Two Indian newspapers have recently exchanged critical television advertisements about each other in an effort to draw customers away from the competition. This has led some reporters and commentators to use the words ‘foray’, ‘blitzkrieg’, ‘battle’ and especially ‘war’ [1 2 3 4].

I will now draw some awkward comparisons between India’s newspaper war and the Hundred Years’ War between England and France.

1) Like the Hundred Years’ War, India’s newspaper war has been going on for a really, really long time. Its principal adversaries, The Hindu and The Times of India, are both more than a hundred years old and between them sell in excess of five million papers per day across the nation. It is a conflict of immense volume and just as either side’s momentum can be irresistible, so too can its inertia be crippling. Meanwhile, their subjects – the readers – have more or less forgotten a time when there wasn’t a war on. Newspapers spitting and tearing at each other’s pages has become the norm.

2) Both are conflicts between north and south. Valois, smelling of cheese and snails, rudely scouted settlements on the English Channel, while Plantagenet brought grandiose manners, protocol and entitlement along on their numerous forays into French territory. A few hundred years later, any market share for Chennai-based The Hindu in north India is a matter of frustration for Delhi-based The Times of India, as are TOI’s attempts to secure south Indian markets. The Hindu, of course, speak English that is a mixture of pre-Independence verbosity and a comical Tamil accent, while TOI truly believe that the rest of the country should think, act and speak in line with their Amit ways. (Actually yaar they probably already do, right?)

3) Both ‘The Hundred Years’ War’ and ‘India’s newspaper war’ are terms invented by observers to lump a series of individual events together. This is an attempt to simplify and make sense of a nebulous, far-reaching whole, and also an effort to assign these events extra significance. Chennai has been the chief battleground since 2008, when TOI entered the market, and Feb 1st 2012 marks the official start of the Battle of Kerala. The fight marches ceaselessly onto new fronts, with new alliances (such as TOI’s with Malayalam newspaper Mathrubhumi in Kerala), decimating more and more areas of the news media landscape.

4) Dirty tactics are part of the game. In Middle Ages France, the rules of ‘total war’ meant there were no rules against slaughtering innocent peasants en masse as a means of provoking the enemy. In 21st Century India, the mass judgements are a little more subtle but only a little less damning: in this TV advertisement from late 2011, TOI suggests The Hindu readers are sleeping through the nation’s current events; then, in this series of ripostes, The Hindu suggests TOI readers are ignorant of important news but well-versed in the irrelevant. The Hindu’s campaign, being cruder and more offensive, has naturally generated the most attention on social media.

5) The Hundred Years’ War bears little influence on France-England relations, or the average Lucas Martin or Oliver Smith, today. (World War II, in which they fought on the same side, bears only slightly more.) The outcome of India’s newspaper war may yet mirror that of the 1400s, with The Hindu reclaiming and securing the South and TOI scurrying back to the North before they get slaughtered. Meanwhile, however, more and more Indians are turning to social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook to keep up to date [1 2 3 4]. At present, they represent a barely observable minority compared to the hundreds of millions of Indians who do read newspapers (and watch television), and a tiny proportion of Indians overall. But their numbers are growing. The Indian newspaper war, for all its bluster, will almost certainly end up as just another footnote in the history of Indian news media.

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On a month–long trip to Japan a couple of years ago, I visited the Todai–ji Buddhist temple in Nara. Aside from being the largest wooden building in the world, Todai–ji faces a telling walkway— the outer stone slabs are from India. Moving inward, the stone originates sequentially from China, Korea, and Japan, tracing Buddhism’s path. Buddha never left India. Centuries later, shortly after Columbus mistook Native Americans for “Indians,” ironically, Japanese locals confused Portuguese colonists in Goa with “Indians.”

