Nobody fears SONIA GANDHI

Source: rediff

In part one of this interview, Arun Shourie, former newspaper editor, twice member of the Rajya Sabha, former Union minister, right-wing thinker and author, explained the minefield of the 2G spectrum scam and the Niira Radia tapes. Part I: 'BJP and Congress are one party'
In the concluding part of the interview with Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt , he explains why Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh are losing control over the government and the Congress party.
One of the issues revealed in one of the Radia tapes is that you were not given a chance to speak on a Budget-related issue in Parliament.
In her conversation with N K Singh, a former bureaucrat and now a Janata Dal-United MP, she says she didn't want you to be given a chance to speak by the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party).
Did you discover the alleged pressure on your party from the tapes or did you know about it before?
Do you think corporate people can influence the BJP?
Why don't you listen to the tape? I was astonished when I reached Parliament that day. But what can you do? I didn't know that such pressure had worked.
I don't blame the corporates as much as the political process and then these lies are being put out (in defence by the BJP).
And my friend N K Singh says this was a social chat. Arre, look at your tone. You are talking for nine minutes to Radia. Out of that for five minutes he speaks on how he was successful in subverting the BJP's speakers in the debate on the Budget.
N K Singh now says he rejected the proposal that favoured Mukesh Ambani's Reliance when he was revenue secretary.
How interesting! Then what about the tape? This concession (to Reliance's gas project) was made by (Union Finance Minister) Pranab Mukherjee.
A revenue secretary, who has written some clarification, overruled this concession. (N K Singh says on the tape) 'We have to get it restored, otherwise we are nowhere. The initiative they have taken will go nowhere.'
Therefore, Arun Shourie who has taken the difficult position in the BJP's party meeting, has to be managed, he says. He then says, we have got Venkaiah Naidu to speak first.
Somebody has analysed Venkaiah Naidu's speech, in which the sentence is there (supporting Reliance) that all these tax concessions must be continued and given for the gas infrastructure. Where is the doubt?

That's why you are saying that the BJP and Congress are the same.

From all sorts of circumstances. Why is the investigation into the IPL (Indian Premier League) not being pursued? Because you find the same group (the Congress and the BJP) is everywhere.
It is now only the pretence of the government and the Opposition. Actually, they are the same.
Unless, the people of India wake up these things will go on. No issue will reach its conclusion. This is cancer. This is not a scandal.

Have you seen a detailed debate on Indian defence, on the dangers that India is facing from China?

When I was writing on it three years, five years and even ten years ago about China they would say 'paranoia'! I wrote on Islamic terrorism, about Pakistan.

Have you seen anybody taking up these issues in New Delhi? Television will debate the issue to find out who is responsible.
Someone says Nehru, some will say Indira Gandhi, some will blame (P V) Narasimha Rao or Manmohan Singh. The debate is over and now let's go and see Shilpa Shetty!
That's the problem! Just drama that is going on and on. Inside Parliament, it is arranged drama.

  You have heard the 100 plus Radia tapes uploaded on the Outlook Web site. It gives us an insight into India 2010. It's a very important insight. That's why I am urging people please, please listen to it. I am urging people to please publish verbatim.
Please bring out books. Please bring out CDs and reproduce it. So, that people would know how things are managed in government, in the Opposition and in the media.
How polices are being made, how personnel are being fixed. It's a wonderful glimpse. We owe a great degree of thanks to Niira Radia, and, to the persons who recorded these calls and to the person who leaked it.
And, a very important point: These tapes also show the power of the Internet.
Apart from Open and Outlook, the whole print media blacked it out, but Internet users had perseverance. The Hindu has taken it up now. Individual journalists like Girish Nikam and others are pursuing it. Now, the tapes have got some focus.
What has surprised you in Radia's conversations?
Nothing has surprised me. This is what I have been saying since long is the state of affairs. That is now confirmed by these tapes. This is not the state of affairs of India. The Radia tapes reveal the state of affairs in New Delhi.

When you were a journalist and a top editor, you shifted to politics.

In those years when you were moving from media to politics, obviously, even your phone call would suggest that you crossed that red line. Don't you think so?

I don't think so. You can tap my phone, anytime. What red lines? I consider myself a writer.

