Manoj Joshi's blog

In supporting Rushdie, don't throw out the Jaipur Lit Fest bathwater

2012-01-26T17:03:00.000+05:30

In 1996, in a book release in Washington DC, I posed this question to Salman Rushdie: You have been born a Muslim, and you knew the reaction something like The Satanic Verses would have in the community. So why did you write it?” Rushdie was a bit taken aback, and his somewhat fumbling response was anodyne— about coming to terms with himself and the faith he was born into and so on. Many Indians

BREAKDOWN

2012-01-18T12:31:00.000+05:30

The VK Singh age issue is an extraordinary saga of victimhood. Army Chief General VK Singh says that he is a victim, though, since he reached the highest rank he could, it is not easy to discover just what he has lost. The government feels that it is the victim in a case which seems to be an outcome of internal politics in the Army. Actually the big losers are the people of the country who had,

Don't talk up Chinese enmity

2012-01-14T18:19:00.000+05:30

At first sight, we should not expect much on the Sino-Indian front in 2012. This is, after all, the year in which the Chinese leadership will have its decennial turnover. The highly successful team of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao will give way to the untested and relatively unknown Xi Jinping and Le Keqiang. In the Hu-Wen period we came tantalisingly close to a border settlement in the 2003-2005

My take on the Pakistani developments

2012-01-12T16:01:00.003+05:30

Pakistan is not your average democracy. Its military wields uncommon power, though formally it claims that it functions under the constitution of Pakistan. There are times when this fiction comes apart, and this is one of them. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani may have erred in pulling up the Army brass — Army Chief Pervez Ashfaq Kayani and ISI Chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha — for bypassing the

In 2012, fight fear and win

2012-01-04T17:12:00.000+05:30

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States, said it just right. Taking over the presidency at the depth of the Great Depression of the 1930s, he declared, in his inaugural address, that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” In many ways that statement sums up the outlook of the world in the coming year. More than anything, fear seems to have paralysed

2012 brings hope for Congresss Party's future

2011-12-27T16:15:00.000+05:30

Who will deny that 2011 has been the Congress party’s annus horribilis? From a party that actually enhanced its position in the 2009 general elections, it was, by 2011, a shambolic collection of politicians trying to play politics. Remarkably, however, 2012 offers hope, not because the economy will suddenly recover, but because of a possible conjunction of events that could be triggered by a

Our Cinderella, the LCA, must step out

2011-12-18T09:35:00.001+05:30

It has been called the "Last Chance Aircraft", and worse. Its designers and developers have been excoriated for endless delays. But the time has come to say it: In the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), India may finally have a winner. We say "may" because the "last mile" is often the most difficult one to cross. This requires first, an emphatic ownership of the step-child by its primary

"Victors" can become victims of the endgame

2011-12-14T17:14:00.000+05:30

The breakdown in the US relations with Pakistan could well have a positive outcome. It could have the effect of tearing the veil of hypocrisy in the AfPak situation, and focus the attention of the world on the real problem—Pakistan. The danger from the US walking away from Afghanistan would be the civil war it could unleash in that hapless country, and, the certainty that its territory would be

My review of Martin Van Creveld's The Age of Airpower

2011-12-08T15:42:00.004+05:30

At a time when India is on a major drive to develop one of the most powerful air forces by the year 2020, this study questions the utility and the logic of air power in modern warfare WITHIN a matter of weeks India is expected to take a decision to buy 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA). The original approval was for aircraft worth $8.52 billion, the current estimate, for

2011-12-08T15:42:00.001+05:30

Punish the murderers in uniform

2011-12-01T17:24:00.000+05:30

A Special Investigation Team set up by the Gujarat High Court has confirmed what has long been known: That 19-year old Ishrat Jehan, her employer, Javed Shaikh, and two others were murdered on June 15, 2004 by the Gujarat police, rather than being gunned down in an encounter as the police claimed. A magisterial inquiry in 2009 conducted by S.P. Tamang, too, came to the conclusion that the four

The State of the Matter

2011-11-26T18:22:00.000+05:30

So far the honours for the Uttar Pradesh sweepstakes are even. If Rahul Gandhi has pitched himself to show that the Congress is the Bahujan Samaj Party’s main opponent by his “angry young man” act, Mayawati has come back with a googly— the proposal to split the state into four—stumping the Congress. The game is far from over, but you are at least sure that you will get some high quality, high

Is it possible to have a secure cyber universe ?

