Let the Sleeping Watchdogs Lie

The One Man Army has finally been shown the door. After years of flaunting his power in the erstwhile halo corridors of the Indian cricket establishment, the Big Boys decided that it is time to stop the circus and let the Wise Old Men step in. So, outgoes showman Lalit Modi and incomes Amin, backed by a coterie of unsuspecting BCCI honchos, who slept when Indian cricket burnt. Nothing has changed; the main conman has been shown the door while the architects of the circus, watch amusedly at how they have effectively brought in IPL under their control.

Lalit Modi had made enough foes in the last few years as he strode over the map of IPL, brandishing his powers as a third world dictator, forgetting that what goes round comes around. Three years ago Jagmohan Dalmiya was hounded out from the BCCI over charges of corruption and embezzlement. Among his detractors, Modi was the shrillest, announcing on one occasion that Dalmiya would be sent to jail. Modi has now been dumped even more unceremoniously, and the charges against him are far more severe. Among other things he has been accused of fixing the auctions; of creating slush funds; manipulating broadcast deals and many more things.

The media is gleeful and there are obituaries about the man who sometime back was a knight in the shining armour – a man who changed the face of Indian cricket and hailed as a champion of the big brand called IPL. The moment Modi is axed, the Government says that there is nothing to probe against Sharad Pawar and Praful Patel and the focus would primarily be on Modi only – everyone wants a Fall Guy, and we have one, actually two – an ex-Foreign Minister, who was driven out.

BCCI honcho Shashikant Manohar says:

Now most of the contracts have been entered into without the consent of the governing council and they’ve been brought to the governing council after the contract was signed.

Ok, Picture this now - One man sits in the IPL office, conducts auctions, draws contracts, awards it to his people and makes money. After all the hard work of corruption is done, the papers are brought to the IPL Governing Council (Governing what????) and the Wise Men sign over the dotted lines of the contract, without batting an eye lid. Smart guys, they now that Collective Responsibility is not applicable in BCCI Constitution and in case anything goes wrong, all they have to do is point fingers.

You have 3 cricketers in the council, who are rubber stamps and have absolutely no idea what is happening – maybe they are simply naïve; after all you can’t call Gavaskar, Shastri and Pataudi corrupt or incompetent? The very idea of bringing them into such a Council would be to bring about a greater legitimacy to the its workings and provide a certain amount of checks and balances to such a system. But if it did not even read the contract or debate it, what the heck did this glorified council do - Make money by doling out contracts to Modi's kith and kin???

But then we must not forget that it is a nice little cosy club out there. BCCI Secretary N Srinivasan owns Chennai Super Kings, Gavaskar and Shastri have commentary contracts with BCCI and the IPL, the chairman of the national selection committee Srikanth is a brand ambassador for CSK. And this is what is publicly known. Practically, everyone has a close political association – If Congress has Rajiv Shukla, BJP has Arun Jaitley and you have the invisible hands of Sharad Pawar controlling many more stakes. Last week, Times Now has reported that in the previous season, BCCI awarded 5 million to the semi-finalists. Cool, right!!! Srinivasan transfers money from BCCI’s coffers to his and we call it ‘conflict of interest’ – whose interest??

Now, BCCI is a chameleon which keeps switching between being a public body and a private body as and when it wants. When a demand is put forth to bring in more accountability and bring BCCI under the ambit of Tight to Information, it suddenly becomes a private body, which cannot be questioned but when the same body asks for tax waiver or the right to control cricket in India, it becomes a public body working in the interests of Indian fans!!! In reality, BCCI is a registered society under an obscure law in Tamil Nadu and has de-facto control over cricket in India, without any legislation or form of accountability. It receives enormous benefits and concessions from Governments, buys land at throw away prices and gets tax exemptions for selling national interest. 

You must commend the role of media in this IPL Show. They praise Lalit Modi, go overboard in selling the IPL Brand, sitting mum over the so-called “conflicts of interest” and instances of corruption for so many years and suddenly, there is that smug WE TOLD YOU grin. There are stories of how Modi literally controlled Rajasthan, fixed deals and created a crony capitalistic regime in IPL – but why was the media silent all this while? Many of these facts exist in public domain but not a single query was raised so far on all this. The media was seduced by the big money, parties and prime time entertainment and the watchdog just slept through this spectacle till the tweet war between Tharoor and Modi shook things up.

Watch how Arnab Goswami (my pick of the worst of the English journalist showmen) grimaces and questions the legitimacy of all the deals done in IPL, casually dropping in a match fixing query and being so indignantly self-righteous. It is ridiculous that after shamelessly, blindly and unquestionably backing Modi and the IPL, media men start the demonizing act so fast without a qualm for journalistic impropriety (something only reserved for Shashi Tharoor, it would seem).

The Times of India, which is the first to cover every event on the planet, reports today that the BCCI claims that there is no conflict of interest in N Srinivasan’s ownership of CSK because he had informed the then BCCI president, Sharad Pawar about it. How convenient!!! Don’t you even to ask them how silly and ridiculous such a claim is!!! Our press friends paint the town red accusing Modi of running a parallel administration in Rajasthan, with the help of Vasundhararaje, but when the same man is at the helm of IPL, they do not see the same avarice, the same conceit and the same schmuck around him.

When franchisees were putting in an absurd amount of money without any clear indicators of great returns in the future, why was the media silent? If the IPL contract says that franchisee holdings must not be disclosed, isn’t there a reason to suspect that something is amiss here? Bangalore is suffering from massive power cuts but as the city reels under the shocking power situation, the Chinnaswamy stadium is flood-lit so that IPL matches can be held using subsidized power. The Government gets a pittance to provide security to the players and even has the gall to waive off the entertainment tax (though in the same breath, it argues that farmers cannot be waived loans entirely). So, there are two sets of rules for two different sets of people and the watchdogs do not give a damn!!!

Suddenly, no one wants to talk about Shashi Tharoor and Sunanda Pushkar – a couple of convenient news items who have been dropped now, since there are no more leaks available about them. In Shashi Tharoor’s case, there was a potential case of misappropriate behaviour and maybe even corruption, but most of it remained accusations which were never substantiated. The mere fact that there is a woman does not automatically translate into sleaze, sex and drugs – a story so fondly carried home by the media. Since his resignation, there is practically no news about the two and after Amin took over, the channels have also gone silent – they have a new story now about Madhuri Gupta spying scandal and the old story is no longer appealing.

So, Congress has the moral high ground by choosing to throw out a minister on the basis of suspicion while Raja, the charge sheeted (not tweet accused, mind you) minister, stays on because he has enough backing. BJP hollers on Tharoor but remains mum when greater evidence is brought to the fore against NCP ministers and their people. When the political establishment has its hand in practically every pie of the sports administration, is it inevitable that the sport starts stinking? Stories of match fixing may not be true but they gain credence primarily because people lose faith in the way the game is run – so every match is fixed and every cricketer is a two-timer.

