protest has been rather less composed. In January this year, hundreds of Kondh carrying bows and arrows marched several kilometres in the Niyamgiri foothills; dancing, shouting slogans, and holding banners reading ‘Vedanta Quit Niyamgiri’ and ‘Vedanta Go Back.’ Violent protests across the mineral-rich state held up the Vedanta plant for months until August last year, when the Indian Supreme Court finally greenlighted the bauxite mine, intended to feed the refinery Vedanta had already built as part of its US $800 million project. In response, villagers routinely obstructed vehicles carrying construction material to the site and erected crude wooden gates as barriers.

Simultaneous to the London protest, Kondh demonstrators held a candle-lit vigil in New Delhi, to woo the sympathy of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the general support of Delhi-wallas. The Indian government, however, was unmoved; they stated that, although they had taken full account of Kondh grievances, they remained committed to the benefits in employment, infrastructure, education and healthcare that the Vedanta mine would bring to the Kondh community. They refused to obstruct the project and called on ‘NGOs to respect the decision of the legitimate authority in India, the world’s largest democracy.’ The onus, therefore, lies entirely with Vedanta and its shareholders – now very much under the spotlight.

Displaced turbans

Originally published in Himal Southasian, July '09

Open any Nepali newspaper, any day, and – you guessed it – another banda is, somewhere, in action (or rather, inaction). Few areas have been untouched, the Tarai hosting the worse disruptions, often enforced by YCL and other militant groups, whose thuggery continues to run unchecked. The budding Republic is slowly grinding to a halt, strike by strike. So much so that many have chosen to pack up and leave.

That large swathes of the Tarai Sikh community - who seem to bring a measure of prosperity with them wherever they go - are leaving for India is both a dire testament of the state of Nepal and an omen for troubles to come. Gurudwara Guru Nanak Satsang, a religious organisation based in Birgunj, reported a 90% plus migration of Sikh families from the Nepali border town. The chief of Satsang, Nanak Singh, put the shift in grim perspective: ‘There were 452 Sikh families in Birgunj until six years back. Now, only 29 families remain.’ And Birgunj is only a bit-player in an exodus happening throughout Nepal.

The story of Sikh migration into Nepal is one of healthy pluck and enterprise. It began tentatively a little over forty years ago, with a few families settling in border town such as Birgunj and setting up businesses – most notably in transportation. Success stories crept back India, circulating largely among Sikhs in Jammu and Kashmir. The flow increased, and Sikhs fanned across Nepal, initiating or entering myriad transportation companies. But now, with movement – on which the industry depends – capped with each new strike, Nepal has become a losing game.

Though many Nepalis have long resented Indian ownership of large sectors Nepali industry – amounting, in their eyes, to colonialism – this reverse migration belies an uncomfortable truth: opportunities, plentiful only a few decades ago, have since evaporated. Aside from the disintegration that will inevitably afflict Nepal’s transport sector, the knock on affect will be severe; virtually every industry relies on transportation in some form or another. But the true victims remain the de-populated communities themselves. Such migration could well prove contagious, but for those without escape routes, the future is bleak: with every marginalised group calling standstills at will, the already-shallow economy is fast diminishing into a pre-monsoon trickle.

Camera shy

Originally published in Himal Southasian, July '09

In a move to bolster Bhutan’s nascent democracy, the National Council announced on 25 June that all that all their sessions will be broadcasted live on BBS TV for the country’s viewing pleasure. Quite a landmark for a country formally wracked with censorship, where official ‘information’ had an uneasy relationship with the truth. But this advance has been checked by the National Assembly which, in the face of considerable media pressure, has refused for its discussions to be aired. The public will have to make do with press releases. Only the opening and closing ceremonies, Lyonchhoen’s report, audit, and budget reports are to be broadcasted.

The NA were firm in defending their stance, claiming hard-nosed pragmatism and ignoring the issue of accountability altogether. In a press conference held on the same day, Ugyen Tenzin, an NA spokesman and Haa MP, stated that live TV coverage would endanger efficiency. In experiments with live coverage in the past, he claimed, many MP were unable to concentrate or contribute effectively, their efforts turned solely towards crowd-pleasing. It also, allegedly, prevented MPs from commenting frankly on the proposed bills for fear of adverse public opinion. Live TV would furthermore greatly prolong the process and hike up daily allowances and sitting fees for MPs. He dismissed accusations that this move was undemocratic and mocking of the right to information, stressing that – there being nothing to hide – they would hold a press conference every day on the NA discussions. The media, he maintained, was not the enemy. Merely a nuisance, it seems.

