Anshuman Rawat

(I) Australian cricket team pulls out of the Zimbabwe tour

It would not have been much of a contest anyway. If the series had been undertaken, very few – even in the cricketing world – would have spared much time on following the series. But now that the series has been called off – or should we say boycotted by Cricket Australia, on strong suggestion from the Australian government, the issue of mixing sports with politics has risen again.

Let’s try and understand the background of the happening.

A group called The Zimbabwe Movement (for Freedom, Democracy, Peace & Prosperity) represents a voice of organisations and nations across the globe about the state of affairs in Zimbabwe.

Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party are said to have destroyed all forms of democracy, freedom of speech and human rights in Zimbabwe and are responsible for countless crimes against citizens, including:

• Murder of over 20 000 people in Matabeleland in the so called Gukurahundi massacres in the early 1980s
• Intimidation, torture, rape and murder of those who dare to disagree with the regime
• Silencing free speech through legislative and physical means
• Promotion of racism by publicly demonising ethnic minorities
• Starvation of opposition party supporters by denying them access to international food aid – seeking to use food as a political tool
• Harassment and intimidation of the judiciary, refusal to accept unfavourable judgments and ignoring the country’s constitution
• Wholesale rigging of state elections. manipulating, beating and killing in order to remain in power.. Hundreds of thousands denied the right to vote for a candidate of their choice.
• Blatant theft of state funds through massive government corruption and cronyism
• Abuse of state institutions such as the Police, Army and Central Intelligence Organisation

The thing that hackles the ‘western powers’ the most is an act that can only be called ‘reverse racism’ – persecution of ‘whites’ (including cricketers like Andy Flower) and their rights by the entirely ‘black’ Mugabe government.
Would the world have reacted if ‘whites’ were not hurt? Take your call.

(II) Hollywood gets into Darfur, well, in spirit anyway:

Darfur crisis is a violent conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan between the Sudanese Military and the Janjaweed militia, recruited mostly from tribes on one side and a variety of rebel groups, notably the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement, recruited primarily from the Fur, Zaghawa, and Massaleit ethnic groups.

The Sudanese government, while publicly denying that it supports the Janjaweed, is said to have provided money and assistance to the militia and has participated in joint attacks targeting the land-tilling tribes from which the Darfuri rebels draw support.

The conflict began in February 2003. Unlike in the Second Sudanese Civil War, which was fought between the primarily Muslim north and Christian south, almost all of the combatants and victims in Darfur are Muslim.
The United Nations (UN) estimates that the conflict has left as many as 450,000 dead from violence and disease, while Sudan’s government claims that over 9,000 people have been killed. As ever, the true figure would be somewhere in between, though arguably, more towards the UN figures.

Adding to that is the mind-boggling statistics of 2.5 million getting displaced as of October 2006!

Pertinently though, while the mass media routinely describes the conflict as both “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide,” and the United States government has described it as genocide,the UN has declined to do so. While judiciousness of US governments is always suspect, the lethargy of UN often proves worse than the various mis-adventures of US.

The conflict taking place in Darfur has many interwoven causes. While rooted in structural inequality between the center of the country around the Nile and the ‘peripheral’ areas such as Darfur, tensions were exacerbated in the last two decades of the twentieth century by a combination of environmental calamity, political opportunism and regional politics.

A point of particular confusion has been the characterization of the conflict as one between ‘Arab’ and ‘African’ populations, a dichotomy that one historian describes as “both true and false”.

Interestingly, a fighting between ancient neighbours has caught the fancy of Hollywood. And Darfur peace organisations – real and fakes alike – can look forward to some green paper.

The Siachen Glacier is located in the eastern Karakoram range in the Himalaya mountains in Ladhak. It is the longest glacier in the Karakoram and second longest in the world’s non polar areas.

However, but for its frequent mention in the context of conflict between India and Pakistan over the region, it would have largely remained ‘an inaccessible part of heaven on earth, Kashmir’.

The conflict, sometimes referred to as ‘The Siachen War’ is said to have begun in 1984 with India’s Operation Meghdoot. Named after the divine cloud messenger in a Sanskrit play, the operation was launched on 13 April 1984 when the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force went into the Glacier. Pakistan quickly responded with troop deployments. But the battle was lost by Pakistan by then.

The Indian Army now controls the heights; thereby holding on to the tactical advantage of high ground. The Pakistanis cannot get up to the glacier, while the Indians cannot come down. Presently India holds two-thirds of glacier and commands two of the three passes. Pakistan controls Gyong La pass that overlooks the Shyok and Nubra river Valley and India’s access to Leh district.

