16 hindustantimes
SAT U RDAY, J U NE 02, 2018
e sta b l i s h e d i n 1 9 24
§
Encourage local, thirdeye
BARKHA DUTT
regional talent Regionalism, not secularism, is
Ilaiyaraja proves that the best is
not always found in Bollywood
the new pivot of Indian politics
B
roadly speaking, anything Indian — food, music,
clothes, cinema — always tends to mean a sort of
standard north Indian, generic Hindi-ish thing. Like The party that will be hurt the most by the
curry (whatever that may be), there is something ascent of the state parties is the Congress
about the mainstream that is mostly Hindi-speaking
A
and definitely belongs to a region in India that can only be classi- t a recent panel discussion to
launch a book of essays by sen-
fied as north. This is as true within India as it is for the diaspora iorlawyerandCongressspokes-
person, Abhishek Singhvi, I
and the wider world at large. One of the exceptions proving the
pushed the speakers to define
rule is the prolific Tamil music director
Ilaiyaraja, whose music has found its
ourtake what“secularism”is.Singhvi’s
introductorychapteridentifiessecularismas
the first principle of Indian democracy. As a
way out of the south to sway listeners around the country, and philosophicalnotionofdiversityandaconsti-
tutional guarantee of equality, of course I
around the world. Today — his 75th birthday — is a good day per- entirely agree. It is what makes India unique
haps to take a break from the Bollywood mainstream to explore and wonderful.
But I was more interested in exploring
what is sometimes patronisingly called regional work. whether it still holds as a marker of political
Ilaiyaraja, in the south, is about as mainstream as it gets. differentiation. Hasn’t secularism become
corroded and compromised as an electoral
Before AR Rahman broke into the national consciousness, and slogan?
DineshTrivedioftheTrinamoolCongress
long before Kolaveri Di, Ilaiyaraja composed Rakkamma kaiyya
retorted — rather candidly — “This secular-
thattu for Mani Ratnam’s Rajinikanth-starrer Thalapathi. In ism debate is all politics.” He wasn’t dissing
the idea of religious pluralism which he said
2002, it was voted the fourth most popular song ever in the world was innate to India; his remark was on the
in a BBC poll. From Nayakan’s haunting Thenpandi Cheemayile electoral squabble over the word.
But perhaps nothing illustrates the fact
which he sang, to Agni Natchatriram’s Raja Rajadhi Raja in that the old political silos no longer apply
which he has used only percussion instruments, Ilaiyaraja’s than the meeting between his party’s boss
Mamata Banerjee and the Shiva Sena’s
innovations in popular music have been loved by critics and fans Uddhav Thackeray. Unlike his father,
alike for almost five decades. His experiments with the fusion of Uddhav is someone I have often described as
“thereluctantfundamentalist”.Butnotwith-
western styles, with both classical and folk traditions of India, standinghisseemingdiscomfortwiththetra-
ditional militant parochialism of his party, it
have rightfully won him accolades around the world. Having
would be hard for anyone to call the Sena a
composed over 7,000 songs and scored more than a 1,000 movies, secular force. Yet, an unfazed West Bengal
chiefministersaidshe“respectsShivSena;no
his legacy as one of India’s finest composers is not in doubt. one is more communal than the BJP”. Since
As we celebrate the music and art of Ilaiyaraja on his 75th then,Uddhavhasbecomeanunlikelyrallying
force for the anti-Modi federal front, even
birthday, we must also consider all those composers, singers and thoughhe hasn’t yet leftthe alliancewith the
artists who the mainstream has not been able to discover. Even in BJP in Maharashtra.
Themessageisclear:therhetoricnotwith-
today’s world of YouTube ubiquity and social media, only the standing, in the run-up to 2019, the pivot
viral seems to have any value. Those who don’t have the where-
withal to go viral may never even rise out of the depths of ano-
nymity and perhaps even penury. Some of the blame for that must far&near
be shouldered by us — the public — and also by the producers of
that genre of popular music euphemistically referred to as item KANISHK THAROOR
numbers. Encouraging local, regional talent means broadening
Why Americans won’t
our horizons beyond the mainstream, buying the work of talent
outside Bollywood, and promoting it. Ilaiyaraja’s work is proof
give up their guns
that the best work of all is not always found in Bollywood.