When I was in government everybody said I am not a politician. That's true. I am not a politician. I don't think my behaviour with my contact would be different than my writing.

If you ask me today, 'Do you know Radia?' Yes, I met her once. What is there to hide?

Did you ever think that Radia would be so powerful?

I thought she was an articulate lady. I never thought that she knows everybody -- very effective in her job. We can't blame her.

What's the solution for the Indian media?

First, the media should write about itself. It is extremely short-sighted about the media to black out these things. The Mitrokhin Archives (external link) revealed how (the then Soviet intelligence agency) the KGB boasted that they were able to plant 400 stories in such and such Indian newspapers.

The Indian media blacked it out. Then, privatetreaties.com (external link) of The Times of India that other people have now adopted has been completely blacked out.
Only two, three journalists are exposing it on the Internet. Again, on the issue of paid news, only P Sainath of The Hindu wrote about it.
When the Press Council of India was forced to appoint a committee to look into the allegations about 'paid news', the Press Council itself suppressed the report.

These Radia tapes should be a gold mine for Indian media to show how things work in New Delhi. The whole issue has come down to Vir Sanghvi and Barkha Dutt. That is not the whole issue.

The arguments forwarded by many media outlets is that the source of the Radia tapes is not known and nobody is sure if they are doctored or not.

That's just the dammed rationalisation. Has any single person disputed the voices on the Radia tapes? No. Has anybody been able to prove that tapes have been edited? No.

Barkha Dutt has written to that effect.

She has written, but what else did you talk about? Is that not clear enough? We can't go by the rationalisation that has been offered.

Another issue that has cropped up relates to privacy.

How many private things in Indian journalism has not been disclosed? Every second day the Indian media is disclosing people's private matters. Only in this matter are they sanctimonious about the Right to Privacy.

Do you think Ratan Tata is right when he says that?

It's a separate matter. The distinction has to be there between private talk and the matter that has impact on public policy that is not covered by the Right to Privacy law. I don't think even Ratan Tata has asked to that effect.

He only says that his private conversation with Radia that relates to personal things should not be leaked. There are personal things like what kind of food he likes etc. But, why should the tapes of his conversations, which are in the public domain, not be heard?

Take the case of WikiLeaks. Is the Indian media reporting or not?

Are they verifying the authenticity of the source? Are they contacting the persons concerned? Are they checking if these cables are edited or not? No.

Yet, they are carrying it. These are arguments manufactured for shutting your eyes.

Do you think the (EM>United Progressive Alliance UPA-2 is increasingly losing its sheen?

The cancer is now in the fourth stage in our governance structure.

It has reached what (writer Malcolm) Gladwell has called the tipping point.

I feel the prime minister has lost complete control of the government. Sonia Gandhi has lost control over the political processes and of the Congress party.

Nobody fears her. Till now, she was the supreme court. The way Congressman feared her, they don't fear her now.

That is why you see how she took time to take action in Andhra, Maharashtra and corruption in the Commonwealth Games. They kept saying the government is not doing anything on the CWG.

There was an sms doing the rounds where someone asked why the government did not act when the country was getting such a bad name? The answer was that nobody told the prime minister that the Games are going on!

Similar is the case of Sonia Gandhi. She has unlimited authority within the Congress, and therefore in the government.

When the country's name was jeopardised, if not the prime minister, she should have acted. Both have lost authority in their respective space.

In May 2009 everything was looking so hopeful and good for the Congress party. Why this transformation?

Because of the tipping point. Things go wrong inside the body and we don't realise.

Second, I have seen during Rajiv Gandhi's time that the prime minister and rulers are often misled by the fact that they control the situation within Parliament. But they don't realise that the situation outside Parliament is going out of their hands.

This is what happened to Rajiv Gandhi. He had three-quarters majority in the House. He thought he controlled everything. He was in control, but things outside Parliament slipped out of his hands. The same things are repeating today.

They must be thinking that we have won. We have managed other smaller parties. The Opposition party is our pocket borough! We have managed them. They were confident of them. Call them for dinner and praise them a little bit in public.

People can be driven by flattery; you don't even need to give them money.

Some small fry could be praised in public. They became instruments in the hands of the government. The government felt cosy in that position. Suddenly things went out of hand.