Personally, I give two hoots for IPL and do not care what happens to it but the future of cricket in India is now sub-twined with it. If the administration were to cut down on the frills and the mindless vaudeville and concentrate on the game, it has a future - forget the national level cricketers, atleast the others get a chance to play and make a future for themselves. But the brand needs credibility and the need is to have a professionally managed body for cricket, which is transparent and run with a high degree of accountability. When the match fixing scandal broke out, it gave the BCCI an opportunity to clean its stables but after a few peripheral changes, nothing ever changed.

Modi has been cut to size by the Grand Old Men of the Game and how does it help the sport? All that has happened is that one layer has been peeled off and another layer has been carefully pasted across, without altering anything at all. There will be a small talk of transparency and public interests but after some time, it will disguise itself in a new avatar and be served to us again in all its nauseating glory– after all, the show must go on!!!

P.S. Incidentally, N Srinivasan also heads AICF - All India Chess Federation - and since his takeover, the federation has practically been inactive. The Anand-Topalov World Championship Match is currently being held in Bulgaria (even though the Bulgaria bid is only 13 crore) because the AICF could not get any sponsor. Vishy wanted the match to be held in India but with practically no interest shown by India, the bid was won by Bulgaria. Clearly, the Chess World Championship is not worth the money for the CSK boss. 


Image Courtesy - http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?265180

Sustaining Agriculture in the Long Run

Whenever I talk to my folks back home in Palakkad about plans to probably go back to our village one day and try my hand in agriculture,  I am greeted with well-grounded scepticism. The apprehensions are pretty clear – high labour costs, poor water management, low sales price and lack of support by the Government and industry to sustain careers in agriculture.

Despite being the top-ranked state in the suicide industry, Kerala does not lie within the suicide belt of the country, when it comes to farmer deaths. The state has vast tracts of land and is well-endowed in terms of natural resources and so would ideally qualify to be a good player in the agriculture sector. But there is still a mood of despondency I notice whenever I visit the place.

However watching Green Kerala Express raises my hope and gives a slightly different perspective. In its mission to zero on the best panchayat in the state, it chances upon several villages, where people and the administration have come together to give agriculture another chance and prove that despite being a poorer cousin, farming can be a livelihood tool with a much larger impact than the others.

For an average Malayalee, Kudappanakunnu in Trivandrum is known primarily for being the base station of Malayalam Doordarshan Kendra but a wonderful facet of the village was brought to the fore in one of GEKs episodes earlier this week. Employment opportunities were once few and far between in this village and agricultural land was practically zero, primarily due to its proximity with the main town.

Then three years ago the panchayat in collaboration with the local Krishi Bhavan implemented the Karshika Karmasena project – a project to harness the youth of the village to revive agriculture in the area. The Karshika Karma Sena launched by the panchayat has 25 agricultural technicians (a euphemism for workers) who are trained in using modern agricultural devices such as the power tiller, brush cutter, soil digger and sprayer.

“The karma sena was started as a means to combat the intense labour shortage in the region,” said C.L. Mini, Agricultural Officer, Kudappanakkunnu panchayat. “The cost of cultivation can be brought down significantly by using agricultural technicians,” she added. The technicians assist interested clients right from selecting a plot for farming to marketing the produce.

Today, these workers earn close to Rs 7500 per month working in fields where they help to cultivate a variety of mostly-organic fruits and vegetables that are later marketed and sold through the Karshika Vipani Kendras. The wages are paid as monthly salaries through an SBI Account opened nearby for the employees and they are also entitled to EPF.

This is a sustained ecological and agricultural movement where the entire community had come in to help, resulting in making Kudappanakunnu a Green Panchayat. The technicians are educated persons and work on lands taken on lease by the Panchayat at low rates. Mind you, these are not workers and they are given proper training by the Krishi Office; additionally, machines are used for most tasks (including tree-climbing and tilling), making it a highly productive enterprise. In addition to the use of machinery, subsidies in the form of seedlings and low cost organic fertilizers were distributed to the technicians, abhorring the use of expensive pesticides.

Kudappanakunnu presents a case where the community and the administration came together to implement an innovative solution to tackle the issues of wastelands and employment. When more than 70% of the country depends on agriculture for its livelihood, it is important that rather than doing away with it in the name of development, the idea should be to enhance the scope of agriculture and utilize it better.

Moving from Trivandrum to Kannur, we now come across the village of Chembilodu, which is unique that every house in this village has a kitchen garden. As part of the Panchayat’s initiative to ensure that no land in the village is wasted and to promote food security, a directive was given to the people that they need to maintain a kitchen garden and grow vegetables themselves.

As a result, close to 4000 houses have vegetable gardens where ladies finger, cucumber, spinach and pumpkin are grown, which is used for local consumption. Anything extra is then sold outside to the markets by the villagers; this has dramatically reduced the food prices in the region and added an extra means of livelihood for the people. Additionally, the villagers use organic fertilizers from their household waste and have abandoned the use of chemicals totally, leading to a healthier vegetation.

It is important to realize that such a movement would not have happened without the active role of the villagers as well as the Panchayat in changing the face of the village. It is laudable that the administration took the initiative to not only revive the agricultural produce but also revive barren lands in the place, leading to more than 40 hectares of waste land becoming productive again.

Most people would say that agriculture is no longer relevant to our growth and that the government should look at promoting industry at the expense of farming – this explains the almost non-questioning of creation of SEZs haphazardly to businessmen. When an Infosys asks for large tracts of land at rock bottom rates, it is a legitimate business demand but when the farmer wants protection from dumping and other duties, we view it as protectionism and dub any support to the farmer as socialist interference.

Subsidies is a bad word in the economy now – as we move towards embracing greater role for private companies, we demand that no one should get a freebie and everyone should earn them. But let us understand that, this is not a perfect economic world and that the State has a greater role in bringing up the poor than increasing the wealth in the country (the trickledown theory is a classic case where the trickling down never really happened). Writing off bad debts by farmers is foolishness but then tax holidays and waivers for corporate is smart capitalism (This year alone, the budget gifts over Rs. 500,000 crore in write-offs, direct and indirect, to the Corporate Sector)!!!

Quoting Sainath on this:

In India, people have the perception of "subsidies" being given to farmers, and this is one of the reasons why the urban folks think that farmers need to improve their act. But the vast majority of this subsidy is given not to the farmers themselves but to fertilizer producers. The "farmers" who get this subsidy are called Birla, Tata and Ambani! Also, this is given in such a way that the more you produce the lower the rate of subsidy, and the smaller amounts you produce, the more higher the rate of subsidy. In theory, this should support the "small farmers", but in fact the large producers overproduce and understate their output, just so they can avail of the higher rate of subsidy.