Today, we’re been fed a steady diet of myth. Over the past few decades, no two countries have been more misperceived than India and Japan. Check India’s sparkling narrative as the “world’s fastest growing free market democracy.” The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) billed a fattening middle class as “India Shining.” On the other hand, Japan’s lethargic post–80s hangover has been dubbed “the lost decades.” But, unwieldy soundbytes and empty political calories obscure truth. And truth is strange. For example, India— yes, the Technicolor, doe–eyed, Bollywood–hip–thrusting, Gandhian–nonviolence–toting India— is the world’s largest weapons importer. A myopic, single–minded obsession with GDP has shrouded twin realities— India is not shining and Japan is not lost.

Unmistakably, India’s rise is real. It’s organic. It has pulled millions out of poverty into dignity, choice, and security. You don’t need to hear it from Tom Friedman. Listen to the Tamil buzz in a Chennai living room with my relatives. Ask the man who used to sell pani-puri on a Mumbai side street, the fisherman in Kerala, the single mother in Andhra Pradesh selling beauty products as a Hindustan Lever Shakti entrepreneur, the millionaire retailer in Chandigarh, the Delhi family getting off of a scooter and into a car, or the farmer in Madhya Pradesh selling soybeans using echoupal Internet kiosks.

But, we, enchanted by India, have been looking through rose–colored glasses. India’s rise is not patently unique. It has just overshadowed equally impressive growth among other countries in Asia that we ignore. Moreover, as Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen recently detailed, on many measures India has actually fallen behind its peers.

In the horserace with China, India has not translated economic growth to development. Belying Jupiter–sized malls and Audi adverts, India’s standard of living has actually fallen behind the rest of the world in the past two decades. According to the World Bank’s World Development Indicators 2011, only five countries outside Africa— Afghanistan, Bhutan, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, and Yemen— have a lower youth female literacy rate. Children bear the brunt. India places sixth from the bottom, above only Afghanistan, Cambodia, Haiti, Myanmar, and Pakistan, in childhood mortality. India is dead last in the entire world with its proportion of underweight children. In terms of Gross National Income (GNI) per capita, India’s company includes Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, and Yemen.

Most surprising is what Dreze and Sen’s social report card reveals. In terms of quality of life— life expectancy, infant mortality, under–5 mortality, maternal mortality, immunization, schooling— India fell from the top of South Asia in 1990 to second to last in 2009, above only Pakistan. In industry, companies like Wipro and Infosys are expanding globally. But, India’s fabled outsourcing engine tallies less than 1% of the country’s economy and employs fewer than 0.1% of its people. Moreover, with its American English and love of NBA basketball, the Philippines has overtaken India as the hub of call centers. India’s greatest challenge isn’t China or fuel prices. It’s hubris.

On the flipside, for decades, Japan had always been held up as an economic basket case, an image of malaise, a showpiece of what not to do. But, I never understood this. Walking Roppongi, Shibuya, and Ginza in Tokyo or through Yokohama, even taking a Lost in Translation tour, I saw a buzzing economy— a cadence of busy commutes, twenty–somethings dressed to the tee, and orderly storefronts alongside an electric nightlife. Markets and restaurants brimmed. There was the urban dazzle. There were the manicured suburbs, the spotless metro stations, and the tallest buildings I’d ever seen. In Kyoto, I saw the Paris of Asia.

Last year, we all saw the grace of the Japanese. Quake and tsunami survivors huddled together, carving chopsticks out of wreckage. There’s something more— the myth of Japan’s “lost decades.” It’s true that Japan’s banking industry, stock exchange, and real estate market remain a pale shadow of what they were in 1990. But, as Eamonn Fingleton points out, look at what’s happened over the past twenty years— life expectancy rose from 78.8 to 83 years, the unemployment rate sits at 4.2%, and 81 high–rises have been built. Meanwhile Japan’s current account surplus tripled to $196 billion, even while every country around it became more competitive. On the other hand, the U.S. saw its current account deficit swell to $471 billion by 2010. Fingleton adds that Tokyo hosts more Michelin star restaurants than Paris. The Tokyo Sky Tree, the second tallest structure in the world next to Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, will host its grand opening this May.