Do you agree with the BJP's demand for a JPC (Joint Parliamentary Committee to probe the 2G spectrum scam?

The JPC will derail the investigation. The government will get a perfect alibi for two years that the probe would go on.

There were JPCs on Harshad Mehta, Ketan Parekh, insecticides. What happened to them?

If a JPC is formed, then the issue of 2G spectrum will be killed. The CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation is now doing the job.

A Raja is out and there are many indications that they are pursuing the matter. I know from personal knowledge that the CBI has got details of the transactions involving many, many telecom players and Raja.

The best way is for the CBI's investigation to be monitored by the Supreme Court.

There is the petition to that effect by advocate Prashant Bhushan. He says it should be monitored by independent people. I think it should be monitored by Chief Justice S H Kapadia in whom we have faith.

The CBI itself has said the investigation will be over by March. We should wait till then.

Weak to the Strong, Strong to the Weak

Arun Shourie
In painting Goddess Saraswati naked M.F. Hussein, his secularist advocates argue, is merely exercising his Fundamental Right to freedom of expression, he is merely giving form to his artistic, creative urge. The first question is: How come the freedom and creative urge of the thousands and thousands of artists our country has have never led even one of them to ever paint or draw a picture of Prophet Muhammad in which his face is manifest? I am not on the point of dress or undress, the features could have been made as celestial and handsome as our artists could have imagined -- why is it that they never got the urge to draw or sculpt even the handsomest representation of the Prophet?

The rationalization is that doing so would have hurt the religious sentiments of the Muslims, the Prophet himself having forbidden all representations. The reason, as distinct from the rationalization, is different: were an artist to make such a representation Muslims would be ignited by their controllers to riot, they would not let that artist live in peace thereafter.

Notice first that in the lexicon of those who are shouting for Hussein the point about not hurting religious sentiments manifestly does not apply to the Hindus: in their case the alternate principle of the right of the artist to paint as he pleases takes precedence. The Hindus notice this duality more and more.

Indeed they notice the length to which some are prepared to exercise their right to give full rein to their creative urge, disregarding what Hindus might feel as a consequence. As recently as August last year, the art gallery of the INDIA TODAY group, ART TODAY held an exhibition of "modern Indian miniatures". Prominent among the paintings on display was one that showed a naked ( that is, completely naked ) Radha astride a naked ( that is, completely naked ) Lord Krishna -- the two fornicating in a garden. Posters with this painting prominently featured were put up inviting viewers to the gallery. The August, 1995 issue of the magazine, INDIA TODAY carried an advertisement -- urging readers to purchase prints of paintings which were on display at the gallery, the advertisement too featured prominently the same painting of Radha laying Lord Krishna in a garden. Some persons protested. No one heeded them. A demonstration was then held outside the gallery, the demonstrators entered the gallery. The painting was taken down. Friends who heard of the incident denounced the demonstrators: "Hindu bigots", "The saffron brigade on the look-out for issues," "Fascist goons who want to impose their constipated brand of Hinduism on everyone." To establish the principle, and even more to demonstrate the scorn in which they held "these goons" another publication, 'The India Magazine', as demonstrative about its secular credentials, put that very painting on its cover. That this was done with full knowledge that doing so was likely to offend others is evident from the fact that, simultaneously with putting the painting on the cover, the person most prominently associated with 'The India Magazine' applied for anticipatory bail.

Now, the collections of hadis contain scores and scores of descriptions of the Prophet, as they contain accounts -- accounts in the words and on the testimony of the Prophet's wives themselves -- about his relations with his wives; how is it that none of our artists have ever felt the creative urge to portray even accurately any of those descriptions, to say nothing of these magazines ever inviting their readers to purchase colorful reproductions of the paintings or putting the paintings on their covers and posters. Indeed I have not the least doubt that if they received even an article -- which, after all, can never be as tantalizing as a Hussein painting -- an article which did no more than reproduce verbatim those accounts, they would refuse to print it: all the great principles about not hurting the religious sentiments of others, all the provisions of law -- sections 153A, 295A, 298 -- will be invoked in justification. But when it comes to a painting of a naked Radha astride a naked Lord Krishna fornicating in a garden, carrying it in advertisements, putting that on the cover is a Fundamental Right, to object to it is to throttle an artist's right to give expression to his creative urge.