But blind subsidy is equally silly, more so in our case where implementation is abysmal (Remember Rajiv Gandhi’s famous comment-Out of every rupee of subsidy only 15 paise reach the targeted populace). Most successful villages, as seen in GEK, have worked on a strategy of providing subsidies to take care of the infrastructure, followed by regular support to ensure that the subsidies do not go waste. A more directed approach towards subsidies (which UID is aiming to do) will possibly make the entire exercise more useful.

Traditionally, Indian farmers have flooded their fields with water using canal irrigation. Canal irrigation advocated through large dams (a by-product of Nehru's fascination with Russian style of mega structures) have never been popular with farms - massive land loss to construct costly dams are one issue while farmers are plagued with the problems of depending on agencies to release water as and when they want and  wastage of water through evaporation. But the Government has never sort to promote the use of drip and sprinkler irrigation, which is far a cheaper and more economic option - something that Israel has excelled in.

The Government further focuses on market needs and so expensive cash crops are encouraged, at the expense of poor food crops. This has not only forced farmers to abandon traditional farm crops but grow these crops on a large scale, creating a massive monoculture, which erodes soil value slowly. When the Agricultural Minister is more pre-occupied with starting sugar factories and advocating wine cultivation in dry lands in Maharashtra, is it any wonder that the State looks away when farmers look to it for guidance?

Pawar pushes for greater cuts in import duties on a large variety of crops, as the Indian farmer struggles to sell his produce. Even while being in WTO, India can charge duties (even upto 150% as in cotton) but for mysterious reasons, we have decided to be pro-West in our approach. So, while European and American Governments dole out large amounts of cash subsidies to their farmers, we force our farmers to sell their produce at absurd prices and expect them to sustain their livelihood without any complaint. What explains the Government importing food at high prices when many of the crops rot here in godowns, lying unutilized?

Agriculture contributes close to 17% if India’s GDP but it is largely a poor man’s story in India today. Policy issues in the mainstream media tend to be about the economy but the ones pertaining to agriculture do not merit sufficient space – lack of glamour as well as interest contributes to this. The key word is outsourcing and so prominent bloggers, who are self-appointed economists also, bemoan the fact that after so many years, India remains largely a rural populace.

An agricultural policy that moves out of the ghosts of the Green Revolution is important, as we struggle to maintain the relevance of agri-business in the country. Successful villages have shown a way out to keep agriculture in the forefront with greater focus on watershed management, organic farming and greater administration support. As we hurtle towards globalisation at a rapid pace, will the Indian farmer increasingly become a mere suicide statistic or a critical driver of our GDP? It is a choice that we have to make and make it pretty soon.

Green Kerala Express

The President of the Karumalloor Grama Panchayat is facing the arc lights for the first time but he remains unfazed as he confidently fields queries from a jury on the development initiatives undertaken by the panchayat and explains how 250 acres of barren land was transformed into 750 acres of fertile agricultural land in a matter of years. The jury is suitably satisfied by the video presentation, the data provided to them and the village’s response to their queries and they award the Panchayat 46 marks out of 60.

Welcome to GREEN KERALA EXPRESS – touted as India's first and biggest social reality game show (possibly the world’s too), which aims to find the best Panchayat in Haritha Keralam. The contest is based on the performance of each local body in implementing programmes relating to sustainable agriculture, conservation of water resources, food and social security, Kudumbasree, National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), health, education, energy, housing, women’s empowerment and participation in grama sabhas in the state of Kerala. The first phase covers Grama Panchayats and the second phase will focus on Urban Local Bodies (Corporations & Municipalities together).

Doordarshan has done yeoman service in covering rural India for several years, starting with its Krishi Darshan and other socio-cultural programmes which are incidentally still watched in rural India (though the lure of daily soaps have probably torn away people from such programmes). Now, in an inspired piece of programming, the Thiruvananthapuram Kendra (DD Malayalam) is telecasting this 100+ episode show where villages compete with each other for a Kaun Banega Crorepati (yes, the winning village gets 1 crore!!!), highlighting their grassroots-level, sustainable developmental projects.

Kerala has 999 village panchayats, 53 municipalities and five municipal corporations. Two months back, DD had invited entries from local bodies. Around 200 local bodies sent their proposals, with 10-minute documentaries. Each entry was subjected to scrutiny by a couple of Technical Committees, based on the performance of the panchayat as understood from the filled-in questionnaire and other materials and input.

The jury shortlisted 150 out of 999 panchayats and a Production team was assigned the responsibility to visit the villages and make a short film based on the information submitted to them. The selection is to be narrowed down to 15 panchayat projects at the end of this first screening stage, and to three by the end of second for the final show. Of the total prize money of Rs 3 crore, the winning village would walk away with the 1 crore prize, funded by the state government.

In each episode, the film made by the panchayat is screened in front of the jury along with a short profile of the village followed by the video prepared by the production team. Then, a panchayat representative — with a group of villagers — comes into the studio, talks about the project, and fields queries from a jury comprising experts from various fields. Post-this, the jury awards them a score and the SMS voting for the village is announced.

The brains behind this fascinating game show are two humble bureaucrats - Doordarshan Assistant Director Sajan Gopalan and C-DIT Deputy Director K Mohan Kumar, who conceived it as a travelogue-type reality show which focuses on rural Kerala. The show has been produced by the Centre for Development of Imaging Technology (C-DIT) for the Local Self Government Department (LSGD), Government of Kerala. The Doordarshan Kendra, Thiruvananthapuram, Suchitwa Mission and Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA) are its co-producers.

The programme, which would be a unique documentation of grassroot-level positive initiatives, should inspire other local bodies to deliver better results... To add entertainment elements, there would be a little bit of drama and celebrities as members of the jury. Although the show would not have all the trappings of popular reality shows, audience would get a chance to SMS for their favourate panchayat and its project

says Sajan.

There were initial apprehensions on the quality of a DD sponsored programme but thankfully, the first few episodes (started on March 1st) of this daily half hour interactive show have proved sceptics wrong. The sets carry a green hue and the anchors are cheerful youngsters who give it a professional look. We have seen enough tantrums being thrown by judges in game shows but thankfully down south, the decorum has not yet been shattered and the producers have not resorted to unnecessary melodrama or audio-video jugglery which characterize most such shows.

Instead, presenting in such a format has ensured that it is an engaging exercise in intellect, without alienating a majority of viewers. The programme also has a fantastic title track, composed by Dr Sreevalsan J Menon. To add to the show’s green flavour, the programme anchor tours the panchayat only in a cycle, as he goes about talking to various villagers. Keeping in tune with the latest trends, the winner panchayat and project will be judged partly on SMSes sent by audience. DD has also roped in film stars to pitch in their support for the programme, trying to reach out to a wider audience.

