Recent Posts from Author
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War and Peace
Cross-posted from Neutral Observer
It took me about one and a half months to read War and Peace. Tolstoy’s magnum opus, first published in the 1860s, has been acclaimed as one of the greatest novels ever written, though the popular perception is that it is a very difficult book to finish reading. The length of the novel is clearly a huge barrier to reading it, though unfamiliarity with the historical context adds to the difficulties.To appreciate the book fully, it is useful to recall the historical context. The story is set in the early nineteenth century, spanning the period from 1805 to 1820. Its main characters all come from the Russian nobility, and the narrative arc follows their fortunes, set against the backdrop of the tumultuous events surrounding Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.
The Horrors of Sierra Leone
Cross-posted from Neutral Observer
Ishmael Beah’s book, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier,
recounts his experiences as a child soldier in Sierra Leone’s civil war during the 1990s. He was twelve years old when the war engulfed him in 1993. He was away at a town called Mattru Jong with his brother and a few friends when his village was attacked by the rebel forces. Unable to return to his village, he was on the run for months. He had to eat whatever he could find in abandoned villages or rely on raw cassava and coconuts. When they reached occupied villages, he and his companions were often suspected of being killers, since both the rebels and the government troops were regularly recruiting children and turning them into killing machines. During those months, he endured horrors most of us can barely imagine. Beah saw a lot of the aftermath of rebel attacks, in addition to barely escaping them several times. Severed heads, hands chopped off, a baby shot while on her mother’s back – these are some of the sights he chooses to mention. He keeps the descriptions to a minimum, but does not shy away from the blood, gore and horror. Category: Books & AuthorsSacred Games: a review
Cross-posted from Neutral Observer.Sacred Games
is Vikram Chandra’s third work of fiction, published in early 2007. It
is a large novel, both physically as well as in scope and ambition.
Judging by its 900 pages, it doesn’t appear that the author was
slacking off during the seven years that it took him to complete it.
The book is set in turn-of-the-century Bombay and has as its central
characters a mafia don, Ganesh Gaitonde, and a police inspector, Sartaj
Singh. The broad plot could be straight out of a thousand thrillers: a
nuclear device is about to be set off in Bombay. The intention is to
make it appear to be the handiwork of Muslims, in order to ensure all
manner of mayhem. The don Gaitonde has unwittingly helped in the
importation of nuclear material, but panics after realizing this. He
builds a bunker in the middle of Bombay to try and survive the nuclear
explosions. For some reason, he then commits suicide, but not before
tipping off the police inspector to his presence there.The
book has the police procedural and popular detective fiction as its
templates, but these are merely structural frames. Chandra’s real skill
is as a weaver of stories. Much of the book is devoted to the career of
Ganesh Gaitonde, narrated in the first person: his rise from a
small-time crook to a major don, his criminal exploits, his going
international, his living on a yacht in Thailand, and his spiritual
awakening and involvement with a guru. This narrative is interleaved
with the present, where Sartaj Singh is involved in other police work.
In addition, there are so-called “insets” in which Chandra brings in
additional stories, of characters who impinge upon the lives of
Gaitonde and Sartaj Singh. Here is where Chandra’s remarkable skill as
a teller of stories is revealed. In particular, his account of the
traumas of Sartaj Singh’s mother’s family during the partition of India
is very well done. This inset has little to do with the main plot, but
adds immeasurably to the reader’s experience. Indeed, this kind of
loving attention is lavished upon almost all of the characters in the
book. This is really what sets this book apart. Even if you are not
particularly impressed with the detective work or titillated by the
Pulp Fiction type of gangster narrative, you can soak in the warmth of
knowing the characters intimately.Category: Books & AuthorsDeep Thoughts on The Big Question
Namit and Usha are vacationing in exotic locales, as they are wont to do, and I am left to man the ramparts. Namit has craftily dropped hints that I am not pulling my weight as a contributor. His most recent post was designed to get a rise out of me, as I have strong opinions about what history is and what history-writing has become. More of that later though. For now, let us focus on a Big Question, always fascinating for those of us who have not gotten over it since our college days:
Does science make belief in God obsolete?