So let’s renovate and refit old perceptions. India and Japan are prime for a new dance in the century ahead. As Devesh Kapur puts it, “There is perhaps no other pair of major world powers whose strategic interests overlap as much as they differ from each other socio-culturally as India and Japan. Japan is a capital-rich country with an ageing and declining population. India is a capital-poor country poised to reap a major demographic dividend… Indian food is as spicy as Japanese food is not.”

On a military level, Kapur points out that, in addition to India and Japan’s shared naval interests, North Korea’s Nodong and Pakistan’s Ghauri (Hatf–5) missiles are fitted with similar technology. India and Japan share a long, supportive economic past. Tata opened a branch in Kobe in 1891. Following several visits to Japan, Nobel Laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore praised the country’s aesthetic, elegance, and simplicity. He published Jaapaani Haaiku, a Bengali anthology of Japanese haiku. India gifted two elephants to the Tokyo Zoo to lift Japan’s spirits after WWII. The 30-year-old Maruti Suzuki joint venture holds 45% of India’s car market, selling more cars than any other automaker. Japan came to India’s side during its balance of payments crisis in 1991. For a quarter century, Japan has been India’s largest aid donor. Today, Masako Ono is Japan’s foremost expert on Indian dance.

But, commerce between the two countries totaled only $15 billion in 2010, one–twentieth the size of Japan’s trade with China. In addition to offering a large market, India offers Japan a reservoir of fresh, young talent and a base to export to Europe and Africa. Japan is looking to India to a bright future, investing $4.5 billion in a 920–mile industrial corridor from New Delhi to Mumbai, part of a $100 billion, 24–city industrial project. Japan will loan $1.7 billion for Mumbai–Delhi and Delhi–Howrah Dedicated Freight Corridor Projects and Delhi’s Phase–III metro expansion slated to open in 2016.

Fewer than 25,000 Indians live in Japan today, compared to the nearly 3 million in the U.S. It is unlikely that, in the short term, Japan will suddenly unlock its immigration gates. Japan has an enormous capability to reinvent itself, as it did in 1858 when it opened to the world and after World War II when it shifted from a military to an industrial powerhouse. Be prepared for it to do so again.

Photo credit: orientalreview.org

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Dear Non Resident Indians,

Recently, the Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh, while addressing the annual Pravasi Bharatiya Divas Diaspora announced-

“Pursuant to the law that was enacted to enable Non-resident Indians to vote in our national elections, the government has issued notifications for registration of overseas electors under the Representation of People Act, 1950. This constitutes the first major step to enable Indian residents abroad to participate in our election process.”

Well, this announcement was made at the commencement of assembly elections in five Indian states including Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur. I don’t know if there is any hidden agenda in the Prime Minister’s statement, but I welcome this idea!

Those NRIs who have registered with the embassies of their respective countries of residence, would be eligible to vote in the upcoming polls. These polls will take place in these countries between Jan 28 and March 3.

My fellow columnist earlier wrote, NRIs are also citizens of India and should be treated as equals to residents. The political scene of the nation affects them equally and they have the right to decide which party, according to them, would serve the nation better.

It has been more than a year since the government granted voting rights to Non Resident Indians. I have never been outside India and hence am unaware of the ground realities. But reports say that the participation of Non Resident Indians in this initiative is very low.

I don’t find this encouraging at all.

I understand the complications here. Ironically, there is no law in India that allows a resident of Punjab working in Bangalore to vote in the upcoming elections there. But please understand, what you have got is a privilege! Don’t waste it.

Democracy in India is by-and-large, not driven by free speech. It is unfortunately driven by free beer. In villages and suburbs, many residents vote for the person whose party workers and hooligans bribe or threaten them the most. These residents, with an empty stomach, don’t (and shouldn’t be expected to) feel one with the nation building process.