The judge panel consists of two permanent jury members (Vineetha Menon, head of the department of anthropology, Kannur University and K.P. Kannan, former director of Centre for Development Studies), two technical jury members (such as environmentalists R.V.G. Menon and M.K. Prasad, agriculture expert R. Heli ) and a celebrity judge.

The choice of Padmapriya as a celebrity judge is an interesting choice (her lack of Malayalam knowledge could have been a hindrance in such a show but then she is a Ph.D student in Panchayati Raj Development!) and it presents to the contestants a chance to interact with an intelligent woman, who has taken up acting as a profession and not the usual bimbos who turn up in many shows. The primary focus of most of the interactions have pertained to agriculture, health, education and employment, specifically on the fufillment of NREGS objectives.

While most villages have done their homework, there are exceptions too who cut a sorry figure too - like Kalady village whose data provided was incomplete and incorrect and the representatives were hard pressed to answer questions put to them (including the incredible claim of providing only 8 man days under NREGS but being the highest disbursal of NREGS funds in Ernakulam!!!); the President was quick to blame paucity of time and the clerk for providing the data. The presence of an intelligent jury ensures that villages are asked questions properly and the mediocre ones are weeded out, as exhibited during the sessions.

It is interesting to note that in most Panchayats, the funds alloted to them (atleast on paper) have not been fully utilized, so is the issue of insufficient funds a valid reason? The fact that in many places changes have happened due to active intervention of the Panchayat (financially and culturally-like not alloting numbers to houses who do not co-operate as in Karumalloor or reclaiming occupied land near the Kalpathy river to protect it by Akathethara panchayat) gives an insight into the power devolution in rural areas; unlike in urban spaces where people do not even know their neighbours. Greater decentralization has helped the local self governments to take decisions on their own.

There have been a few interesting stories that have emerged in the episodes so far:

• Adattu, in Thrissur, a village that ditched pesticides for organic farming

• Cheriyanad, in Alappuzha, the country’s first litigation-controlled and legally-literate grama panchayat

• Nilambur (under the leadership of writer Aryadan Shoukath), in Malappuram, attempts to become the country's first dowry-free village

• Elappully, in Palakkad, a model dairy village with significant work in the field of dairy development and restoration of water bodies in the area (and it is my village too which is leading with 51 marks!!!)

• Eloor, in Ernakulam, replaced all its incandescent bulbs with fluorescent models with the Panchayat enlisting the help of students in this plan

With most TV channels running out of ideas and resorting to cliched and stupid game shows (like swayamvar tests) and umpteen music shows, it exposes the bankruptcy of ideas that most major channels have. Bringing all these panchayats together and trying to analyse their models of sustainable developments is not an easy job but the endeavour is definitely praiseworthy. Judging a panchayat in less than 15 minutes may be a bit short but keeping the television audience in mind, anything more could turn-off potential viewers.

A lot of constructive work done in many remote parts do not get attention and this show gives an opportunity to witness such work. I do not know what the show’s TRPs are but I sincerely believe that if this show succeeds, it is a success for all those who believe in the power of television to sell infotainment creatively. Incidentally, inspired by this concept, DD is considering plans to conduct a show on these lines on a pan-India level.

Urban India is well and truly divorced from its rural cousin and this show presents an opportunity to take a peek into this world. Of course, the semi-rural/urban nature of Kerala and the decentralization of powers have ensured that this alienation has not reached the extreme end as in most parts of the country. We think that in the midst of an IT revolution, our dependency on agriculture is taking us backwards and the way ahead is to stop this trend. But when you examples of places as shown in the programme where villages have taken to agriculture in a large way and produced fantastic results, you can clearly see the urban-rural divide.  

P.S. This show is being screened thrice a day in DD-Malayalam, at 5pm, 8.30 pm and 11.00 pm from Monday to Friday. After daily scratching our heads on what to watch on television prime time, we have finally something to look forward to. Additionally, I guess, it also provides an avenue for us to get in touch with our roots, despite being away from it. Watching DD-Malayalam for the past few days has actually been an eye-opener-serious programming (a bit drab at times) actually exists!!! 

Survival of the Humble Brinjal

When the Union Minister for Environment Jairam Ramesh announced an indefinite moratorium on Bt brinjal last month, the decision created a small window for many in India to sit and understand what the fuss is all about, without being swept away in the tides of another flawed Green Revolution, fuelled by the usage of Genetic Modified Crops. It is important that we understand that the Bt Brinjal issue is not a simple Traditional Vs Modernity fight or a rural farmer issue but a complex issue concerning National Security – there are 40+ GM food crops which are in the pipeline and covers every aspect of food security in India.

Bt Brinjal is a transgenic brinjal created by inserting a gene (Cry 1Ac) from the soil bacterium Bt into brinjal. The insertion of the gene into the vegetable is said to give the brinjal plant resistance against insects like the brinjal fruit and shoot borer and fruit borer. In India, Bt Brinjal is being promoted by Mahyco (Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company). If cleared for human consumption, Bt-brinjal will be the first GM vegetable crop approved for cultivation anywhere in the world. GM corn and GM soya are mainly used to feed cattle in North America or go into processed foods.

US multinational bio-technology firm Monsanto (which sells 90 per cent of the world's genetically engineered seeds), promotes GM crops in India through Mahyco-Monsanto Biotech, a 50:50 joint venture between Monsanto and Mahyco. In the 80s, Monsanto developed and patented a technology that enabled inject the Bt gene into seeds, as a result of which whenever a pest attacks the plant it dies. No one knows for sure what happens to the human beings who actually consume it. The scientific community is divided over the effects of this gene on us and opponents of GM (Genetically Modified) Food have raised issues on the health, environmental, economic and ethical aspects of moving over to GM food.

If you were to ask if eating Bt brinjal is dangerous or would cause cancer or any life threatening disease, the upfront answer to that would be an emphatic DON’T KNOW. Bt brinjal has not been properly tested for health or environmental safety though the advocates of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) say that they are safe and are the same as the naturally occurring organisms used to create the transgenic crop.

In October 2009, the Indian biotechnology regulator, Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), the statutory body responsible for approving its cultivation in India which is an ad hoc 30-member committee comprising mainly bureaucrats and scientists, gave its approval for introduction of Bt brinjal. The clearance was provided by the GEAC based purely on the data provided by Mahyco and the institutions it used for testing without doing any independent testing!!!

Isn’t this a clear case of conflict of interest- you create a product, do the testing yourself or sanction it and provide data to a regulator and the dumb regulator accepts it, without any form of independent evaluation. The French geneticist, Gilles-Eric Seralini, who was commissioned by the environmental group Greenpeace to check the claims made by Mahyco at the GEAC pronounced the data submitted by Monsanto-Mahyco as insufficient and misleading on several counts and the GEAC wanting in diligence. There are no proper bio-safety regulations for the environmental release of transgenic crops in India, with the GEAC, essentially adopting U.S.-style lack of regulation for GMOs.