My attention to this question was drawn by a full-page advertisement in the Financial Times by the Templeton Foundation. The placement of the advertisement and the extracts from the thoughts the distinguished panelists piqued my curiosity. The Templeton Foundation website has the full text of the thoughts of the panelists.
Category: ReligionSmall Thrills
Cross-posted from Neutral Observer
As I grow older, I seem to get an
unusual kick out of small discoveries – something I remember from my
childhood. Maybe it is because I have become cynical about grand
insights and world-changing ideas.Many years ago, I had heard this song, from the Hindi film Ek Musafir Ek Hasina. The song is unremarkable, except for this refrain in Asha Bhonsle’s voice:Category: CultureJust Not Cricket
Cross-posted from Neutral Observer
In a recent cricket match played between India and Australia in Sydney, the Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh
was accused of hurling a racist insult at Andrew Symonds, an Australian player who, I learnt
recently, is of Caribbean descent. Symonds had been the subject of insulting taunts and gestures by some spectators in the stadiums of India where the Australian team had toured a few months ago. On January 4, 2008, in the middle of a tense game situation in Sydney, there was an exchange between Symonds and Harbhajan, after which Symonds accused Harbhajan of calling him a ‘monkey’. This was backed up by two of his Australian team-mates, Matthew Hayden and Michael Clarke. Harbhajan Singh denied using any racist insults.
The two umpires did not hear anything and the microphones attached to the stumps did not pick up the insult either. Harbhajan’s batting partner and cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar also said later that Harbhajan had not used any racist language. The matter was reported to the umpires, who eventually brought it to the attention of the off-field match referee. A hearing was held by the referee after the match was over; he found Harbhajan guilty as accused and handed out a three-match ban.The ban unleashed a furore in India. The TV channels were outraged. Predictably, a few effigies were burnt for the benefit of the cameras. Websites were flooded with the outbursts of Indian cricket fans. Everybody and his uncle weighed in on the matter. The Indian cricket board, by far the wealthiest and most influential of such boards in the cricket playing countries, made threatening noises about calling off the tour if the ban were not lifted. An appeals process exists in cases such as these, so an appeal was
filed. The international body that manages cricket, the International Cricket Council (ICC), decided to postpone the appeal hearing till the end of the month in order to salvage the two remaining matches in the test series. On Tuesday, January 29th, the appeal was heard by a commissioner of the ICC who also happens to be a judge from New Zealand. He found that the charge was not proven. Harbhajan was however convicted of a lesser charge of using abusive language.
The Pakistan Puzzle
Cross-posted from Neutral Observer .
On August 14th this year, Pakistan completed 60 years as an independent country. In these 60 years, the state of Pakistan has endured, but doubts about it still persist – it has been called a failed state and a rogue state. For its own people, the state has done precious little. Small groups of individuals, however, have enriched themselves. Constitutional democracy has yet to find a foothold in Pakistan. Indeed, the constitution itself has not found a foothold yet. The Pakistani state has fomented and supported insurgencies and terrorism, both of which now pose serious dangers to Pakistani society. Its rulers have flirted with Islamic fundamentalism to various degrees, with the ill effects on society becoming increasingly obvious in recent years.
Is Pakistan really a failed state ? In what form do Pakistan’s failures manifest themselves ? What are the reasons for these failures ? What are the possible remedies ? What are the criteria for defining the failure of states?
Death of a Colonel
Col. Vasanth V, commanding officer of the 9th Maratha light infantry battalion, died on Tuesday, July 31st. He was injured while battling a group of militants who were trying to cross the India-Pakistan Line of Control (LOC) in the Uri sector in Kashmir.I had met Col. Vasanth briefly in 1991 when I was on vacation in India. He was a soft-spoken man with a good sense of humor. He had surprised me with his knowledge of obscure things by asking whether the culture of the Cajuns in Louisiana was still alive. I hadn’t known about the Cajuns before coming to the US, and hadn’t expected that someone in India would know about them. So I naturally asked him how he even knew of their existence. Though he couldn’t recall exactly where he had read about them, he brushed off my surprise by saying “We used to read a lot of things, including the newspaper the samosas came wrapped in”! I could immediately sense a kindred soul, having been book and library-starved during my childhood. For some reason, that moment of resonance came back to me today, when I heard about his death.
