Category: Journalism

As you cross the IIM and Atira, in Ahmedabad, you are sure to be attracted to the Ahmedabad Management Association, which is a much loved and respected institution, that holds a unanimous appeal. It has something for everyone. Be they children, adults or senior citizens! Summer workshops for kids, Post Graduate Diploma Programmes, Workshops and Lectures, are all parts of their agenda.

AMA is synonymous with Always Moving Ahead. It is a happening place, whose aim is to provide management education and professional enhancement through training and interactive sessions. AMA has always given prominence to activity rather than individuals. It provides an environment wherein, persons visiting AMA feel good and desire to learn and excel in their professional endeavours.

This year is extremely special and will go down in a prominent way, in the history of AMA, as this is the Golden Jubilee Year!!    Celebrations are in the air, with a whole lot of series of lectures, some of which have already taken place! There was a unique and brilliant suggestion to prepare a book, as a part of these celebrations, based on the feedback and experiences of the Past Presidents of AMA. The outcome was the book, “Reflections From The Past”, which went down memory lane and brought back to light, all the previous Past Presidents! Shri. Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat, honoured the AMA by visiting it at a public function, as well as releasing this book, felicitating the Past Presidents and unveiling the AMA Expansion Project!

Another event that was a milestone achieved for AMA was the Golden Jubilee Management Convention, “The Next Practices: Innovations from India”. Dr. C.K. Prahalad acted as the Convention Chairman while distinguished speakers from highly successful companies and institutes spoke about their innovations, which constituted an integral part in their success!

Some of the recent lectures  have held the audience absolutely captive. Mr. Abhijat Joshi, Scriptwriter of Lage Raho Munnabhai, spoke about Gandhigiri, how he was inspired and how most of the concepts in the movie took shape. Ms. Sathya Saran, Editor, ME, enlightened an avid audience about grooming and presentation skills. “Be true to who you really are”, said Sathya and spoke about the importance of internal grooming as an essential ingredient for external presentation!

Sunita Williams graced the occasion when AMA honoured her at a Felicitation Function, held at the IIM. She had a most unassuming personality, and shared with the audience, not only her experiences in space, but also how, even after reaching heights  most of us can only imagine, she is still very firmly grounded!! She was witty, informative as well as compassionate towards others, in her short visit here. “Limitations only exist in our mind”, she said.

Dr. Martin Grossman, Mrs. Anju Timblo, Mr. Jayanta Murthy, Ashok Puri, Mr. Vikram Singh Mehta, Dr. Darlie O Koshy and Mr. David Kester, have also given lectures as a part of the celebrations.

The foundation stone has been laid and the work for the Extension of the AMA building, is under way. A new library, state of the art auditorium and more classrooms will soon be added facilities at AMA. The Golden Jubilee Year will hopefully witness the inauguration of the extension.

The secret of the success of AMA, lies deep within its foundation. “Selfless Giving”, is the motto of the people who work behind the scenes. The love and support that helps it grow, be it with baby steps, is something that cannot go without mentioning. Right from  The President, Mr. Rajiv Vastupal, the members of the committees, the executive director, the secretariat, students, participants and members, all deserve credit for its success. Their faith is what gives it inspiration to give better than its best!

Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) has a woman President now – the first one in the history of the 60 year-old organisation. And she is a fiesty 65 year-young entrepreneur,  Paru Jaykrishna. Because of the stature of the organisation and the standing of Paru herself in the world of business, it would be terribly inaccurate to call her the Principal woman leader of Gujarat.

And as with all such stories, her story too is an inspiring tale of turning obstacles into opportunities.

Quite like the story itself, the beginning of her present journey was marked by an event that was quite  against the tide – the marriage of a girl belonging to a humble Jain family with the scion (Mrugesh Jaykrishna) of a very wealthy Patel business family in 1964. Anyone who understands that social topography of the state would know how improbable was the chance of a Jain marrying a Patel at those times. But those are the kind of things that separate a big story from a mundane one.

Her father-in-law, Jaykrishna Harivallabhdas, was a very well known Industrialist of Gujarat and was mayor of Ahmedabad for eight years. The Jaykrishna family owned the `SHRI AMBICA GROUP’, comprising 5 Textile Mills, Steel Tube Plant, Phthalic manufacturing facility and Chemical auxiliaries.

However, by 1985,  most of the textile mills of Ahmedabad – known till then as the Manchester of East – had shut down; along with all the textile mills of the Jaykrishna family. While it was never and would never be an issue of bread for the family, it was enough to stir this lecturer-turned-housewife to turn another leaf in life – that of becoming a businesswoman!