The GEAC also says that they were not sure about the long-term health effects of genetically modified food on humans and stipulate that surveillance and long-term follow up should be conducted — essentially saying that you can eat Bt brinjal and it’s fine now but in the long term, it may or may not cause problems. How can the Government give clearance for something as radical as GM food without sufficient clinical trials? Apart from the fact that there were no long-term tests conducted for human safety, the adverse results of the short-term tests on lab rats were actually suppressed.

One of the more touted benefits of GMOs is that they reduce the use of pesticides, making it a more eco-friendly alternative. But there is always a danger of the pests developing resistance to the gene just as some populations of mosquitoes developed resistance to DDT. A Government conducted survey in 2002-03 on Bt Cotton (the first transgenic crop to be released in India) revealed an almost 99% incidence of the pink bollworm, a major pest that attacks the cotton crop.

Monsanto admitted this week that during field monitoring in 2009, the Bt cotton variety used in four Gujarat districts — Amreli, Bhavnagar, Junagarh and Rajkot — failed to control pests. Similar cases have been reported on the American bollworm, increasingly indicating that the pest is growing immune to the Bt gene. Some studies have shown that GM crops have destroyed useful insects as well as changed the nature of the soil (Monsanto had developed a herbicide called Round Up which when sprayed killed not only weeds but also soya. So it developed a GM soya bean which was resistant to Round Up and sold both the herbicide and the seed – a perfect double whammy!!!).

Conventionally in India, farmers buy seeds from the Government (centres like Krishi Bhavan) and then save their seeds from year to year obtained after the initial produce, for further usage. These seeds are diverse and replicable and over the years given the climatic conditions, these native seeds develop resistance to pests and disease attacks. The cost of a packet of Bt Cotton is Rs. 1600 as compared to the non-Bt hybrid that costs between Rs. 380 to Rs 460 because seed costs are higher.

Also since the Bt Cotton plant is not effective in controlling secondary pests like the white mosquito, aphids and other sucking pests, more pesticides have to be used, escalating total input costs. Monsanto patents its seeds and insists on contractual agreements with farmers that they will not save and replant seeds the next season, increasing the price of the seeds when compared to the inexpensive seeds available in the market (To enforce this, it had developed a terminator gene which produce sterile seeds that do not germinate, ensuring that farmers buy the seeds every year).

Another strong argument in favour of the Bt seeds is their claim to increasing crop yields by ushering a second Green Revolution. This is a false promise; Bt cotton destroys bollworm while Bt brinjal prevents the fruit and shoot borer but beyond this, they remain the same in their susceptibility towards other issues. Every year we have bumper harvests but the final produces lie rotting in government godowns and are burnt later on while millions suffer due to starvation and hunger. The problem we face is more related to distribution and less with production, so is increasing the yield through such suspect methods the only way out?

Access to food of our choice is a basic human right; we all can exercise this human right by refusing or agreeing to purchase engineered and manufactured food. But how can we differentiate between a normal brinjal and a Bt brinjal? Monsanto has consistently refused to label its GM foods, leading to most European countries banning GM foods. Moreover, India does not have a proper labeling system to distinguish and inform us of the GM content in our food.

In the words of Jeffrey Smith, author of Genetic Roulette on Bt Brinjal - If Bt brinjal produces allergic or toxic symptoms in the population, it could be years or decades before authorities are able to track the cause. The brinjal is not labelled, so some may get reactions to some meals with brinjal, and not to others isolating the cause is difficult. By the time it is discovered, the brinjal will have contaminated so many varieties; abandoning brinjal altogether may be the only recourse.

There are more than 2400 varieties of brinjal available in India due to local flavours and conditions. Fostering these bacterial genes into the brinjal could rapidly contaminate the thousands of brinjal varieties because the structure of its flower is conducive to a high rate of cross-pollination, leading to destruction of many of the home grown varieties. With an annual yield of 8 million tones, we do not face any crisis in brinjal production. If food security was an issue behind introduction of GM food crops, then why was brinjal chosen though it is not a staple diet? Maybe the answer lies when you are told that Monsanto spends 2 million dollars a day on research – it’s Payback Time!!!

The First Green Revolution in India in the 1970s regarded chemicals as the magic wands to transform Indian agriculture but these same chemicals are now being looked at as monsters that have adulterated many of our crops. The rest of the world may have banned DDT and Endosulfan but we continue to patronise them and kill our people. Now, there is a demand to bring GMOs to counter these same insecticides. We do not know whether the risk that was taken 30 years back is worth it but now do we want to tempt history again?

There is a risk that bio-technology may be branded as a villain and halted totally but surely, there is a middle ground. Maybe many of us are wrong, maybe GMOs will actually help make a difference but then should we not wait till a proper Cost-Benefit and Risk Analysis is done and we have concrete evidence to actually prove this rather than jumping the gun?

Image Courtesy: http://www.polyp.org.uk/index.html

Ividam Swargamanu

In Ividam Swargamanu, Roshan Andrews and Mohan Lal come together to weave a simple, honest tale tackling the menace of land mafia and the trials and tribulations of a farmer who struggles to save his land in the midst of a corrupt system, a decaying society and a world which is slowly losing its innocence. Roshan casts his net wide enough to bring to our attention many issues but fortunately, none of these deviate from the central theme.

Mathews (Mohanlal) is a farmer who loves his cattle more than anything else. Along with this dad Germias (Thilakan), he builds an ecological heaven for himself in the rustic lands of Kodanadu, after years of hard work. When the real estate ring under Aluva Chandy (Lalu Alex) starts eying his land, Mathews’ troubles start and how he deals with this issue is the core of the movie.

Recent Mohan Lal movies have presented simplistic solutions but thankfully, Kodanadu is no Mithilapuri and Mathews is no Kashinath as in Thandavam (and in many other movies) where the character takes on the mafia single handedly and grinds them to the ground. Instead Roshan Andrews brings on the Satyan Anthikad-Lal touch of the 80s and 90s immortalized by movies like Varavelppu, Gandhi Nagar 2nd Street and TP Balagopalan MA and creates a memorable story, ensuing that Mathews remains a character that we would remember in future too (Looking at its book office fate, I hope that it atleast succeeds in the DVD circuit).