It is you, the NRIs who, so to say, will deliver quality votes. You are active online and hence better connected to the Indian citizen media. You understand the big picture and the socio-politico-economic situation in India. Also, you’ll be the least affected by free beer. You NRIs are perceived to be (and usually are) richer than the general masses and hence there is no point in paying you for your vote. Moreover, since you live abroad, it becomes difficult for these party workers to bribe you without being held accountable for it.

The NRI population more than 3% of Indian population. Your 30 million additional votes can turn tables. Every single vote can, and does, count.

There are threats in this process as well. The first and foremost is the very process in which you’ll exercise your power to vote. Those who have registered with the embassies of your respective countries of stay can cast your votes when time comes. It is important that the process is legitimate and unbiased. Ensure that there is adequate security on the day of voting.

The second threat is the media. Well, by-and-large, media is the greatest threat to mankind. Don’t depend on mass-media which will bombard you with planned propaganda. Follow citizen-media as well. The fact you are reading this article proves that you are on the right track!

We the residents of India, welcome this initiative. We have the deepest faith in you the non-resident-lovers of this land. We have the deepest faith in your abilities in joining us and making this country a better place for all.

Please come up and exercise your duty to vote.

Yours Faithfully,

A resident of India.

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No one can deny that politics in India needs a major facelift today, considering that anti-politician sentiments are worsening with every Lokpal-less day that passes. Most of us wouldn’t place our bets on Raj Thackeray for reviving public trust in politics, but to me he seems like the most likely candidate for the job.

In the past, I thought he was a bit loony. “Mumbai for Maharashtrians” was, and still is, a dumb idea. Mumbai wouldn’t be Mumbai if it weren’t cosmopolitan. Taking that characteristic away from Mumbai would leave it no less competent but far less attractive. Also, it is not wrong to preach pride in one’s identity, as most Maharashtrian politicians have always done; it is wrong to deny someone an opportunity based on language and state barriers.

But Raj Thackeray seems to be giving that up. He still makes demands for Marathi in call waiting services and such (which ensured, if nothing else, that everyone here now knows how to say, “Your call is on hold,” in Marathi) and on shop boards, but these demands tend to be largely legitimate. So while his methods of threatening and perpetrating violence have not changed, the issues he chooses to take a stand on nowadays, are real. Autorickshaw-blackmail, mismanagement of school transport systems, and uneducated netahood are some of the problems he has tried to solve, in the following manner:

1.)    MNS party workers beat up rickshaw drivers.

2.)    MNS party workers assaulted a school principal.

These events are highly condemnable, and an insult to the law as well as to human dignity. But he attempted to tackle the third problem admirably: he announced that anyone wishing to contest BMC elections on an MNS ticket would have to write an exam that would test their knowledge about the BMC and local self-government. Not many politicians have been brave enough to do that.

There are other things about Raj that inspire hope. The MNS has no apparent bias towards any religion, caste or class. How many parties in India can boast of that? You could say that the MNS flag (blue, white, saffron, green) tries too hard, but it makes the point.

He is an excellent orator. There is a candour in his speeches that guarantees them a place in the mobile phones of almost all young Marathi people, not only in Mumbai but in other Maharashtrian cities as well. Even if I may not appreciate what he says sometimes, I cannot help but marvel at the way he says it.

He doesn’t have much at stake now in terms of votes, so he can afford to take a non-populist and practical stand on the Belgaum issue. Maharashtra and Karnataka are involved in a dispute over which state the half-Marathi city of Belgaum (which is in Karnataka) belongs to. Raj Thackeray stated that Maharashtra had enough problems of its own and couldn’t afford a border dispute. That might not be tactful, but we all know how troublesome border disputes can be.