2011-11-23T18:00:00.000+05:30

Last week, in a hotel in a Washington DC suburb, the US Defense Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA) hosted a symposium. The goal was to reach out to the geek community to find a solution to a problem that seems to be on the top of many minds—cyber security. It was clear from the remarks of the leaders of the Pentagon’s far-out research agency, that as of now they have run out of ideas for ways to

AFSPA rollback makes sense

2011-11-16T16:49:00.001+05:30

Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram has done well to clarify that the exercise of lifting the Armed Forces Special Powers Act was initiated by the Cabinet Committee on Security, and is not being done on a whim by Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. Not surprisingly, the CCS is working on a political agenda aimed at restoring normalcy in the state, and the idea of lifting the heavy hand

Lessons from Bush's terrible blunder

2011-11-05T17:32:00.000+05:30

The American decision to withdraw from Iraq brings to an end a sorry episode of recent world history, where a country was rent apart by a superpower on the basis of delusion, and perhaps deceit. The Americans do not go as victors, and neither can the hapless Iraqis see themselves as such, even though the forcibly altered paradigm has led to the Shia majority coming into their own in what is now a

Statues will not assure Mayawati immortality

2011-10-28T17:36:00.000+05:30

It is difficult to take issue with Mayawati for her monuments, never mind their huge cost. She is only following in the footsteps of past rulers and leaders. At least she built her own National Dalit Memorial and Green Park. Jawaharlal Nehru’s daughter simply appropriated the prime minister’s official residence, a Lutyens-era building, converting it into a monument for the first prime minister of

We need a better policy of openness

2011-10-24T14:59:00.000+05:30

Recently, Law Minister Salman Khurshid moaned that the Right to Information Act (RTI) was creating problems for “institutional efficiency and efficacy” of the government. He went on to add that the government had “no regrets” in having brought the Act. “But then too much of RTI work is hitting the working of government departments” and the time had come to see how “we can make it more effective

Everybody loves an entitlement in India

2011-10-15T15:58:00.000+05:30

So, our politically correct activists have forced Planning Commission Chairman, Montek Singh Ahluwalia to eat crow. They have got him to accept that a statistical device through which poverty is measured in India will not be the means of determining who is provided entitlements. Actually it was never intended to be so and it is good that Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has

Pakistan versus America

2011-10-10T16:10:00.000+05:30

Looked at in any way, the situation is intriguing. Here is a country which is dependent on the United States and the world to the extent of an aid package of $4.4 billion in 2010 alone. It is besieged by jihadis from within. Yet, not only does it encourage jihadis to attack its neighbours, but its principal benefactor, the United States, as well. Indeed, now the US says that it is not merely

A suicidal path on nuclear energy

2011-10-03T16:24:00.000+05:30

There seems to be something contrived in the anti-nuclear agitations that have come to life in the country. This is the time when the India’s enormous fifty-year old investments in nuclear energy, as well as diplomacy related to nuclear energy, are about to pay off. It is true that the Fukushima disaster has shaken up not just Japan, but the entire world. But any fair analysis of the incident

Where are the leaders when you need them ?

2011-09-21T18:45:00.000+05:30

It is difficult to define what leadership is. Some may say it is the social influence you exercise to attain a particular goal, others say it is instinctive, exercised by the leader of a wolf pack or a silverback gorilla. Others see it simply as a management skill, to be taught and learnt. Most people would put it down to influence, and throw in words like “charisma” for good measure. But they

Making sense of Wikileaks

2011-09-15T15:46:00.002+05:30

The Indian media has devoted a great deal of space and air time on the revelations from the hundreds of cables that were put on the internet by Julian Assange and Co. What is it that fascinates about the information? There are the odd comments on people and their foibles, but maybe it is the frank mirror they show to our society that’s so engaging. Or, it is the perverse thrill of reading

The death sentence cannot be a lottery

2011-09-07T17:23:00.000+05:30

Omar Abdullah is not wrong. Had the Jammu & Kashmir State Assembly passed a resolution recommending the commutation of the death sentence of Afzal Guru, convicted for his role in the conspiracy to attack Parliament in December 2001, the Bharatiya Janata Party— and a certain muscular TV channel— would have gone apoplectic. As it is, a mere tweet by Mr Abdullah posing that question has them

Parliament needs to work to be taken seriously

2011-09-02T15:42:00.000+05:30

There is something hubristic about the outcome of the stand-off between Anna Hazare and the government. It was just two years ago, when the United Progressive Alliance won the general elections and formed its second government. Shorn of the Left’s embrace, and buoyant over the handling of the global economic crisis, there were expectations that we were in some kind of a take-off stage. Today, we

Congress is at war with institutions

2011-08-17T17:51:00.000+05:30

What is it about the contemporary Congress party, that it has a penchant for undermining and destroying institutions, rather than creating and nurturing them? The attack on the Comptroller and Auditor General is of a piece, as is its earlier strike on the venerable, if ineffectual, Public Accounts Committee. If the Congress party had its back to the wall, it would have been understandable. But

India is courting a political default

2011-08-11T17:30:00.000+05:30

So, the United States has managed to escape a default by a whisker. With the extreme liberals and the Tea Party hawks holding out, the centre of the US political system had to unite to ensure that a measured, though interim, solution was put in place to cope with the country’s massive debt. Closer home, however, India, too, is close to default, but of a political kind. After the washed out winter