The ruling Druk Phuensum Tshogpa party have fallen well short of their election promises; weighed down by corruption and incompetence, not a single development project has been approved, and many underway have been delayed or simply halted. Efficiency is, undeniably, an issue. But the argument that a few TV cameras would grind the country to a halt is overly evasive and betrays the fact that, with over a year of democracy behind Bhutan, the political class has yet to internalise a genuinely democratic ethos. And the image Tenzin puts forward of unprincipled showmen on the one hand, and meek politicians shying from public scrutiny on the other, hardly inspires confidence towards a government that is, after all, answerable to the Bhutanese people.

But these are early days. Exposed to the activities of the NC, the people of Bhutan will become increasingly conscious of their own, central part in the political process. Newly emboldened, they will demand greater transparency and accountability from their politicians; the NA’s stance will become increasingly hard to justify. The press can only be kept out in the cold for so long.

Burqa chic

Originally published in Himal Southasian, August '09

To the relief of the international community – not to mention liberal Afghans – the Karzai government has backpeddled on the so-called 'anti-woman law.' This dark-age relic decreed that a Shia wife must to consent to sex as and when her husband desires. Marital rape was, effectively, to be legalised. Originally rushed trough parliament in February, and approved by President Hamid Karzai, the law was backed by influential Shia clerics and political parties. Many within Afghanistan, such as Member of Parliament Fawzia Koofi, criticised Karzai's decision as a ploy to win the crucial support of these (often extremist) Shia groups for the summer elections. But it was the overwhelming international response that led Karzai to order a review, which summarily dispensed with the law, along with an article that placed restrictions on a Shia women's freedom of movement – namely, confining her to her household.

To the Western powers, who had invested their money and their reputations in the war against the Taliban, it seemed as if all they had fought for – liberal governance, religious moderation, female emancipation – was being jettisoned by an irresponsible government in a cynical concession to a conservative vote-bank. The likes of Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, along with numerous influential aid agencies, wasted little time in condemning the legislation which, they understood, compromised the nascent government's authority over the Taliban – not to mention the civil liberties of the women themselves. To such Western leaders, whose patronage has kept the Karzai regime afloat throughout its short life, this was little short of impertinence.

Yet, despite the social and religious conservatism that prevails in Afghan society, the legislation was targeted only at a minority: the Shias, who make up 10% of the population. The government purportedly wished to preserve their particular, severe interpretation of Sharia in the face of Sunni hegemony. Aides to President Karzai insisted, in a dubious feat of logic, that the law would actually provide greater security to Sunni women, who have commonly been victims of domestic violence. So, more a case of perverse liberalism than an attempt to woo hardline votes. But such a move would only further ghettoize the Shia minority – wildly counterproductive in such a divided society as Afghanistan, where the national identity is largely subordinated to tribal allegiances. Consistent with this 'multi-cultural' ethos, which can only further undermine what little authority the Centre enjoys, the government is busy drawing up a separate family law for the Sunni majority. Only this time, they know the world is watching.

A song and dance man

Originally published in Himal Southasian, August '09

Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf may have distinguished himself as a ruthless hawk with little regard to legal process, but beneath the military bluster sleeps an untapped musical flair – or so a new YouTube video would suggest; a new viral sensation where the general performs a duet with Sufi balladeer Ustad Hamid Ali Khan. A loud volley of comments have been exchanged over Pakistani websites, from former subjects shocked – and perhaps delighted – that Musharraf had a zeal for pursuits other than ousting democratically elected governments, abducting political opponents and violating the Kashmir Line of Control. Although how this will impact on his prospective trial – where he potentially faces the death penalty for high treason – remains to be seen.

While in London he performed in a series of concerts, and the video in question sees him and the Sufi maestro stirring up a gathering of Pakistani exiles – lost among them being Musharraf’s former prime minister, Shaukat Aziz. The emotive crowd joined in the chorus of the popular Urdu ghazal Laage re tou re laage najar sayyain laage. Something of a PR coup, this; Musharraf appears every bit a man of the people, leading the chorus while Khan shouts “wah wah” in encouragement. Continuing on a roll, the general stormed another London gig where, after complaining that the performing drummer was not keeping time, he marched onstage, commandeered the tabla set, and proceeded to keep rather good time by all accounts.