Most importantly, he is an example of charismatic leadership. If we are to make politics truly popular, charismatic leaders are our biggest hope. Charisma can be dangerous when paired with a divisive ideology, but if the news is anything to go by, it appears as if Raj used the Marathi/North Indian issue solely to rise to prominence quickly. We can hope that’s true and that potential like Raj’s is not lost forever in undemocratic practices.

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Bengal, historically, has been the sick man of India. It has a horrible past. It all started in 1770, when approximately one third of the total population of Bengal was wiped out due to a drought. The East India Company, which had occupied Bengal five years earlier, looted the granaries, taxed rice farmers heavily, and subsidized the farming of profitable commodities like opium. When drought hit, about 10 million people starved to death!

If only the granaries were not looted by the British East India Company, if only the farmers of the region had cultivated rice instead of opium, they could have been saved. Well, it was not the military, but plain and simple economic policies that killed these people.

The last of the 40 recorded droughts of Bengal was in 1940’s when 4 million starved to death. Over a span of 182 years, over thirty million men, women and children were systematically killed due to poor economic policies. These Indians had no grudge against the British Empire. They had done nothing to deserve such a cruel fate. At least Hitler hated Jews and killed 6 million of them. What ill did these 30 million poor Indians do (or could have done) to the British Empire?

If the systematic murder of six million Jews was a crime worthy of waging a World War, does the killing of thirty million inhabitants of Bengal not even deserve a footnote in history?

Anyways, the imperial British are long gone, and India is a free democracy now. Once upon a time Shaheed Bhagat Singh had said that, if India is not strong enough for Independence, the white skinned will be replaced by the brown skinned, and exploitation of man by man will continue.

Having said this, let me address the debate of FDI being introduced in India.

Recently the government has introduced Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). I often wonder why the Government and its mouthpieces are trying to spread a notion that the problems associated with better collection, storage, transportation and distribution of farm products can only be tackled and solved by introducing FDI in India. Why are they hell-bent on selling their lands to foreign invaders just like Mir Jafar did in the battle of Plassey.

It is high time we understand that agriculture and retailing in India are not just enterprises. They are very similar to Indian Railways. Indian Railways should never be privatized simply because it is not just a profit making firm that runs trains in India. It is the largest employment scheme ever deployed by the Indian government. Privatization of Railways will lead to ‘optimization of corporate resources’, and millions of Indians will lose their livelihood.

The retail industry in India is a huge source of self-employment. For large sections of the semi-literate and illiterate population, the lack of opportunities for growth in the manufacturing sector and poor returns in agriculture has left retailing as the only meaningful option to sustain their livelihood.

These small street side shops have been a significant source of self-employment for the economic bottom half of the population. Projecting these millions of retailers as ‘entrepreneurs’ is a big joke, since most of them manage to operate their shops for daily bread and butter, not for listing themselves on the stock exchange some day.

With FDI, these retailers will be deprived of this livelihood. They can barely speak anything outside their native language. Asking them to seek employment in Walmart or Tesco is like saying ‘if you don’t have bread, you must eat cakes’!

Retailers are just the tip of the iceberg. The worst hit will be the farmers. Indian agriculture is traditionally based on small farms. These farms are not optimized and are unsuitable for running heavy machinery which can do tilling, sprinkling, or harvesting – but at least they generate jobs for daily wage farmers. They ensure that 600 million people in India survive!

Who does not know that Walmart and Tesco are known to buy out or lease huge farms, which they cultivate using highly optimized methods and techniques? Walmart and Tesco are rich and big – much bigger than any institution in India. They can lobby and change the laws of this land in a keystroke. Yes, initially they will offer huge sums of money as they buy out or lease the farmlands of India. They may even employ farmers on a contract basis, initially.

With newer machinery and spiraling land procurement, they’ll optimize their farm lands. Once they have their huge farm lands spanning great distances, will they continue to employ our farmers? Will they not deploy the heavy machinery and optimized techniques to maximize profit? After all, they are here to do business, not charity. The Indian middle and upper class will surely get a better shopping experience, but what about these 600 million farmers who will be killed systematically?