The Siachen Glacier had first become the bone of contention following a vague demarcation of territory as per the Simla Accord of 1972 which did not specifically mention who had authority over the Siachen Glacier.

As a result of this, both nations lay claim to the barren land. In the 1970s and early 80s, Pakistan permitted several mountaineering expeditions to climb the peaks on the Siachen. This served to reinforce their claim on the area as these expeditions arrived on the glacier with a permit obtained from the Government of Pakistan. Indian sources claim that in many cases a liaison officer from the Pakistan army accompanied the teams. Since 1978, the Indian Army began closely monitoring the situation on the glacier and concurrently, India too had allowed mountaineering expeditions to the glacier, from its side. The most notable one was the one launched by Colonel N. Kumar of the Indian Army, who mounted an Army expedition to Teram Kangri peaks as a counter-exercise.

When Pakistan gave permission to a Japanese expedition to scale an important peak (Rimo peak) in 1984, it prompted Indians to do something drastic in order to secure the glacier. The peak, located east of Siachen overlooks the eastern areas of the Aksai Chin. The Indian military believed that such an expedition would provide a link for the western and eastern routes — the trade route leading to Karakoram Pass and China — and eventually provide a strategic, if not tactical, advantage to Pakistan Military.

Pakistan had started showing the area as their own on their maps. To oppose this ‘Cartographic Aggression’, it had been decided to launch the HAWS expedition. The HAWS team that had gone to the Glacier was to be supplied with mail and fresh rations by the Indian Air Force.

For more than 22 blustery, shivering years, the Indian and Pakistani armies have been fighting a ‘ No-Win ‘ war on the 20,000-foot-high Siachen Glacier, the world’s highest battleground. Both India and Pakistan have more than 10,000 soldiers each at the glacier.

For a soldier, this is where hell freezes over, a 46-mile river of slow-moving ice surrounded by stupendous towers of snow. This area is a desolate stretch of about 2,500 sq km situated immediately south of the Chinese border.
The United Nations-supervised cease fire line (CFL) of 1949 extended from the international border between India and Pakistan near Chhamb in Jammu and Kashmir in a rough arc that ran nearly 800 km north and then northeastwards to a point, N J 9842, nearly 20 km north of the Shyok river in the Chulung group of mountains of the Saltoro range.

The 1949 Karachi Agreement between the two countries contained a generalised statement which said that the CFL ‘ moved thence north to the glaciers ‘. India used this line to justify our claim that most of the Siachen glacier is unambiguously and lawfully part of our territory. Pakistan has always rejected this interpretation and claims the entire glacier and the adjoining mountain ranges upto the Karakorum Pass as theirs.

The Indian Army therefore launched Operation Meghdoot to secure the glacier and adjoining heights from Pakistani aggression. This operation has continued over the last 16 years with Pakistan making numerous failed attempts to dislodge the Indians from the Saltoro ridge along the western periphery of the glacier.

Soldiers now live in fibreglass reinforced plastic huts, a far cry from 1984 when they had first moved in here. Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSATs) and ‘inmarsets’ are being used for communication including soldiers’ direct contact with their near and dear ones.

One day, Plato demonstrated the importance of curiosity. When teaching math in his academy, a student asked him: “Sir, for what do I need to know this?”

Plato, offended, gave him a coin and then failed him. He gave him the coin so he couldn’t say that his study wasn’t fruitful, and Plato failed him because he wasn’t curious- he didn’t had that “love” for knowledge.

The example is cited here for you, GLOVADIs, to underline the importance of curiosity in the evolution of this world.

Of course, we haven’t assigned the unparalleled importance to curiosity because of Plato’s insistence on it. But for the simple reason that it probably all started because of curiosity. Right from Adam’s desire to eat the apple to the curiosity of higher upgrades by Apple Macintosh!

In the beginning all was curiosity. Curiosity, the imperative wish of knowledge, is not a characteristic of inanimate matter. Even some organisms lack this characteristic. Trees, for example, are not inquisitive about their environment, at least not in any way that we can understand. Even oysters, fellow animals, are not able to think like we do. The wind, the rain, and the ocean give these organisms what they need. If the future gives them fire, poison, predators, or parasites, they die in the same stoic and silent way that they lived. Humans are unique.

Starting out as just curiosity, science has become a logically developed and empiric part of the human knowledge.

Again, back to the subject, why should we study science?

It is the best way to understand the world we live in , and it can help to satisfy our curiosity.