lineofsight JAYACHANDRAN In the United States, the weapon is a talisman
of rugged virtue in the face of a changing world
E
venthoughIliveandhavegrownup
intheUnitedStates,Iremainaper-
plexed outsider when it comes to
one of the defining features of
American culture: its obsession
with guns.According to theSmallArmsSur-
vey,48%ofthesupposedly650millionprivate-
ly-owned guns in the world are in the United
States.Forevery 100Americans, there are89
guns. (At 46 million weapons, India has the
secondlargeststockpileofprivateguns,butit
ranks a lowly 107th in the world in terms of
gunspercapita.)Amorerecentstudysuggests
therearenowmore privategunsthan people
in America.
Those numbers are imprecise in part
because guns are so loosely controlled in the
UnitedStates.The“epidemic”ofschoolshoot-
ingsinthiscountrycontinuesunabated,most
recently in Noblesville, Indiana, on May 25.
Every shooting leads to a similar debate, pit-
ting advocates for gun control against those
who demand gun rights. But empirically,
there are no grounds for debate. After mass
jayachandran.n@livemint.com shootingsinSwitzerland,Australia,andGer-
What a Trump-Kim
as shorter-range missiles that would be
used in an attack on Japan or South Korea.
North Korea could also agree to limit the
size of its stockpile of fissile material used
deal may look like for making nuclear weapons. Such a move
would need to be accompanied by credible
verification measures and assurances that
North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear plant had
come may be an agreement to keep talking. ceased production. The facility also could
DAVIDTWEED Under such a deal, North Korea could be slated for eventual dismantlement.
BLOOMBERG OPINION announce an extended moratorium on Trump could offer Kim relief from the
nuclear and missile testing in exchange for tightest economic sanctions the US has
T
he on-again, off-again summit modest sanctions relief. The US may also imposed on North Korea in decades. He
between US President Donald want any agreement to explicitly mention could also reduce the number of US troops
Trump and North Korean leader shorter-range missiles so as not to jeopar- in South Korea, and agree to limit the size
Kim Jong Un now appears increas- dise alliances with Japan and South Korea, and scope of its military exercises. North
ingly likely to take place — but it’s not yet both of which are vulnerable to attack. Korea would likely be expected to curtail its
clear what kind of agreement, if any, the Denuclearisation is the biggest sticking military drills in return.
two leaders will be able to reach. point. To do so, they would need to emerge The biggest risk for the US is that Trump
North Korea has ruled out the so-called with “a clear sense of what the diplomatic simply concedes too much in return for too
“Libya model” where it loads its nuclear pathway is” for achieving complete and little, limiting leverage for pushing future
programme on to planes bound for the US verifiable denuclearisation, said Mira steps toward denuclearisation. Past deals
right away, with Kim saying Thursday the Rapp-Hooper, senior research scholar at have fallen apart due to disputes over
issue should be “solved on a stage-by-stage Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center. inspections and the delivery of promised
basis”. Trump insists that the end goal is AgooddealfortheUSwouldeliminateor economic aid. And implementation of any
denuclearisation, but has left the door open cap production of North Korea’s classes of deal is likely to stretch beyond the term of
to a phased approach. The most likely out- intercontinental ballistic missiles as well Trump, who can stay in power until Janu-
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MANAGING EDITOR: SOUMYA BHATTACHARYA
comment
around which the non-BJP parties will orga-
nisethemselveswillberegionalismandfeder-
alism —andnotsecularism.Theanti-Naren-
draModisentimentamongthesestatesatraps
is higher than an anti-BJP ideology per se. In
anycase,mostoftheregionalpoliticalprotag-
onistshavehadalliancesandunderstandings
with the BJP in the past. Naveen Patnaik,
MamataBanerjee,NitishKumar,Mayawati,
N Chandrababu Naidu, K Chandrasekhar
Rao have all either been in alliance with the
BJP or showered praise on its leadership at
different points of time.
NitishKumar’sJanataDalUnited—stung
by three consecutive losses to the Tejashwi
Yadav-led RJD — has begun to murmur
its disenchantment with the BJP, amid
rumours that a faction could split under
Sharad Yadav. In fact, nothing better repre-
sents the demise of secularism as a meaning-
ful political slogan more than the Bihar
chief minister’s fickleness. Nitish was hailed
by liberals as a secular alternative to Modi.