I have often wondered if the chaos of the world of political violence, either within countries or between them, is going to affect me directly. There are so many conflicts in the world that I must count myself incredibly fortunate never to have come within sniffing distance of any. This time though, the violence has come quite close. Col. Vasanth and I had only one degree of separation. He was a long-time colleague and a good friend of my brother.
Category: BiographyThe Tragedy of the Congo
Cross-posted from Neutral Observer .
The history of European colonialism is replete with examples of extreme cruelty. The decimation of the American Indians in South America and the United States is but one example. What was done to the natives of Africa is no less barbarous. The British, the French and the Germans were all guilty of slaughtering native populations. Among the less well-known examples is what the Belgians and their King did to the people who lived in the Congo river basin.
Adam Hochschild wrote a book in 1999 describing the rape of the Congo. King Leopold’s Ghost is his attempt to document the atrocities of Belgian rule over the Congo, starting from about 1875 to 1908. Among other things, the book is a remarkable account of the chicanery of Belgium’s monarch. However, its most disturbing aspects are the stark descriptions of the inhuman brutality of European rule. It is also startling in its revelation of the magnitude of the inhumanity – Hochschild estimates that nearly 10 million people died due to unnatural causes during the period ranging from the 1880s to about 1920. The Congo basically underwent a holocaust in the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century.
The Basis of Belief
Do we arrive at our beliefs in a systematic manner or through an intuitive process ? Are we predisposed towards some beliefs while being skeptical about others ? Do life experiences play a strong role in what we believe ? Does scientific training enable us to develop a method for deciding what to believe ? Or is it that rationalists are born, not made ? Is there a commonly accepted set of methods for deciding the truth value of claims ?
A clutch of these questions occurred to me recently, when I got into an argument.
Suspect Logic
The Guardian’s “comment is free” site had a post a few days ago by Moazzam Begg, a Briton of Pakistani descent, now famous for his detention for three years at Guantanamo Bay. Begg is the author of a book called Enemy Combatant, in which he details his experiences.
While his account of his experiences confirm what I have read elsewhere about the whole system of detention, interrogation and torture in the so-called war on terror, I have found the responses to Moazzam Begg’s writing and public utterances to be quite striking. While there are many people who are sympathetic to him, there is also a strong current of animosity towards him. The UK Telegraph is one source of skepticism about Begg’s claims of innocence. The commenters on his post at the Guardian’s site, among others, point out the following: he was a member of a street gang called the Lynx in the mid 1990s; he was arrested for social benefits fraud in 1994; a search of his home revealed night vision goggles and flak jackets; he was associated with a fellow called Shahid Akram Butt who was convicted of benefits fraud in Britain and later of terrorism in Yemen; he was running an Islamist bookshop called Maktabah al Ansar which sold titles like The Virtues of Jihad; he had attended training camps in Afghanistan in the 1990s and provided financial support to jihadi fighters in Bosnia and Chechnya; he was present in Afghanistan in late 2001 just prior to his arrest in Pakistan; a copy of a money order bearing the name Moazzam Begg was found at an Al Qaeda training camp. Begg has not denied much of this, except to claim that the name match was a case of mistaken identity.
If you view this evidence from the point of view of law enforcement, there seems to be very good reason to be quite suspicious of Begg. The logical leap from being suspicious to saying that “The only way Begg should have left Gitmo is in a coffin ..”, as a reviewer of his book did on Amazon.com, is deeply flawed, but is unfortunately made too easily by too many people. Mere suspicion is not cause for indefinite detention and even less so for torture and killing. By all means, haul suspects before a court of law and use the full force of the legal machinery to punish them if they are guilty. Even the most heinous serial killers are charged and given their day in court, but the Bush administration keeps arguing that the suspects at Guantanamo have to be treated differently. The most basic injustice inherent in Guantanamo is the attempt by the US government to bypass the legal system entirely.
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