And why should we satisfy our curiosity?

For the simple reason of providing more completeness to our souls and our daily lives. We can overcome our dependence on electricians for changing fuse wire; dependence on our doctor friends (if any) in the hour of need for arriving at the purpose of the many medicines lying around our home; for opening up switch-board and fixing up loose switches etc. The list can be endless. Many of the aforementioned may be already known to many of us. In that scenario, those people would be in an even better state to appreciate the knowledge of everyday science.

What should be understood is that science is not just wearing lab coats and working with either test tubes or electric circuits. Science is any and everything that makes use of, well, the faculty of science. Whether it is an electrical device or your Kinetic Honda; whether it is your first-aid box or the fluctuations of weather, everything is science. It is what makes our lives go around.

Ahmedabad has almost always behaved like a metro in one aspect – that of ignorant self obsession. Kids living in tony areas of Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata etc have always believed that the world revolves around their cities. And quite like the revolution of moon around earth, they need not worry about the ‘peripherals’. Funny as it may sound, it is true for almost the whole of USA! For the Americans, and primarily for their President, the world is divided into two parts – USA and the non-USA. (Refer column ‘whatever’ on page 34 for more on that)

We, in Ahmedabad, too suffer from such hallucinations occasionally. We believe that we are a first world city with fly-overs, malls, multiplexes and all things good in life; and that the world is dying to have a bit of us. While we do have all of the aforementioned, and a bit more of other things, it would be quite hilarious to think that we are the leaders in ANY of that. Malls by the likes of DLF in Gurgaon, double-digit-screen-multiplexes in Delhi by PVR and fly-overs in Delhi and Mumbai would tell us why.

What the world outside Ahmedabad makes of our city is largely decided by what it gathers through information mediums like TV news channels and newspapers. And the last two big features by the two mediums on the city, gravely enough, have been on the ‘arbitrary and self-defeating self-ban’ of Parzania by theater owners of Ahmedabad and the recent prime-time hogging and parliament-stalling issue of the ‘encounter’ of Sohrabuddin. Prior to the two mis-adventures was of course the ‘unofficial’ banning of Fanaa, starring the astute Aamir Khan.

So there. Ahmedabad is a lawless, intolerant city where no one has the freedom to go against a particular ideology – opinion formed and dusted by the rest of India. We all know how naive and inaccurate the above understanding is. But as they say, knowledge is nothing till it is used. Our gloating about our city does no good to the prospects of our city outside the city limits.

Incidentally, today, more than ever before in the history of human civilization, the need of the hour for every city is to continously evolve – not necessarily in numbers, but definitely in terms of the basic fabric of the society. And one of the primary methods of making that happen is a continous exchange of people, materials and ideas between all the various societies of world. Something which generally happens only between societies who consider the other one equal enough to be made a partner of a symbiotic growth.

Unfortunately, publicity in the form of news about violent ‘moral policing’ and politically suspicious police actions put a spanner in the blades. Such publicity discourages talent, business (local employment and outside money) and ideas (outside expertise) from joining hands with the city.

But is it fair to equate a vibrant city of 55 Lakhs with odd blots? Of course not. And which Indian city can claim to have a spotless shirt? Don’t Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad (the cities bigger than us) have their own plentiful share of poisenous alleys? Is their police any different? Are their politicians from outer space? Are their ‘moral brigadiers’ any more principled? Of course not. And that’s what the point is. Those cities manage to overcome and push behind the nasty bits by their good work. While we don’t.

Where are our filmmakers; why can’t they make an Ahmedabad or Ahmedabad Blues or Ahmedabad Heights? Where are our supremely talented musicians; why can’t make an Ahmedabad anthem and give it to MTV, Radio Mirchi or any of the net broadcasters for free, in order to have it played round the clock? Where are our teenage whiz kids; why can’t they win national level quiz and cultural competions?

All of them are quite capable of doing all that, and much more. But like all people with adequate self esteem, they need to be provided a proper podium to exhibit their skills. They require ample respect and love for their skills. And they require all of us to put our hands together.

Of course, a film here and a city anthem there are not going to change an outsider’s perception about our city overnight. It would eventually happen because of tangible work – infrastructure, career & education options, lifestyle & recreation avenues etc – on ground. But underestimating the might of sustained good publicity would be an even greater mistake than overestimating it. Hollywood is USA’s greatest export. And it’s biggest magnet. So is the Hindi film industry that of Mumbai. The power of culture is undisputable. Use it as your publicity manager, Ahmedabad. Now.