Lastyear,beforeNitishwalkedintothearms
oftheBJP,historianRamachandraGuhasug-
gested that the Congress back Nitish as its
prime ministerial candidate. “He is a leader
withoutaparty,”Guhatoldme,”andtheCon-
gressisapartywithoutaleader.”Butneither
Nitish’salliancewiththeBJP,norhissecond
exit, should it come later this year, will have
anythingtodowithsecularismoranantithet-
ical ideology. His decisions will be a by-prod-
uct of realpolitik.
The Opposition’s win in Kairana has
offered a ready blueprint for what lies ahead
— alliances, arithmetic and an attempt to
make the elections as local as Modi will try
and make them presidential. On this chess-
board ofmoves — anddespite Jayant Chaud-
hary’smemorablewinningline—Ganna,not
Jinnah — the organising principle of the
many, tighter gun laws and outright bans on
guns have seen precipitous falls in the num-
bers of such episodes. Other countries share
theAmericanloveforviolentvideogamesand
have similar failures in their mental health-
care systems. All countries have people who
are lonely, hateful, destructive and self-de-
structive.Buttheydon’thavetoendurethese
massacres so often because guns aren’t as
readily available.
I have never fired a gun, never held a gun,
or ever desired a gun. In my circle of friends
and colleagues, I don’t know anybody who
owns one. Frankly, I don’t see why anybody
should own any kind of gun without an
explicit licensed reasonto do so (to hunt,per-
haps, or to ward off aggressive bears in the
woods).
That flies in the face of deeply held convic-
tionsinAmerica.Manygun-rightsadvocates
argue that guns don’t simply keep them safe;
they keep society free. The second amend-
ment of the US constitution enshrines the
right“tokeepandbeararms.”Thegoalofthis
18th century amendment was to sanction
ary 2025 if he manages to win re-election,
while Kim faces no term limits.
The two leaders might even bond, which
could be more decisive than any written
declaration, according to William McKin-
ney, a retired Army colonel who spent
more than 40 years involved in U.S.-Korea
military relations and planning. There’s
still a risk the meeting never even happens,
and if it does, it could simply fall apart.
Trump’s mercurial negotiating approach
has yet to prove effective in reaching new
deals on the global stage — if anything so
far he’s proved far more adept at cancelling
agreements than creating them.
Trump risks being cast as the spoiler if
he pushes too hard. “If Trump gets a big
piece of the nuclear pie of North Korea and
he turns it down, there’s a risk that we’ll
look like we were the stubborn belligerent
party, and North Korea was the reasonable
party”, said Patrick Cronin, director of the
Center for a New America Security’s Asia-
Pacific security programme.
(The article was co­authored by
Toluse Olorunnipa and Justin Sink)
The views expressed are personal
H I NDU STAN TI MES, NEW D ELH I
n (L to R): RLD leader Ajit Singh, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, CPI(M) general secretary
Sitaram Yechury, Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy, RLD leader Tejashwi Yadav
and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav, Bengaluru, May 23
arrangement of power will be regional blocs,
caste calculations and the cementing of anti-
Modi calculations. Don’t be surprised if the
Shiv Sena joins such a federal front officially
revealingthattheoldrulesofsecularismhave
changed. No one is a political pariah any
more. And the traditional notions of Left vs
Right have collapsed.
The party that will be hurt the most by the
ascent of regional forces and their localised
identities will be the Congress. For years the
Congress has argued that the fundamental
difference between it and the BJP is that it is
secular. But now —unless winsin Rajasthan
andMadhyaPradeshcantiltthescales—the
Congress not just has to play second fiddle in
n Protestors demanding gun control in
Sacramento, California, March 24 REUTERS
local militias as checks on the overweening
central authority of the state. According to a
2017Pewstudy,84%ofAmericangunowners
think that their right to arms is an essential
partoftheirfreedom,asimportantasfreedom
ofspeech,therighttoprivacy,andtherightto
vote. An armed citizenry, they insist, curbs
theState’smonopolyonthemeansofviolence,
making an abusive government less likely.