Mathews does everything that he can to stop the sale of his land but Aluva Chandy’s men make life more and more difficult for his family. Eventually, he realises that he needs to be smarter to tackle him and beats him in his own game of conceit. The way this unravels is interesting but it kind of happens too fast and looks a bit too simple and reduces the group of villains to an almost buffonesque state (Reminds you of Khosla Ka Ghosla in this phase of the movie though it is much less dramatic here) . When court cases and procedures go on for centuries and the people involved are in high places (like the Revenue Secretary), it looks far too simple but credit must be given to the director for trying to bring about a solution using proper legal and judicial means, without any form of gimmickry.

The screenplay is concise and to the point, so every scene has relevance and justifies the way characters go about their business. Sunitha (Lakshmi Rai) takes up the case not only because she wants to get back to her trouble makers but also because for her this is linked to her cost of living (the scene where she haggles with a vegetable vendor on the prices is a subtle touch). Prabalan Vakil (Sreenivasan) is the Amicus Curiae and has a job to do but at the same time he is also driven by his concern towards the issue of the loss of agriculture lands to corporates. Betsy, a television reporter (Priyanka Nair) is fascinated by his farm and believes that this is a human interest story which would sell on TV and the fact that Mathews is her mother’s ex-student incentivises this further.

The villagers believe that a township can actually bring about changes – for somebody it is extra jobs, for somebody, it is additional business while for many, it is publicity for a village which has never made it big. The Communist Party initially supports Mathews’ cause but later abandons the cause when they realise that they do not have the backing of people. When a comrade says that the party should stick to its principles and not succumb to popular perceptions, the leader reminds him of the parliamentary elections and the effect of taking such a stand.

The high element of decentralization in Kerala has created a lot of power at the grass roots level and the movie takes us into the narrow corridors of corruption in these small offices. So, instead of taking the conventional route of Ministers and Chief Ministers being involved in big dramas, you have councillors, Church committees, trade unions, village panchayats, block development offices and myriads of governmental offices with all sorts of procedures which seem to have been created just to make our lives more and more difficult. Notice how the Collector realises that the peon has delayed despatching the official notice but is wary to take action because of his standing among the unions. This world never features in Bollywood but finds a prominent place in our cinema (a reflection of how the distinction between villages and towns has still not been perpetuated in most of Kerala).

The writer, James Albert, gives us a bird eye view of the corruption that happens in real estate deals. Jagathy in an excellent cameo as Bhuvanachandran, a document forgery expert, shows how documents are manipulated – despite our cynicism, it is still an eye opener. So, you have mechanisms to forge signatures and Voter IDs, make alterations on the paper through natural means, and make documents look older than they are through innovative methods (The use of various fountain pens for each decade and Chelpark ink to provide that authentication shows the research done). Isn’t it amazing to know that when Government gifts free land to poor people, many of these people do not even exist? Later, a real estate shark like Aluva Chandy forges documents to prove that the land has been sold to him (from people who only exist on paper) and sells/develops the land to make money.

When the movie showcases Mathews’ farm (his farm makes use of intelligent use of natural bio-techniques and avoids the use of pesticides; there is a proper waste management system and the drainage flow is well regulated) and there are rumours of real estate interest being shown in the area, there is a hint that the movie may look at the issue of Nature Vs Development or even the Right to Property but the director quickly settles down for a more conventional script dealing with a farmer fighting the land mafia, making it a Good Guy Vs Bad Guy story. While this is not exactly a cop out, it could have made for a more interesting clash. After all everyone in the real estate business is not a villain; there is a genuine argument to bring about a middle ground in this discussion – but Aluva Chandy is a caricature in that sense, he is a scheming villain who is out to swindle the entire population.

But that should not take away the credits of the movie and these are abundant. Mohan Lal returns to his roots and steals the show with his wonderful presence and he is ably supported by an excellent set of characters. The humour is natural and gladly devoid of Suraj, Harishree Asokan and the rest who have been plaguing most movies nowadays. The script is the hero and while the length of the movie may bother a few people, I was pretty comfortable with it. But what does it say of the Kerala cine goer who is glad to watch Happy Husbands and Chattambi Nadu but shying away from endorsing movies like Ividam Swargamanu, Paleri Manikyam and Bhramram? If even a superstar cannot bring crowds to good cinema, is there a reason to be hopeful?

P.S. This movie also has a personal interest for me. My wife’s tharavadu (with an Anjaneya temple and pond in its precincts) is among the very few places in the heart of Palakkad town, which has not been sold. A couple of years back, their neighbour passed away and his land which comprised many trees and a pond was bought by the Pavizham Group, which has bought many tracts of land around the place. All the trees were cut and the pond was dried out and now, you have the Jobys Mall there – supposedly the first shopping mall in the district. The gentle breeze and cool shade brought about these lovely surroundings has now been replaced by the noisy din of the construction and buzz of the people visiting the mall. Hopefully, our tharavadu will continue to flourish, as it has been doing all these years but when the entire populace is changing, how long can we stop this, especially with the next generation losing interest in maintaining them?

The Case of the Missing Pakistanis

Diplomacy is a tough nut to crack, especially when the issue is an Indo-Pak issue. It takes a small snub (even imaginary) for the so called peace between India and Pakistan to shred. Every “window of opportunity” opens both ways – either into chaos or peace and inevitably, it is the chaos that makes it mark when it comes to our grand relationship with our neighbours. Lalit Modi, Vice-President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) runs this cash cow called IPL, which incidentally also indulges in cricket as a major past time and is now single-handedly responsible for hijacking India-Pakistan relations!!!

The IPL-3 issue that is being treated as a setback to Indo-Pak diplomacy is at best a business decision where the franchisees who put in the money decided to hedge their bets, play safe and not risk bringing in Pakistani cricketers. Sure, they could have been more taut and diplomatic and put up an honest face saying that looking at the state of affairs in the sub-continent, they were not too keen on promoting Aman ki Aasha here. Isn’t this a rational decision where investors with limited money put in the money, keeping in mind the maximization of their returns?

But then cricket in India’s been a simple game – it is a kind of diplomatic chessboard where every guy has a word on how to play one’s moves. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) claims that the move was a deliberate snub by India and that the Modi must apologize for hurting the sentiments of thousands of Pakistanis. The way I see it, the IPL and India have made fun of us and our country by treating us this way," Afridi said. 'I am very disappointed,' said all-rounder Abdul Razzaq. 'This is a conspiracy to malign us... It was their plan.' Pakistan Sports Minister Jhakhrani told Indian Sports Minister M.S. Gill that it was 'utterly disappointing that not a single Pakistani was auctioned for the cash lucrative IPL'.

The Government also decided to put in feeble comments on how eager they were all to watch the Pakistani players and how Modi and Co had missed this window of opportunity. Rediff reports - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is believed to be extremely upset -- some say even livid -- over the manner in which Indian Premier League boss Lalit Modi has ensured that Pakistan players are kept out of the latest edition of the Twenty20 extravaganza. The Indian PM actually spoke, without asking for madam’s instructions!!!! Wish he explained what window of opportunity is it that has been squandered? Maybe it’s time we had a few cricketers to handle our foreign affairs – would be so much easier to shut down terrorist camps and bring about peace.