So, does that mean organized retail should not be brought in India? Yes it should be. But first, the media and government must stop bombarding us with their propaganda promoting the notion that organized retail is equal to FDI. It isn’t. It certainly isn’t.

Amul has proved that organized retail can be achieved. There was a time when milk was a commodity which was scarcely available and was imported to our country. This led to a long battle which finally resulted in the cooperative milk federations of India. Today each Indian state has its own federation which has ensured an efficient supply of milk products at reasonable rates in a sustained kind of a manner with the profits reaching millions of producers, and not one man’s pocket! Indian milkmen today live with dignity.

The same model in the fruits and vegetable market has been deployed by Hopcoms in my native city of Bangalore. Hopcoms ensures that small scale farmers of Bangalore’s nearby districts obtain proper channels to sell their produce. Hopcoms, in fact has saved lives of thousands of farmers in Karnataka.

Aren’t we messed up enough internally? Over the past 20 years, over 2 million farmers have committed suicide. Let alone the ones that were killed by other means. Who doesn’t know that the high farmer suicide rates in the Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh belt are due to the inability of the Government to prevent cheep subsidized imports which bring the price of the locally grown cash crops tumbling down?

It is known that the Government is working hand in glove with trader lobbies which first export the local produce creating scarcity in the country, and then proft from the higher prices. It is well known that the FCI godowns are rat-holes which destroy the food crops systematically, which rightfully should go to the poorest of poor Indian dying on the streets!

Inflation in India is created. A need for FDI is strategically created when we can simply enforce better supply, transportation, storage and retailing of Indian yield. Why don’t we deploy anti-dumping duties on foreign products which will ensure that food prices in India are regulated and farmers live and prosper with dignity?

For a country like India, with its population and its poverty, the only answer to our problems is to encourage and fix the people oriented models like Mandi Samitis and Cooperatives, which could be streamlined to run like Amul, thereby championing the larger interest of society. Instead, the Government is taking steps which will break the very backbone of Indian markets. It is also a matter of shame that intellectuals of the country are even supporting FDI without even looking at the bigger picture.

The history of this land has proved that economics can kill more brutally than the military. When prices of cars and computers continue to fall and those of rice and wheat become unaffordable for a common man, we know something is terribly wrong with the economic policies of this country.

The government and my fellow citizens must understand that all our farmers, once suppressed beyond a certain threshold, will not commit suicide or starve to death. Some will become naxalites and kill us. Some will join the local mafia and kill us for their daily bread and butter. Some will jump back, kill us, and bring governments down.

I hate to say this, but if not for the future of those 600 million farmers and those 100 million retailers, if not for this country, then at least for the future of our own children, let’s say NO to Foreign Direct Investments in India!

Photo credit: timesofindia.com

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Historically, we have seldom loved our politicians. They have been to us the very epitome of evil. However, it took a countrywide agitation for the Lokpal that succeeded in promoting the word ‘politician’ to expletive status.

Naturally, the movement had us all excited. The media had a wonderful time, and there was little dissent (most of which consisted of anger about Kiran Bedi’s travel bills.) The movement was consistently called “anti-graft”, which it is; but that leads us to think that anyone who does not support the movement is “pro-graft.” And I’ve been called pro-graft. I’ve even been accused of being on Manmohan Singh’s payroll. Such passions, have, however, cooled now; and it is time to coldly examine the the very idea of a Lokpal.

There are three problems with the Lokpal in general and the Jan Lokpal bill in particular.

Firstly, the Lokpal won’t consist of two people sitting and reviewing corruption cases. It will have to be an enormous organization. The creation of thousands of bureaucratic posts to regulate an already bloated bureaucracy is not workable, and is rather populist. Further the Jan Lokpal bill states:

Complaints against Lokpal staff will be handled by independent boards set-up in each state, composed of retired bureaucrats, judges, and civil society members.