It is not the freedom of expression these worthies are committed to. They are committed to their having freedom alone: can you recall a single liberal protesting against the ban on Ram Swarup's Understanding Islam Through Hadis -- a book so scrupulously academic that it was but a paraphrase of the Sahih Muslim, one of the canonical compilations of hadis -- to say nothing of any one of them deigning to put in a word against goondas -- claiming to represent the Muslims -- who tried to get at me in Hyderabad or the goondas -- claiming to speak for the other lot these worthies champion, the "Dalits" -- who did get at me in Pune? Not one deigned to do so. They are not the champions and practitioners of free speech, they are the practitioners of a very special brand of the dialectic: Strong to the weak, Weak to the strong. And that is what the Hindus are noticing: neither the gallery nor the magazine spared a thought for the religious sentiments it might offend till the "goons" marched into the gallery, but they had but to march in and the painting was immediately taken down; Hussein was all defiance one day, but the moment some paintings of his were burnt, he was suddenly sorry....

"But nude representations are a part of our tradition. Look at Konark, look at Khajuraho," the advocates have been shouting. But what has the figure of a woman being had by a dog in Konark have to do with worship ? What basis is there for declaring the women portrayed there are Saraswati or Sita or Lakshmi ? And then, as a reader points out, there is the other consideration : depicting women completely naked has for centuries been very much a part of European painting and sculpture tradition; but do the artists not stop at using this tradition for portraying Virgin Mary naked?

And as for Saraswati being depicted naked, her image is set out in our iconography, in the mantras by which we invoke her; in all these she is referred to as "....yaa shubhra vastraavritaa....", as one "draped in white". That white dress draping her is one of the four distinguishing marks of representations of Goddess Saraswati -- the other three being that she holds beads in one hand, a book in another and the vina in a third.

"But I have every right to portray her as I will," a secular friend protested when I repeated to him this iconographic description to which one of the best known and sagacious authorities on our art had drawn my attention. Assume you do, but then you can't simultaneously claim that what you are doing is in accord with that tradition. Second, if painting Goddess Saraswati naked is an intrinsic part of our tradition because sundry women have been depicted naked and fornicating in Khajuraho and Konark, then, my dear friend, what about the Dasham Granth of Guru Govind Singh and its 300 treyi chitra? How come not one of you has ever been stirred by his creative urge to put on canvas any of those -- most vivid and vigourous -- pen-portraits? Is the work of Guru Govind Singh any less a part of the Sikh tradition than the Gita Govind? What about the scores and scores of hadis I mentioned earlier ? Alongside the Quran, they are not just any old element of Islam, they are the very foundation. Let us see you affirm the right of artists to depict images -- not imagined ones, not ones that depart from the mantras as the painting in question does, just the most scrupulously faithful and exact images -- of what is described therein.

The next argument of our artists and intellectuals is just as much a manufacture of convenience: "All our religions, everything about our past is the common heritage of all of us, it belongs to each of us equally," they have been saying. This presumably has been done to preempt those who would say that Hussein is particularly in the wrong to have painted Hindu goddesses naked because he is a Muslim. Fine. But how come so many of you are up in arms when I write on Islamic law? In particular, how come you work up such a fury even though, unlike a painter, I am not conjuring up an image and am instead documenting every single sentence and paragraph with the exact text of the sacred works of Islam? What happens at that time to this principle of all our religions and everything in our past being the common heritage that belongs to each one of us equally? Then these very magazines and intellectuals are full of sanctimonious sermons: If members of one religion start commenting on the practices and beliefs of other religions, there will be hell to pay, they proclaim.

It is this double-standard which outrages the Hindus more and more, it is this which these inchoate outbursts are revolts against.

Many Hindus also notice the other thing -- the one I mentioned as the reason as against the rationalization for no artist ever being galvanized by the creative urge when it comes to painting the features of the Prophet. They notice that the artists do not do so, not because these masters cannot do so, nor because their muse never goads them in this direction, but because they know that, were they to do so, they would be set upon. And that the State -- which is weak, and which also has internalized the same double-standards to rationalize its weakness -- will not come to their rescue. Therefore, more and more Hindus are concluding that we too should acquire the same reputation, we too should acquire the same capacity. In a word, three things are teaching the Hindus to become Islamic: the double-standards of the secularists and the State, the demonstrated success of the Muslims in bending both the State and the secularists by intimidation, and the fact that both the State and the secularists pay attention to the sentiments of Hindus only when the Hindus become a little Islamic.