Union Minister for Youth and Sports M.S. Gill said I trust, that the IPL corporate owners of cricket, have also taken a small lesson, from all this. Everyone must realize, that sports are the bedrock, of people-to-people contact, which we need to promote, with our neighbours. Can someone remind him to try and resolve the sad state of affairs facing hockey in India, with the impending World Cup in February, instead of promoting world peace? Women’s hockey is in a worse situation and the Commonwealth is around the corner but we have left it to the Gods to complete the work on time.

Earlier, Home Minister P Chidambaram had also chided the IPL franchisees, saying the franchisees had done a "disservice" to the game by ignoring the Pakistani players. Chidambaram said the cricket lovers were disappointed by the franchisees' behaviour and felt the entire controversy was avoidable. Of course, if there are any untoward events that would happen, don’t expect the government to gear up to handle the situation? SRK (trying to sound more intelligent than Aamir) chipped in that saying it is sad that Pakistani players were not picked for the event but also adds that such a climate needs to be created for Pakistani players to play (since such a climate does not exist, why the so-called feeling of humiliation at not inviting them?)

The Home Ministry says that there has been a greater outbreak of hostilities lately and the chances of terrorist activities have grown multi-fold in the recent past? Under such circumstances, if some terrorist activity were to happen, what would be the reactions of Indians and Pakistanis here? Can the government promise that Pakistani players would be safe here under any circumstances and protect them (and even Aussies now) from the madness of Shiv Sainiks, who know that they can make the ugliest of remarks and exhibit violence against anyone Bal Thackeray points at and get away with it because the spineless government cannot stop these buffoons?

Skipping an IPL is a snub to Pakistani cricket and has damaged it, says sources. So, if a handful of players make millions, would Pakistani cricket actually be better off? The Pakistani players ignored at the auction were justified in feeling humiliated because they were obviously not judged on merit. But they could have also handled it quietly and taken the moral higher ground but then that’s clearly asking too much from them. By taking measures like cancellation of the visit to India by parliamentarians and the election commissioner and making calls to boycott all sports events scheduled to be held in India, they have merely aggravated the issue.

The IPL is just an investment for the parties who have put crores into it and want to play it safe? How different is it if a private entity decides to start a company in India and decides to play safe and cut all risks. If there were to be a situation like a 26/11 again, will the franchises be able to play the Pakistanis in India (After all, the same Pakistan Governemnt banned its players from playing in IPL-2 stating the same reason)? So, the franchises took a practical call that having Pakistani players in their sides could lead to potential problems. But judging by reactions, the franchises have in one stroke hurt Indo-Pak relations, insulted cricket fans worldwide, embarrassed the country and even brought India and Pakistan to a potential war (What the Mumbai terror attacks could not achieve — an Indo-Pak war — this fresh row could well do that – yes, Pradeep Magazine actually wrote that in The Hindustan Times!!!)

Cricket has, unfortunately, this wonderful responsibility to bring world peace and people still dream that it will bring people together. I must confess that I harboured such thoughts at the height of the Agra Summit hype but as time passes, I have stopped allowing myself to indulge in such inane fantasies. The IPL is a commercial enterprise run by a group of savvy businessmen who can see the fiscal potential of the game; attributing larger virtues of brotherhood is simply foolhardy.

Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India

After a couple of fascinating historicals, William Dalrymple, returns to his roots through a travelogue as his wanderlust takes him across rural India in search of stories that look at how religion and traditions survive in modern India. This isn’t a conventional travelogue – it is more of a biography of its various subjects rather than Dalrymple’s experiences during his travel. The concept of Unity in Diversity has been beaten to the pulp by the media, keen to showcase many superficial symbols of our culture, but he digs deep allowing people to demonstrate this fiversity rather than sticking labels to them. This anthology of nine lives is an interesting mix of the lives of people who represent the various facets of the sub-continent culture, without any glorification.

The anthology begins with The Nun’s Tale in Sravanabelagola which focuses on the life of Prasannamati Mataji, a Jain monk, who renounces a life of wealth to become a nun in search of spiritual enlightenment. The process is a painful and prolonged one but she is determined to go through even if means giving up her youth, material and emotional comforts. But total detachment is not so easy and she suffers from the pangs of suffering from her close friend –another nun who embraces Sallekhana (ritual fasting to death which begs the question whether this is a ritual suicide or not). The austere nature of Jainism with focus on abstinence of practically everything without any tangible rewards which makes it an unlikely choice of a religion to withstand the passage of time but it has survived and is doing just as well.

The Dancer of Kannur takes us to Thalassery where Hari Das, a prison warder becomes a Theyyam dancer during the December to February months and is worshipped as an incarnate deity. Theyyam is a popular Hindu dance form in North Kerala, which takes place in small shrines and is performed by members of the lower caste. Once he dons the grease paint and enters into a trance, he feels an unknown shakti entering him and has miraculous healing powers and people come to him, across all castes, seeking his blessings. For Hari, Theyyam is a tool of social empowerment which has improved the conditions of the lower castes but the reality is that the upper class Namboodris who pay their respect to the theyyam artist during the performance remains casteist outside it. Theyyam can give him the self-respect that he needs but his regular income comes from his other not-so-divine jobs and he is uncertain whether this art will survive modern education.

The Daughters of Yellamma (based in Belgaum) looks at the world of Devadasis – upper caste “temple women” who at one point of time were regarded as honourable professionals, entering the service of God. Sadly, the services that they render (primarily Dalits) have now reduced them to the level of prostitutes with no locus standi in the society. The protagonist Rani from the Yellama cult, herself dying of AIDS and with both daughters dead, however takes pride in her profession and refuses to be compared to a sex worker but candidly admits that for all her bravado, her auspicious status makes no difference to her clients in bed (“There is no devotional feeling in bed. F***ing is f***ing. There I am just another woman. Just another whore"). Due to the various reform movements and the changing social structure, the status of devadasis fell drastically and the system was finally abolished in the 1920s. However, for the quarter or so of a million devadasis in these parts, the system is possibly the only way out of poverty and so it thrives, not in the way it was intended to be. Nevertheless, with more and more devadasis suffering from AIDS and other STDs , this tradition is dying.