This makes Jug Suraiya’s fears about ‘a Lokpal, then a Super-Lokpal, then a Super-super-Lokpal’, very real.

Secondly, the inclusion of the judiciary within the Lokpal’s ambit is a regressive step. How difficult do you think it is going to be, in a case where you stand to lose, to wail at the Lokpal’s door? You accuse the judge of corruption and out comes Lokpal like a ninja to the rescue – and before you know it, your case is delayed. In a country where justice takes years and years to be delivered, is that really practical?

Thirdly, the Lokpal is unelected. Giving it powers of prosecution over virtually everyone in the country is a bad idea. The Jan Lokpal bill includes, among others, all Nobel Laureates of Indian origin and the last two Magsaysay Award winners in the selection committee. Must a person not be accountable to anyone simply because she has won the Nobel? How are we to know she isn’t corruptible? Lie detector tests? (You know, they might do that. There is talk of Team Anna participating in Sach Ka Saamna. Sigh.)

Are we, then, to have an all-powerful Lokpal just because a lot of people are asking for it? Does democracy permit that? It might appear so; but the first thing we learn about democracy is that it is not rule of the masses: it is rule of representation. Is the Jan Lokpal bill representative enough? Are dissenting voices being heard?

Perhaps, due to overwhelming public support, confidence and involvement, the Lokpal might function well for a few years. But after some decades, with such immense legal powers, could a Lokpal not prove an irritant? Are we not staring into a future where influence with the Lokpal could make or break governments?

I may be paranoid, but the ‘anti-corruption’ crusaders have not answered any of these questions satisfactorily yet.

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Have you ever wondered what politicians in Maharashtra do when they’re not poetically accusing one another or switching between political parties? (People from the Congress party are not included, because even their election symbol says, “Talk to the Hand.”) Have you ever wondered what they mean when they say, “We lead busy lives?” There’s a simple answer: they’re all busy renaming every part of Mumbai.

Victoria Terminus, they declared, would now be called Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST). Perhaps they didn’t realize that it is somewhat difficult to picture Shivaji supervising the building of a railway terminus. (The same could be said about Queen Victoria, but at least trains existed in her era.) Substituting Shivaji Maharaj for Queen Victoria signals a shift from imperialism, to, well, monarchy. Many would argue that the name CST signifies a pride in our heroes, but the absolute lack of relevance jars. This SMS forward sums it up quite nicely: “A railway announcement after ten years at CST: The train on platform number 6 will go to Thorale Bajirao Peshwe and will only halt at Babasaheb Ambedkar, Pandit Nehru, Sai Baba, Aniruddha Bapu, Kashiram Hedgewar and Mahatma Phule stations.” Sadly, this SMS isn’t as much of an exaggeration as it looks like. BEST bus tickets already call Flora Fountain Hutatma Chowk.

You can print those names, you can even announce them through loudspeakers, but you can’t make them part of popular culture that easily. CST has had some degree of success, but every single bus conductor will stare at you if you ask for a ticket to Ahilyabai Holkar Chowk (formerly Churchgate.) And you can never, never say “Let’s go waste our time on Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Marg” (formerly Marine Drive. I wonder why they call Bose the forgotten hero.He seems to be quite well remembered in Mumbai. Even Linking Road is called Netaji Subhash Bose Marg. Maybe it’s because they forgot the ‘Chandra’.) What’s wrong with the name ‘Marine Drive’? No evil British people are being honoured. Besides, the British weren’t all heartless exploiters. They even named a road ‘Wodehouse Road’. If you ever find out that they didn’t mean PG Wodehouse, it would be kind not to tell me.

“Patriotism” is a shoddy excuse for such renaming. Credit should be given where credit is due, and a possible suggestion is to name buildings after the architects who designed them. Also, patriotism doesn’t explain why Haji Ali Chowk was renamed Vatsala Bai Desai Chowk, or why Dhobi Talao is now K Vasudev B Phadke Chowk. Renaming usually reflects the ideology of the government currently in power, and no citizen participation is ever requested. That’s hardly democratic, and, therefore, hardly betterment.