Dirty bombs remain a big worry in terrorism

2011-08-01T17:43:00.000+05:30

The recent bomb blasts in Mumbai and last Friday’s terrible carnage in Oslo show that the plague of terrorism is, if anything, intensifying. Sooner, unfortunately, rather than later, the world community must confront the possibility of the use of nuclear, chemical or biological agents in a terrorist act. Counter-terrorism experts, whether in India, or abroad, worry a great deal about the

Fortress India stands on a foundation of sand

2011-07-26T17:12:00.000+05:30

The Lashkar-e-Tayyeba’s attack on Mumbai in November 2008 is a watershed in the history of India’s efforts to fight terrorism. The Bombay blasts of 1993 had been facilitated by the landing of RDX and weapons off the Konkan coast, yet it was only after 26/11 that the issue of coastal security was seriously addressed. At the central level, there was a flurry of activity as a new and ambitious

Pills that won't cure the government's ills

2011-07-23T15:59:00.000+05:30

When the body, as much as the body politic, is ill, it sometimes needs to take a bitter medicine. With apologies to those who believe in alternative medicine, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has, in the anodyne reshuffle he has conducted, taken recourse to passing out those little sweet pills that homeopaths are known to dish out. They can, at best, be a placebo, but they are unlikely to cure the

Salwa Judum is bad in law, and worse as policy

2011-07-13T16:38:00.000+05:30

The Supreme Court order banning outfits like the Salwa Judum ought to enable us to rethink how we deal with threats to the authority of the state and the security of the citizens of the country. The prevailing Westphalian state system has come with its corollary—that the state has a monopoly on violence. Under its domain, sedition, murder, and even lesser crimes, can lead to a legal execution

Build an air force for the real world

2011-07-08T14:48:00.000+05:30

The reported request to the government by the Indian Air Force to nominate Air Vice Marshal M Matheswaran as the Chairman and Managing Director of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) is not as revolutionary a proposal as it appears at first, though it is an eminently sensible one. Actually, barring the last couple of heads of the HAL, it was the IAF that provided the talent for the top job. A

Time to leash India's spy agencies

2011-06-24T17:15:00.000+05:30

There is an old Greek saying: Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. I wonder whether it applies to nations as well. If that is so, it would lend the crazy events that have been happening in the country in 2011 with a much more dangerous edge. It all began quietly with the Lokepal-Jokepal drama where a bunch of civil society activists hijacked the legislative functions of

The populist road to perdition

2011-06-18T17:19:00.000+05:30

The passing away of MF Husain has brought forth a national angst about the not-so-secret fact that we have become an increasingly intolerant people. It has also provided a terrible mirror for us to face ourselves as we are, rather than as we think we are. Indians pride themselves on their tolerance, but the truth is somewhat more complicated. The harassment of Husain, the vandalising of cinema

Saviours robed in saffron

2011-06-11T18:28:00.000+05:30

Other countries have a man on the horseback, who comes at the crucial hour to save the nation, India has had the man in saffron. The men on horseback are worldly wise, but our Indian saviours are different. Unlike their counterparts in the other parts of the world—the reborn Bolivar, the imagined Lenin and the Mahdi— the Indian is usually a person who shuns the material world and insists that

A bigger threat from Pakistan

2011-06-07T15:48:00.000+05:30

In all the tumult and alarums of the last three months in Pakistan, a grave and threatening development seems to have slipped under our radar screens. Ordinarily, the ballistic missile called Nasr, with a range of 60 kilometres, would not be particularly threatening considering Pakistan’s multi-layered missile arsenal that covers most of India and beyond. Indeed, in terms of range it is much

Flawed Security

2011-05-28T18:06:00.000+05:30

It has now been two and a half years since the horrific terrorist attack in Mumbai that took the lives of 166 people and shook the country to its core. The attack also coincided with the last of the bomb blasts triggered by the so-called Indian Mujahideen, a set of radicalised Indian Muslim young men who have since been killed, or are in jail facing terrorism charges. Since then, barring one or

Why Osama bin Laden had to die

2011-05-25T18:33:00.000+05:30

Given his role in the killing of thousands of innocent people, it is remarkable that the death of Osama bin Laden, at the hands of American Special Forces at his Abbottabad hideaway, is generating so much heat. Some of the angst is natural, coming as it does from his relatives and supporters. In other instances, terrorism experts and commentators have debated whether the killing would impact on

Help Pakistan, despite its own follies

2011-05-21T17:49:00.000+05:30

It has been more than a week since the killing of Osama bin Laden, but the furore it has created simply refuses to die down. Mostly, of course, the tumult is now a great deal about Pakistan’s bluster, matched evenly by Indian bravado. It doesn’t take much to see where Islamabad is coming from. A country which has made mendacity an intrinsic part of its national policy is compelled to rant when

A note on Special Forces

2011-05-12T16:24:00.000+05:30