Dalrymple then moves to Pabusar, a small village in Rajasthan, exploring the tradition of oral rendition of epics sung by a community of bhopas in The Singer of Epics. He tracks Mohan Bhopa and his wife, Batasi, who are the last hereditary singers of a great Rajasthani mediaeval poem, Pabuji Ki Phad. The epic is performed in front of a Phad, a long sheet on which scenes depicting the life and adventures of Pabuji, a 14th century hero, are painted (Interestingly, there is a reference to Ramayana here as Pabuji is supposed to have gone to Lanka and stolen camels from Ravana!!!). The Phad is considered a divine manifestation – similar to the image of Gods – and the bhopa is assumed to have healing powers. The tradition of oral story telling is all but forgotten in the world and this remains one of the last few remnants of this art, primarily because these poems had been turned into religious rituals unlike the Iliad and other Western epics, where it remained in an art form only. Dalrymple makes an interesting point noting that oral tradition flourishes in minds which are illiterate. The literate do not have the capacity to remember what the illiterate do making it difficult to sustain this fragile art which may totally disappear in a few years from now.

In The Red Fairy, Dalrymple moves out of India and lands in Sindh where the secular Sufi culture is fighting to keep itself alive, despite constant attacks by the likes of the orthodox Wahhabis, Deobandis and Tablighis. There he meets Lal Peri, a Sufi saint who moves from Bihar to Bangladesh and then Sindh to escape minority persecution. The Sufis believe that the search for God lies within and reject the restrictions of religion, narrowly interpreted by the mullahs. Their usage of music and poetry in their rituals and access to women have angered the fundamentalists funded by Saudis and supported by authoritarian regimes, leading to regular clashes, which Dalrymple likens to the Reformation Movement struggle in Northern Europe in the 16th Century. The essence of the Sufi-Islam conflict is best captured in these lines by Sain Fakir, an 80-year-old pir, who says: “The Sufis are a threat to the mullahs because we command the love, loyalty and faith of the ordinary people. No one is excluded. You can be an outcaste, a fallen woman, and you can come and pray in the shrine and the Sufi will forgive and embrace you.” This conflict also reflects the brewing tensions that are also slowly being a part of the Indian landscape and the victor would dictate the way this sub-continent will move.

The Monk’s Tale, set in Dharamsala, chronicles the life of Tashi Passang, a hermit in Tibet, who is forced to give up his monastic vows and take up arms to kill Chinese soldiers trying to destroy Buddhism in the 1950s. He escapes to India, joins the Indo-Tibetan force and even fights in the 1971 Bangladesh War before he finally quits the Indian Army in 1986 and returns to Dharamsala, to spend his last years atoning for the violence he had committed. Here he makes wooden blocks and prints prayer flags and finally takes up monastic vows and robes 30 years after renouncing them. Passang’s belief in karma is intact ("Tibetan suffering is possibly due to the actions of Tibetans when they invaded and tortured Chinese in the 7th century") and he hopes that the Chinese would eventually embrace Dharma and they would all return to their homeland. It is difficult for us to understand the emotional turmoil that a monk undergoes when he takes up arms and later on even fight as a soldier in an alien war. Passanga's faith in the path of dharma and Ahimsa even after so many years of struggle is remarkable and is an ode to the power of spirituality and religion.

South India, especially Tamil Nadu, is a hub for temples and all kinds of local deities and spirits thrive here, in the midst of all the IT hoopla. The Maker of Idols focuses on Srikanda Stpathy, who lives in Swamimalai, near Thanjavur, and is a 35th generation member of the premier idol-making Brahmin family of India. The family makes the idols with the same style and process as has been followed for all these centuries since the days of the great Cholas. Idol worship may have been riled as a blind form of devotion by many intellectuals but it has withstood all attempts to condemn it and modernization has only helped in getting markets even outside India. Ironically, for all the reverence that Gods are held in the country, many of the images ooze with sensuality and eroticism and unabashedly celebrate the union of Gods, especially Shiva and Parvati - a reminder that shringara rasa is an important form of worship in India. Stpathy, however notes with a twinge of sadness, that his son and nephew are not interested in idol making and wonders what the future of this family tradition is going to be.

The Lady Twilight is based in Tarapith, a popular centre of Tantric Hinduism in West Bengal, where we meet Manisha Ma Bhairavi, a tantric Sadhu who worships the ferocious Goddess Tara and drinks blood from skulls. Tantra is widely associated with superstitious practices and sexuality which is abhorred in most parts of India but for Manisha Ma, it is devotional. She looks at Tara Ma as a benevolent goddess who protects her and fellow tantrics and says that the violent blood thirsty image is just one side of the Ma, who can be both kind and violent, as the situation demands. Tantrics oppose all forms of society conventions, break all taboos (using ganja, alcohol and ritual sex) and encourage people to get in touch with their inner self by controlling the power of kama. One may or may not agree with this perception of religion but it is true that such a philosophy exists amidst closed doors in many parts of India and people flock in large numbers to get their problems resolved through tantrics.

The last story The Song of the Blind Minstrel is again set in Bengal on the banks of Ajoy River. Dalrymple travels to Kenduli near Shantiniketan to see a gathering of Bauls (saffron clad minstrels) who meet every year in January, descending into a cloud of singing and dancing throughout the night. The story unfolds primarily through the eyes of a blind minstrel, Kannai Das Baul, who along with this group, keep walking along in search of inner peace. The Bauls live a wild and abandoned life and believe that God lives in the present moment in the seeker of the truth and each man must find his own way. Rather than lecturing and sermonizing, they woo audiences through poetry and music and ask them to look inwards. They also follow a Tantric tradition and embrace breathing and orgasm in elaborately ritualised sexual rites. It is interesting to note that atheistic and agnostic philosophy is not totally new to Hinduism and the Chavarka school of thought in 6th Century B.C. rejected the idea of God.

It is easy to fall prey to the clichés of “Mystic India” and let one’s prose lose in the wilderness of this country but Dalrymple avoids this trap and gives a non-judgmental account of these lives which seem at odds with the rapid pace that the country is supposed to be taking. The writer, the journalist and the traveller all work in tandem as each subject spells out his/her story and Dalrymple fills in the background facts, the history and provides insights on the various events that mark the landscape of the story, giving it a documentary like feel.

The accounts are engrossing and with the wide variety of facts that Dalrymple puts in at frequent intervals, one can visualize the stories as they unfold. Whether it is the tantric cremation ground, the arid sands of Rajasthan or the crowded temple towns of the South, we are present there and moving along with him as he tries to understand a religion, which is totally different in form and structure from Christianity. He finds it interesting that many of these traditions would probably have been shunned in the West but in India, they are looked at with reverence and the practitioners of these various religious forms co-exist in the society peacefully.

Many of the stories have an exotic Oriental flavour to them but Dalrymple largely succeeds in humanizing these characters and bringing life to these various gateways of life which aim at reaching God. There is Bhakti, Tantra, Sufism, Buddhism and many other schools of thought but he does not preach or act like a modern Indian liberal sitting on judgment - he just observes and looks admiringly at the plurality and heterodoxy of a culture that sustains all these sets of beliefs, without infringing upon each other.