Semi-congratulatory comments have abounded on the web, though more in the line of music criticism than overt political judgment. Adil Najam, who originally posted the clip, wrote, "I really like his taste in music. Pervez Musharraf may or may not be the one leader who did the most good (or bad) for Pakistan. But he may well be the one who sings the best." Meanwhile, Musharraf sits uncertainly in the UK under Pakistani government protection; he awaits possible extradition to Pakistan on the insistence of Nawaz Sharif, leader of the Pakistan Muslim League and the former premier ousted by Musharraf. Although the prospective trial formally concerns the arrest and detention of seven Supreme court justices after Musharraf imposed emergency rule in November 2007, for which he could face three years in jail, Sharif is pushing for treason charges – carrying the death penalty – as a warning to military chiefs against staging coups in the future.

In all this, the YouTube video sounds a discordant note. Pakistan has been badly served by its political class, but odd flashes of colour do lighten the gloom from time to time. Next up: Zardari’s hip-hop duet with Manmohan Singh.

Andaman exhibit

Originally published in Himal Southasian, September '09

As word has spread through the middle class dinning rooms of Europe and America, tourism in one of Southasia’s foremost paradises – the Andaman Islands – has been rising steadily. To stoke this trend, tour agencies have begun to up their game. Although visited mostly for its natural attractions – pristine beaches; world-class snorkelling; untouched, monkey-filled forest – there is a wealth of human culture just waiting to be exploited. Which brings us to the latest exhibit: the Jarawa, one of the original tribes of the Andaman and Nicobar islands.

Tour companies are now offering day trips to ‘observe’ the Jarawa in their natural habitat – by which read a carefully demarcated reservation. Tourists can take pictures of the ebony-skinned, scantily clad people; some even chuck biscuits and sweets at them. A fun day at the zoo, no less. Moreover, Barefoot India, a major Indian travel company, has just won a high court case permitting it to develop an eco-resort at Collipur, right near the designated Jarawa reserve. Other companies are expected to follow, and the likes of Barefoot have big plans for luring thousands of tourists a year.

It’s not long since the Jarawa started wondering out of the jungle. In 1997, they began to be seen standing around the roads that thread through their territory, stopping vehicles to beg for food. Most of the Jarawa – said to number around 250 – still lurk somewhere in the forests. But some have picked up a little Hindi and choose to hang around the port, becoming a regular sight in the market place. A handful of Jarawa children have even rocked up at schools and asked for an education. Integration into the Andaman mainstream is well underway, and largely by the Jarawa’s own volition.

Anthropologists have begun making loud, angry noises. As have Human Right groups like Survival International. Some even predict complete extinction, both cultural and physical. Jawara culture will undergo repeated humiliation in the tourist bus trips, which may well lead to a new consciousness among the Jarawa of being a ‘primitive tribe’ – a precursor to abandonment. And, more pressingly, contact with tourists will expose the tribe to new diseases they may be unable to cope with. There are myriad examples worldwide of formerly isolated tribes having little or no immunity to otherwise common diseases like measles and flu. Partial or complete annihilation has been known to follow, and single epidemics have led to chronic depression, alcohol and drug abuse, and suicide across communities. And the greater the tourist contact, the greater the risk.

Arguments that evoke cultural Armageddon tend to present the Jarawa as vulnerable little creatures, in need of the same conservation schemes provided for endangered pandas – in an ironic twist, it brings us right back to the zoo analogy it attempts to criticise. Any outside influence it considered fatal to Jarawa culture, as if it were some static entity incapable of adapting to changing conditions. There is common assumption that indigenous cultures are somehow primordial, that they have been untouched by history; in fact, they have all undergone changes through the centuries, and are ‘modern’ cultures in their own right – albeit not in the industrialised model of development. Jarawa integration is inevitable, but a distinct Jarawa identity will not be chucked away like a worn loincloth. Yet potential vulnerability to alien diseases remains a pertinent point. On this, the onus lies with Andaman medical facilities; vaccination programmes and increased health awareness could well avert large-scale decimation.