Not a big deal for a person belonging to a business family, right? Wrong. While she did eventually get support from her in-laws about the decision, the key there was the condition of her raising her own funds. And then began the journey, in 1990, of whose pinnacle we have recently seen.

After sending her two sons, Gokul and Munjal, to USA for studying finance and marketing, she hired Gujarat Industrial and Technical Consultants to prepare a business model that would be 100 per cent export-oriented. Later, with a Rs 5-lakh subsidy from the state government, she took a Rs 21-lakh loan from the Gujarat State Finance Corporation and set up her chemical plant.

Today, the Company (Asahi Songwan Colours) is a Rs. 200 Crore entity that has collaborations with firms in Korea, Japan and Germany and that exports its products to 28 countries.

The big thing here is not the numbers. The big thing is about the grit and determination of a woman who always managed to turn obstacles into opportunities and kept on raising the bar for her own self.

Readers would be fascinated to read that the foundation of today’s Motera (Cricket) Stadium in Ahmedabad lies in the blueprint and construction under the guidance of Paru! That was just one of the examples of her proving that an unknown territory (she knew nothing about Cricket and even less about preparing Cricket pitch, which even at the best of times is a tricky and specialised job) need not discourage determination of a mission.

Paru Jaykrishna had become a member of GCCI only in 1999. Today, eight years later, she is the President of the organisation. Need we say more?

As the President, she has set her eyes firmly on turning Gujarat state into a true ‘golden state’ by the time it celebrates its golden jubilee in 2010. Time seems pretty short for that to happen. But with Paru Jaykrishna at helm, one cannot rule out anything.

League magazine wishes the new President and her entire team at GCCI the best of luck.

India is a funny country. Here you can kill your unborn or new-born daughter but you cannot kill a cow. You can hurt country’s infrastructure but cannot hurt a society’s (perceived) sentiments. And here you can produce as much tobacco as you want, but cannot hold it in your hand in front of the camera.

But then, where “har symbol kuchh kehta hai”, how much more can we be surprised of anything? Especially if the one doing the talking is a maverick like  Union Minister of Health, Anbumani Ramadoss.

If the minister is not busy fighting the director and students of AIIMS, he is almost always found taking on film-stars and their posters. After sending notices to Amitabh Bachchan and the makers of (Hindi film) Family, he is always busy watching promos and publicity material of new films, so that if he sees someone with something even remotely related to a cigarette (in Amitabh’s case, it was a cigar), he can “ask the offenders to explain the reason” and then later to delete those portions of the film, at least from the publicity materials. And this in a country which is the second biggest producer and consumer of tobacco in the world!

Tobacco was introduced by the Portuguese to India some 400 years ago. Today, India is among the top three producers in the world of this killer weed, turning out around 700 million kg annually from 40 million hectares.

Tobacco causes over 20 categories of fatal and disabling diseases, especially cancer.

Sixty-five per cent of all men and 33 per cent of all women in India use tobacco in some form. According to a report in the Indian Journal of Community Medicine, nearly half the cancer cases in India are tobacco-related. Oral cancer is a major public health problem in our country and has long been linked with the habit of chewing betel laced with tobacco.

As many as 8,00,000 Indians succumb every year to tobacco-related illnesses and most of them die before they have reached 40 years of age. WHO has projected that by 2020 tobacco will account for 13 per cent of all deaths in India.
And yet, tobacco, whose products are habit-forming and internationally condemned for causing cancer, is freely cultivated in India. I apologise for lack of latest data on hand, but a few years ago, the total area and production of Tobacco in India were 463.5 thousand hectares and 646 million kilo grams respectively! Expect the present figures to be at least 150% of those figures.

Add to it the fact that tobacco receives government support in the form of research inputs to enhance farm productivity and subsidies for export!

If that shocked you, read this:  Tobacco is traditional item of India’s foreign trade. India is one of the leading Tobacco exporting countries in the world. India accounts for 5.8% of the international trade and ranks 5th after Brazil, U.S.A. Turkey and Zimbabwe. The principal markets for Indian Tobacco are (the countries of the erstwhile) U.S.S.R, U.K, Japan and Middle East countries.

The tobacco industry employs nearly 35 million people in the country including six million farmers, 20 million farm workers, 4.4 million bidi-making workers, 2.2 million tribals engaged in gathering tendu leaves (which go into bidi covers) and two million traders/retailers.