Maybe it all boils down to one fundamental and soul-searching question: Would you like it if “Shootout at Lokhandwala” was called “Shootout at Swami Samarth Nagar?”

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I remember my mother telling me – “Overcooking sours the food.” I must also mention that she is an amazing cook. We observed this theory in effect recently when television channels were flooded with RA-One ads. Many of us simply lost interest in the film because of the excessive advertising. I think a similar thing is happening between your team and the media.

Let me first tell you that I was (and still am) one of your biggest supporters. I fasted along with you, wrote a series of articles about you. I support our cause with all my heart and soul.

Right from the outset, you have been righteous. Where you failed was in acknowledging the fact that the media is as much of a business as selling mouse traps. You forgot that ethics and journalism go together only as much as politics and ethics go together these days.

It is quite obvious that the media is extremely biased. Media celebrities spend their lives swinging public opinion one way or another. The only story of recent times which they were compelled to cover in an unbiased manner was your movement. The groundswell of support for your movement all across India made it impossible for the media to do anything but cover it silently. Once the uproar subsided, the media started to play it’s natural game.

It all started with Agnivesh, a morally corrupt person who never deserved to be anywhere near our anti-corruption movement. Anyway, the media did their bit to blow the issue out of proportion. During the campaign, Prashant Bhushan gave unnecessary media bites on Kashmir and other unrelated issues, which were never called for. Kiran Bedi even did an impromptu dance teasing politicians with a mask during the fast in August. Once the movement was over, the media took no time in picking up on these issues and striking back. They are paid by the political houses. They followed their masters.

Why did you fail to understand that being in the media spotlight beyond a point can be utterly damaging?

Recently Rajdeep, Barkha  and Rahul Kanwal each conducted an exclusive interview with Anna. They tried to trap Anna with questions relating to RSS, Digvijay’s comments and so on. Anna must have known that the objective of media celebrities is to support the Congress theory that RSS is evil and any association with it has to be demonized. Anna simply took the bait.

Shortly afterwards, Sanjiv Bhatt was arrested in Gujarat for some offense and Anna Hazare and Kiran Bedi instantly condemned the arrest. This was totally unecessary. Why do you have to support Sanjiv Bhatt because it is anti Modi? Did you examine the intricacies of the case? You fell into another trap laid by the media.

Then began the Digvijay versus Anna episode, that the media feasted upon. When did Anna’s standard get so low? Are we publicity hungry like these politicians? Arvind Kejriwal’s statement of people and Anna being above parliament was widely publicized as “Anna is above parliament”. Each time you opened your mouths, the media blew it further open.

It is high time you learn how the media likes to twist and scramble unrelated issues.

If corruption was the main issue for your group, where was the need to talk about Kashmir, Sanjiv Bhatt etc? Individual opinions of the members of your team shouldn’t have come at all before the media. You should have acted like a close and united group. Soon enough the media dropped it’s nuclear weapon on you. They declared that Team Anna is disintegrating and started to feast over it like scavengers.

And it seems you still haven’t learned yet. Recently Arvind Kejriwal was awarded  the NDTV’s ‘Indian of the year’ award and went to accept it. Kejriwal ji, you are campaigning for a public cause. The last thing you should be doing is accepting an award from a dubious media shop.

Please get back to basics. Stay low if you have to. Spend more time planning. Visit every village in India and advise people of their rights and duties. Teach them to fight corruption. Give them the courage. Indians have not forgotten you and they will not forget you. Don’t overcook!

You are not politicians who should have a say on every issue in the world. Don’t get political. This only attracts more criticism and hurts your integrity. I believe in you. The country does. Keep walking along the chosen path. That’s the only right path.

Jai Hind!

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