Hacks in high places

Originally published in The Saint, October '09

This summer just past, I spent three sweaty months in Nepal – not teaching kids, building loos or saving snow leopards from certain extinction. Instead, I interned with a political/cultural monthly magazine, Himal Southasian, covering the South Asia region from Tibet to the Maldives. English-language, high-brow, subversive – Himal was a magazine that readily appealed to a Southasia-phile such as myself, and my internship afforded a privileged window into the uncertain world of Nepali journalism.

On arriving back in St Andrews in late September, we all get subjected – and gleefully subject others – to the same nauseating question: ‘So, how was your summer.’ To this I could give a petulantly smug answer: ‘Well, I practised journalism in the Himalayan foothills. Oh, so you worked for dad at home. How interesting.’ But, though I am loathe to admit it, it wasn’t all the India-Jones adventure you might expect. Much of the time I was working in an office – yes, with desks and computers and telephones and stuff. I’d turn up in the morning around ten, say hi to my Himal colleagues, make myself a rancid cup of instant coffee, sit before my computer, switch the thing on; and so the scrapes would begin. I didn’t interview politicians or brave arrest and torture to expose dastardly corporations; neither did I get a shiny card I could shove in people’s faces.

Yet, I was part of something exciting. Journalism is a noble cause in Nepal. As it is any country. But in Nepal it takes on a more heroic guise – a tights and cape profession. There, intimidation of journalists is something of an organised sport. They are considered fair game by much of the political class, particularly the Maoists who, after a decade of guerrilla warfare, were voted into office after the 2008 elections.

Last May, after nine months in power, the Maoists suddenly found themselves in opposition to a UML (United Marxist Leninist) -led coalition, due to the resignation of Maoist Prime Minister Prachanda (‘the fierce one’) over his ‘unconstitutional’ sacking of the conservative army chief. But they can still bring Nepal to a halt at a whisper – as they prove with the endless bandas (strikes), now more numerous than Hindu festivals. They may now have entered the ‘democratic process’, but they wear political office like a child stomping about in his daddy’s shoes. It’s all just a fun little game; and their sport is to stick it to the baddies. The baddies, of course, are anyone who happens to disagree with them. In this respect, journalists are not their friends.

This is a fairly typical news item: on 1 June, the day of another enforced strike in Kathmandu, cadres of the Newar Autonomous State routinely halted vehicles bearing press logos, smashed the windows, took the keys and beat up the journalists. All to stop them reporting the hardships endured by many ordinary citizens when the city was forced to a standstill by a political group most had little sympathy with. Rocking up to cover a banda – or any other kind of political incident; a rally, for instance – is dealt with as insubordination.

But, worst of all in these cases, no one is punished, the victims go uncompensated, and groups like the Youth Communist League – the militant arm of the Maoists – only grow in strength. More pressing than corruption in Nepal is impunity – Nepal is ranked 8th on CPJ’s Impunity Index, as a country ‘where journalists are murdered on a recurring basis and governments are unable or unwilling to prosecute the killers’. In all this, the police are little more than smartly-dressed spectators. As the YCL beats up another of their ‘class enemies,’ they merely stand by, wagging their fingers like disapproving nannies.

It doesn’t help that few of the media laws that exist in Britain, defining the limits with which politicians and the press can attack each other, are in place in Nepal. Neither the politician or journalist knows how far they should go – in the absence of libel laws or anything similar – and so both play a dangerous game, striking where they can and crying foul at the slightest affront. The press itself is no angel: there is a lot ‘yellow’ journalism among the smaller, Nepali-language papers – namely, blackmailing businessmen for hefty ‘donations’ under the threat of smear campaigns. None of this is conducive to a healthy public life in Nepal – something it so badly needs in this transitional period, where the refusal of the elected Maoists to join the ruling coalition continues the bleed the government of legitimacy.

Himal Southasian itself has not been untouched by the state’s manhandling of the media. Just a couple of years ago, as protests against King Gyandra were reaching a fever pitch – and shortly before the monarchy was deposed – Himal’s editor Kanak Mani Dixit (now also an advisor to current prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal), was put in gaol for a brief period for his dissident, anti-monarchic views. He edited a whole edition of Himal while inside, on a clapped-out Dell laptop – the very laptop I was landed with in the Himal office. So, there I was: an heir to a rebel tradition.