And that is where the root of the problem lies – the stake of millions, both directly and indirectly, in the business of tobacco.

While the government might be able to find alternatives for the existing annual tax revenue of about Rs. 7500 Crores from the tobacco industry, it would find it next to impossible to escape the anger of the few million who would suddenly become jobless if tobacco were to be banned today.

So dear friend, like almost everything else in this country, the decision to continue with tobacco too is immensely and absolutely political in nature. No politics, no tobacco. But no politics would also mean no India, right?
In the light of the aforementioned how serious is the issue of Vivek Oberoi lighting up a stick in the movie posters of Shootout At Lokhandwala. And heck, what would Rajnikanth be without cigarette!

Anbomani Ramadoss would be better served in worrying about the millions of children who die every year in India due to malnutrition than worrying about film posters. But then, wouldn’t that kill the politician in him?

Just as we were about to wrap up this cover story, the news sphere exploded with the fracas involving Taslima Nasreen and some hardline Muslim activists.

The striking part of the attack on the lady author from Bangladesh was not the attack itself. Because of her writing, Taslima is now a veteran of attracting death Fatwas and threats. The striking part – as fortunately, and probably only for the first time, highlighted by the English press and broadcast media – was the total silence of the individuals and organisations who have built their luxury ivory towers simply through the earnings from criticising the doings of the Hindu hardline groups like Bajran Da, VHP and even political parties like BJP.

“Jo hua uski hum ninda karte hain; Lekin writers ko bhi yeh dhyaan rakhna chahiye ki woh kya likhte hain aur uska kya asar ho sakta hai”, said the poster boy of Congress from Kashmir, Ghulam Nabi Azad – also the Chief Minister of J&K.
The Samajwadi Party, another secular party according to Congress, Left Front and ‘liberal, urban, intellectuals’, went a step ahead and supported the attack on Taslima!

We have no case in favour of Taslima. We neither subscribe to or oppose any of her writing. We neither worship her as a great writer nor pull her down as a ‘trash writer in search of publicity’. We neither care for her Bangladeshi identity nor support any call for granting her Indian citizenship. Or, cutting the long story short, we neither love Taslima nor hate her for anything. Indifferent might be a curt word, so let’s say we are aloof from her identity, her writing and her values.

And yet, we would stand in front of her if someone tries to murder her for what she writes or what she had once written. Because, physical violence against any defenceless living being – human or animal – is cowardly, repelling and inhuman.

But we would support all peaceful protests, all voluntary social boycotts and all responses of similar nature as that of the stimuli from Taslima, viz written word.

Get the picture?

The point is a very simple one; while physical attack on art and artists is not a human (or humane) way of registering one’s protest, the artist (including writers and communicators) cannot wash his or her hands off the turmoil by merely citing ‘freedom of expression’ as both a tool and an excuse.

If we restrict ourselves for the moment to just the subject of religion in art, one can’t help but ask Taslima, MF Hussain, the Danish newspaper and their clan of all religions and regions of the world, “Which sane, intelligent (nothing to do with formal education!) and generally aware person/artist/writer would NOT know that people everywhere are extremely touchy about their faith/religion”.

It is this query that is summed up so beautifully by the quotation in the middle of this page. Yes, the so-called creative persons (including journalists like those of the Editorial team of this magazine) demand a world when it comes to the right to speak; but often don’t spend a penny on thinking before expressing.

What is freedom of expression anyway?

Officially, freedom of expression (or speech) is the concept of being able to speak freely without censorship. It is regarded as an integral concept in modern liberal democracies. The right to freedom of expression is guaranteed under international law through numerous human rights instruments, notably under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, although implementation remains lacking in many countries.

In practice, the right to freedom of speech is not absolute in any country, although the degree of freedom varies greatly. Industrialized countries also have varying approaches to balance freedom with order.

For instance, the United States First Amendment theoretically grants absolute freedom, placing the burden upon the state to demonstrate when (if) a limitation of this freedom is necessary.

In almost all liberal democracies, it is generally recognized that restrictions should be the exception and free expression the rule; nevertheless, compliance with this principle is often lacking.

The thing is, whatever the definition or the ambit of the term ‘freedom of expression’ might be, it has to be said that the virtue – which always comes home with huge responsibility – gets abused every time it is put to practice without taking into account the sensibilities of its audience – either deliberately or inadvertently.