That is a nonsensical position in the mod-
ernage. Thepowersof a 21stcenturygovern-
mentfaroutstripits18thcenturyequivalent.
For an armed citizenry to be able to muster a
proportionate check on the state’s military
power,theywouldneedtanksandfighterjets,
not just semi-automatic weapons and reams
ofbullets.Yetthesecondamendmentdoesn’t
grantaccesstothosekindsofmachinesofwar.
Moreover, what can guns do to guarantee
freedom from the excesses of a technological
state?Gunswon’tprotectyoufromtheState’s
For success in life, put blinkers
on your eyes and march forward
innervoice
Ashutosh Varshney
We all have hopes and dreams that we
want to achieve; for this, we need to focus
straight ahead on our goal without any
distraction. It is hard to completely elimi-
nate the distractions from life, but one
can put on the blinkers. Just like on
horses, blinkers stop us from looking left
or right, and instead focusing on the goal.
In the race of our life, if we do not use
blinkers, you’ll end up following the
advice of many people, incorporating
their ideas and following many paths for
PTI
arainbowcoalitionofregionalparties;italso
hastoacceptthatthesestateforceswillsetthe
narrative.Mostlikelythepoliticalfaultlinein
2019 will be Hindutva vs Caste disruptions.
The Congress displayed its confusion on
thesecularismissuebyshowingvisibleanxi-
ety about the Right-wing labelling it anti-
Hindu and pro-Muslim. It’s slightly vague
attempttobeHinduLitetotheBJP’shardHin-
dutva hasn’t got it significant gains yet. As it
wraps its head around how best to define a
new version of secularism — different from
the Nehruvian ideal — the regional parties
have bypassed the question altogether.
Barkha Dutt is an award­winning journalist and author
The views expressed are personal
expandedsystemsofknowledgeandcontrol.
Pulling a trigger can’t stop the State from lis-
tening in on phone calls, tracking Internet
search behaviour, monitoring private bank
activity, and so forth. The 18th century mus-
ketmayhaveablydefendedphysicalproperty
from overbearing government officers, but
gunshaveno realrolein protecting ourmod-
ern freedoms.
Curiously, in decades past, Americans
wereless ideologically committedto guns.In
1959, for instance, 60% of Americans sup-
ported a possible ban on handguns, the most
common gun owned in the country. In 2018,
that number has dropped to a mere 27%.
American gun owners today tend to be
white, male, conservative and often from
rural parts of the country. Gun-rights sup-
porters have institutional outlets in the
Republicanpartyandinthewealthylobbying
group the National Rifle Association. They
peddle often laughably preposterous argu-
ments in defence of the profusion of guns in
Americansociety,buttheirsuccesslieslessin
making sense than in conjuring emotion.
The American attachment to guns has
muchlesstodowithhighconstitutionalprin-
ciple or even practical need (67% of gun own-
ers may say they have guns “for protection,”
but crime rates in America have plummeted
since 1990; there is an inverse relationship
betweenratesofviolentcrimeandthemanu-
facture of guns, which has grown exponen-
tially in the last 20 years). Instead, the gun is
invoked as an almost sacred marker of iden-
tity, a talisman of rugged virtue in the face of
achanging,complicatedworld.Thisisthereal
reason guns remain tenacious in the United
States.Theyareintegraltothe“culturewar”
politics of our times, in which matters of pol-
icy become insensible to all reason.
Kanishk Tharoor is the author of
Swimmer Among the Stars: Stories
The views expressed are personal
one goal which will deteriorate the per-
centage of success.
The blinkers act as a filter allowing us
to see only what is in front. So for success-
ful people, the only goal becomes their
entire world. When you put blinkers on a
horse, you are not blinding it. You are
simply saying, “I need you to look for-
ward. Don’t get distracted.”
Same things happen with the person
who gets deviated from the path to suc-
cess. It is necessary to become self-cen-
tered while running on the track to suc-
cess, to fulfil dreams. And don’t forget,
the horse doesn’t put the blinkers on him-
self, someone has to do it. There must be
a guru like Krishna for Arjuna to win on
the battlefield of life.
(Inner Voice comprises contributions from our
readers. The views expressed are personal)
n innervoice@hindustantimes.com
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