The secularists' shout, "But these things destroy the very basis of our culture." The Hindus see that argument as being no better than the Devil quoting the Scripture, or, to put it in words the secularists would find more persuasive, than my quoting the Quran: for they know that these are the very persons who have been deriding them for living a life rooted in that culture, they are the ones who have been denouncing that culture and every thing associated with it -- the idols, the beliefs, the rituals -- as being nothing but devices which the Brahmins have forged to perpetuate inequity, to perpetuate exploitation of the poor masses.

The arguments of the secularists therefore are mere pretense. Yet I believe that it was plain wrong to break the window-panes and burn the paintings. Free speech is vital for our country. If it is curbed, what will be killed is not a painting but reform -- for all reform offends as it is a voice against the way things are at that moment. I believe that even if one's singular concern is Hinduism and its rehabilitation, free speech is the best guarantee: the more Eastern religions -- Hinduism, Buddhism and others -- are subjected to critical inquiry the more their luminescent essence shines forth; by contrast the Semitic religions -- down to Marxism-Leninism -- wither at the first exposure to exegesis and inquiry: and the controllers of these religions have been very conscious of this, that is why they have for centuries together put inquiry down with a lethal hand. The twin principles which the champions of Hussein's right to paint as he will have been proclaiming are the exact pincer which will work -- the principle that there must be freedom of speech and that every religion, and the principle that every aspect of our past is the common heritage of each of us equally. All we should ensure is that these principles hold good for all equally. And when someone paints like Hussein did in this instance, instead of burning his paintings we should use them to document the double-standards which mar current policies and discourse, and demand that either the standard apply to all or to none. Thus : education, not burning; parity, not suppression.

In Hussein's case in particular, I feel that the youngsters who took offence missed a very vital point -- not just about his painting but about his life. He is and has continued to be a Muslim. Now, as anyone who has read anything about the Prophet knows, the Prophet cursed and detested those who made representations of things. He put pictures at par with dogs, and, remember, he had all dogs killed. "The angels do not enter a house," he declared on the authority of the angel, Gabriel, "which contains a dog or pictures." Abu Huraira, the source of a large proportion of the hadis, states that God's Messenger narrated that Gabriel had promised to visit him one day but didn't turn up, and so, when he came the next day, the Prophet inquired as to what had happened. Gabriel, the Prophet narrated, said, "I came to you last night and was prevented from entering simply by the fact that there were images at the door, for there was a figured curtain with images on it and there was a dog in the house. So, order that the head of the image which is at the door of the house be cut off so that it may become like the form of a tree; order that the curtain be cut up and made into two cushions spread out on which people may tread; and order that the dog be put out." "God's Messenger," the hadis concludes, "then did so." His wife, Aisha tells us, "The Prophet never left in his house anything containing figures of a cross without destroying it." She recalls how the Prophet reprimanded her for two cushions she had made because they contained pictures. The Prophet declared that those who made representations of things "will receive the severest punishment on the day of resurrection," that "Everyone who makes representations of things will go to hell." He declared them to be "the worst of God's creatures." He put them at par with "the one who kills a prophet, or who is killed by a prophet, or kills one of his parents." [ Several other hadis, and of course several instances can be cited; for the few which have been quoted see, Mishkat Al-Masabih, Muhammad Ashraf, Lahore, Volume II, Book XXI, Chapter V, pp. 940-44. ]

Hussein on the contrary has made painting images his very life. Therefore, in a very deep sense, his entire life is an endeavour to open an aperture in that wall of prohibitions. It has been a banner for liberalism, indeed for liberation.

In sum, I am for Hussein, not for his champions;

The position which Hussein's champions have taken up is just the one which our society needs;

We should hold them to their word, and have them stick by it in the case of one and all;

And we should await the day when their muse will lead them to exercise their creative urge, "that one talent which is death to hide," paint as freely and with as much abandon themes from all our religions and traditions.

Finally, a forecast : the more the secularists insist on double-standards, the more Islamic will the Hindus become.