Freedom of expression & religion:

Without doubt, freedom of expression permits and ought to permit criticism of religious beliefs. But it does not confer a fundamental right to either heap abuses any religion or its founder or deities; or even show them in poor light.
In such cases an inference of deliberate intention of outraging the religious feelings can be raised and which is punishable under Section 295-A of the Indian Penal Code. Whether we like it or not, in India religious feelings are easily ruffled by scurrilous attacks on religion and the founder and central figures of that religion. Courts in India have tried to balance the values underlying freedom of expression with the maintenance of peace and order.

Keeping that in mind and going back to the subject of the protest by Muslims against the cartoons of Prophet Mohammed, while hurt felt by Muslims – who generally take religion more seriously than followers of most other religions – is perfectly understandable, what is not acceptable is failure of some Muslim leaders in some countries to restrain the mobs from getting violent while registering their protest.

That reaction sums up the title of this story quite aptly – it really was an exaggerated response to an exaggerated sense of liberalism on behalf of a Danish newspaper. Unfortunately, exaggeration generally operates in the form of a cycle. So now, the exaggerated response by some Muslims have made sure that there is an exaggerated association of Islam with intolerance and violence in those parts of the world that had borne the brunt of violence.

It has to be mentioned here that Christ was blasphemed in a play called The Temptation of Christ, which attributed unnatural sexual proclivities to him. Christians were deeply offended and there was strong condemnation, but their protests did not result in any large-scale, violent acts in the ‘Christian world’.

Is this something new?

We might believe that the world is getting ever more intolerant aboiut art with each passing decade, but art vandalism’s roots can be found centuries ago. Medieval Greeks are said to be the first to have coined a term to define those who attack sacred images by combining words meaning “likeness” with “breaker or to break.”

During the 8th and 9th centuries in the western world, countless Christian paintings and sculpture were destroyed throughout the Byzantine Empire during the original Iconoclast Period. During the Protestant Reformation, much Catholic art—stained glass windows, mosaics, church interiors, altarpieces, and statues—fell under the iconoclast’s tools of destruction.

In the Islamic countries, because of the prohibition against figural decoration, some Muslim groups have often damaged devotional images. The most furious of all examples, of course, was the recent furore over cartoons about Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper. Another notable example of recent times was the destruction of frescoes and the statues of Buddha in the Bamiyan province of Afghanistan by the Taliban in 2001.

Why attack?

Often, and justifying the title of this feature, attack on art represents THE EXACT purpose that art often carries – that of being a symbol of something or also being symbolic.

So, extremist reaction to art can often be seen as a symbolic act of protest against any particular ‘belief’ or ‘being’. For example: In 1989, there was the man who entered the Dordrechts Museum and slashed ten Dutch works in less than two minutes in protest of workers from foreign countries living in the city. He justified his actions stating, “By letting all those foreigners live in our country, we are throwing away our Dutch culture—thus, there’s no need for those paintings anymore.”

While artists generally have always used art as a symbol of their take on life and its issues, problem arises when they either exaggerate the negatives or create new, less than flattering aspects of a belief or the symbol of that belief. Examples, amongst thousands, are both nude Goddess Saraswati by M F Hussain and cartoons of Prophet Mohammad by a Danish newspapers.

Reaction is futile, stupid:

There might have been violence across the globe about the cartoons of Prophet Mohammed, but the truth of the hour is that ALL OF THOSE CARTOONS ARE STILL AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET. So, tomorrow someone in Ahmedabad, Baroda, Surat or Rajkot can coolly download those cartoons, take out prints and, under the cover of darkness, throw it around in ‘sensitive areas’ of those cities. What would happen then? Burning of the entire cities in Hindu-Muslim clashes? But can’t the miscreant be a Christian or a Sikh or a Jew? How do you know who spread them around?

The same is true for portraits of Saraswati or ‘Bharat Mata’, as drawn by Hussain.

Or DVDs and copies of Da Vinci Code.

Or pictures of some nonsense person in the clothes of some holy guru of Sikhism.

More support for the above argument:

Those who are Internet savvy or deal with research on the subject of Internet itself would know of a entity called ‘Gripe Sites’.

A gripe site is a type of website devoted to the critique and or mockery of a person, place, politician, corporation or institution. The web gives ordinary individuals the opportunity to publicly criticise the rich and powerful, including multinational corporations.

Today it is multinational corporations, tomorrow it can be faith. Who would be able to stop those sites or people?

The crux:

And that brings us to the very heart of the conundrum viz:

You cannot ever suppress or kill the so-called ‘freedom of expression’, however responsible or deliberately mischievous the ‘expression’ might be.

It would, in some form or the other, find its way out through one medium or the other. And as the box on the page left to this one shows, the more you turn something into an underground cult, the higher would be its following. And the more fanatical its supporters would be.

So, is it a free hit for artists?

Well, yes, if you are talking of their need, intent and ability to express. But no, if you are talking of the effectiveness of their work.

Our holy scriptures have taught us that fragrance of truth can never be hidden. So, if the expression of the artist is a true reflection of not just his unique viewpoint but also compassionate consideration for its recipients, it would sooner or later find its way into the hearts of people.

On the other hand, if there is a deliberate attempt on the part of the artist to rake up some mud, the best method for rationalists would be to lay bare the fake artist’s intent by means of compelling arguments against the expression. And that too only if the artist has managed to get undeserved audience and acclaim for it. In absence of that, propping up a better work or supporting his more rational competitor – without ever mentioning the mischievous one – would do a better job than what thrashing an art gallery with sticks can ever do.

Unfortunately, in today’s world of insatiable news mongers in both print and broadcast media, it is not always possible to completely ignore deliberately controversy-prone. Otherwise, indifference to such so-called artists would have gone a long way in separating the real artists from dust.

And what about the goons?

There can never be any second opinion about it. Anyone who destroys property or human life; or even threatens to do any of that should be treated very harshly by law. They should be severely punished and be barred from venturing into any art gallery or towards any art show for life – irrespective of whether their sentiments were truly hurt by any mischievous or ‘blasphemous’ expression of any artist.

A criminal is a criminal. And people who go around ransacking art galleries or threatening artists are criminals; petty, publicity-seeking losers.

The League take on the subject:

We at League are very clear on the subject: we do not encourage any form or expression that might be taken as an affront to any particular belief – however unfounded that claim of hurt might be.

How can one measure the true ambit of sensitivity anyway?

And isn’t it the job of an artist to keep coming up with newer expressions for any thought? Can’t the Danish cartoonists come up with an alternate form to say the EXACT SAME thing? Ditto for M F Hussain? Yes, every artist can; provided the intent is there.

On the other hand, if someone still goes ahead with an expression unacceptable to any section of the society, League would fight for the physical safety of both the artist and his or her work. Any attack on that would be considered grave crime by League.

Do join us if you agree with our take.

Deciding upon a movie program at the eleventh hour is not such an issue in Mumbai. Because it does not take too long to spot a newspaper vendor. So, it takes a two-rupee coin to buy a daily; get the show timings of every movie playing in the city and then decide accordingly.

But that is talking about just the fun part of it. The bigger and, admittedly, a much refined aspect of that example is the culture of reading in the Mumbaikars. Anyone who has traveled in a local train would tell you that at any particular hour, a single compartment would have people reading newspapers (or magazines) in at least five languages – Marathi, Gujarati, Hindi, English and any of the south Indian languages.

Some would argue that one has to do something to kill time while traveling in local trains everyday; but if that were the only reason, why don’t thousands of young people across Ahmedabad read newspapers while whiling away their time at and around the various tea shops?

The truth of the matter is that Ahmedabad does not have the ‘culture’ of reading. “Every generalisation is false; including this one”, goes one of the very famous quotes. I agree. And yet, I would insist that we don’t have the culture of reading that cities like Kolkata, Pune and Trivandrum has. Just as they don’t have the culture of traveling across the globe in every summer vacation. Yes, it’s true. It’s true that not every society can have the traits of a throbbing civilization. But is that reason enough to refrain from trying for a change?

The issue here is of providing the citizens of Ahmedabad an alternate activity. And a very constructive one at that.
Imagine a scenario when a young man, going back home from yet another failed interview for job, stops at one of the reading kiosks and ends up reading an advertisement for a walk-in interview, in a newspaper that he generally does not read and of a language that he does not generally talk at home. He then goes for the interview and then gets the job. How thankful would he be of the kiosk?

Imagine a scenario when two, very old regulars of such reading kiosks become friends and find another reason in life.
Imagine a scenario where the common, vulnerable and very volatile ‘politics-affected’ person gets to read more than one perspective (through the various newspapers and magazines at the kiosk) on the issues that affect his daily life and reaction to life, day after day. How fruitful is his evolution as a thinker going to be for the society?

The idea is simple. Public-private partnership, with due support from the government, should encourage the evolution of the culture of reading in Ahmedabad. Unless that happens, Ahmedabad can – at best – become a Shanghai, but never a Seattle.

Let’s choose mind over matter. For, in the long run, nothing much except the mind matters anyway.

Time to think. Time to act.