On India

India: Armed and dangerous -- Update

Jason Overdorf — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 07:21:40 +0000

Teenage school boy shot dead by four classmates in northern Indian state

Jason Overdorf

India's battle with gun violence hit another milestone over the weekend, as a group of schoolboys allegedly shot and killed a classmate in Rohtak, Haryana.

Though the alleged incident took place at a religious function, rather than on school grounds, the age of the victim and suspects recalls India's first school shooting, the 2007 killing of 14-year-old Abishek Tiagi in nearby Gurgaon.

In the latest incident, a 15-year-old Class 10 student was allegedly shot dead by four classmates during a religious function in Meham, a town about 50 miles from New Delhi, early on Sunday, CNN/IBN quotes local police as saying.

As GlobalPost reported inIndia: Armed and Dangerous, schoolyard gunplay remains rare around here. But thanks to a strange coincidence of Americanization and traditional machismo brought on by rapid economic growth, India has developed a gun obsession that makes Charlton Heston look like Gandhi.

India's motivation problem: From the Kumbh Mela to the Jaipur Foot

Jason Overdorf — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 06:23:39 +0000

The World Bank sees reason for hope in the 'pop-up megacity' built for the Kumbh Mela. Here's why it just confirms my despair.

Jason Overdorf

Everybody from Harvard researchers to the World Bank (not to mention the World Hindu Council) found reason for hope at this year's Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh. Here's why their findings just drove me deeper into despair.

As the Financial Times points out, Onno Ruhl, the head of the World Bank in India, observed in Allahabad that the otherwise incompetent authorities of Uttar Pradesh are able to build an efficient "pop-up megacity" every three years for the massive religious festival. This year, for instance, they built a tent city for 2 million people in less than three months, "complete with hard roads, toilets, running water, electricity, food shops, garbage collection and well-manned police stations." All things that the government has by and large failed to provide the population of its permanent cities, towns and villages over many decades.

Inspiring? To me, not so much.

The conclusion that Ruhl and others draw from this experience is that India is capable of solving its notorious infrastructure problems. But that is self-evident. Anything that America can do, India can do. The issue is not one of ability, but of will. And that's where I get depressed. India CAN solve problems, but it WON'T. And the reason is hidden in the throwaway "explanation" that the bureaucrat in charge of the project gives for its success.

"First, the authorities ensure that all those working on the project are accountable for their actions and the money they spend. Second, those involved are highly motivated," the FT cites Allahabad divisional commissioner Devesh Chaturvedi as saying.

“They feel it’s a real service to all these pilgrims who have come here, the sadhus [holy men] and the seers, so it’s a sort of mission which motivates them to work extra, despite difficult working conditions,” Chaturvedi says.

This is the same non-explanation that I have received time and again when I've visited "success stories"like the cleanup of Surat, Gujarat -- which was inspired by a bout of the plague in 1994 to reinvent itself of one of India's cleanest cities. Things happen because somebody actually cares and takes responsibility. Or, what is the more depressing flip side, apart from an occasional blip on the radar, every public activity in India is a complete and unmitigated failure because nobody cares and everybody would rather, for example, steal from the public distribution system than ensure that starving people get food.

Take the Jaipur Foot, a remarkable low-cost prosthetics project profiled inthis month's Forbes India. Again, everybody from Harvard Business School on down has examined the project to see how they've managed to provide prosthetic limbs to 1.3 million people for free. But all they've been able to come up with is that it is the result of the efforts of a single man, a former bureaucrat named Devendra Raj Mehta. And now that he's getting up in years, the very real fear is that the project may well die with him.

India's hanging judge: President lays foundation for flurry of executions

Jason Overdorf — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 07:47:00 +0000

Recently inducted Indian President Pranab Mukherjee has already okayed more executions than his predecessors did over 15 years -- and he's just getting started.

Jason Overdorf

With fat-frame spectacles and a cherub's face, India's president doesn't look like a bloodthirsty killer. But in his first seven months in office, he's already set the local speed record for sending prisoners to the gallows, and it looks like he may just be getting started.

According to the Times of India, Mukherjee has already presided over more executions than his predecessors managed in 15 years.

In November 2012, Mukherjee quietly okayed the secret dawn execution of convicted Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab, caught on camera during the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Earlier this month, he approved the secret dawn hanging of convicted Kashmiri terrorist Afzal Guru, who was convicted of plotting the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament based primarily on a confession made in police custody. On Thursday, Mukherjee reportedly rejected the mercy pleas of four associates of the famous bandit Veerappan -- clearing the way for the execution of the men, who were convicted of killing 22 people, including policemen, in a landmine blast in 1993. And there are reportedly eight more convicts whose mercy pleas are pending.

Human rights activists have condemned the executions that have already been carried out on moral grounds, disputing the government's right to kill its citizens for any reason. But whatever your views on the death penalty, the timing and manner of these hangings is deeply troubling.

Like? Unfriend? Message? Delhi street kids pose as NYU students on Facebook

Jason Overdorf — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 08:02:21 +0000

It's not a scam. They just want to be friends.

Jason Overdorf

Weird wide web? Definitely.

The Globe and Mail's Stephanie Nolenreports that India's savvy street kids have taken to Facebook to make new friends -- and new identities.

Yep. It sounds like a scam. But it's not. These are ambitious young homeless kids with big dreams. And they're practicing on Facebook. Here's Nolen:

Inside Baseball: Why Nandy's mistake matters

Jason Overdorf — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 06:52:42 +0000

An Indian sociologist's remarks on caste and corruption should shine a light on stereotypes

Jason Overdorf

When the inside baseball of Indian politics makes it to the pages of the New York Times and the website of the New Yorker, it's time to weigh in. Leaving the background to the hyperlinks, here's my take:

Indian sociologist Ashis Nandy's remarks at Jaipur, and his later clarification, are not important simply because the attempt to prosecute him for insulting Indians from lower castes represents yet another attack on freedom of speech in the name of “sensitivity,” as Manu Joseph aptly lampoons in the New York Times and Basharat Peer ably explains for the New Yorker.

The main issue is the content of his statement, which sneakily confirms as “fact” a widely held public perception for which there is no hard evidence, and, in truth, seems patently false based on common sense.

The statement in question?

“It is a fact that most of the corrupt come from the OBCs and the Scheduled Castes and now increasingly Scheduled Tribes and as long as this is the case, Indian republic will survive.”

Much has been made of the context for that statement, which you can read in full here. But in my reading of it nothing undercuts the essential assertion.

Nandy is sincere and sympathetic. He is saying that the corruption of India's lower castes is justified, even desirable. And Nandy admits that corruption of a kind is common among the elites. But it's interesting, to say the least, that he compares the assistance of an old boys' network in getting into Oxford or Harvard to the “millions of rupees” amassed by “the only unrecognized billionaire in India today” Madhu Koda – which were allegedly earned through illegal manipulation of the mining laws and perhaps selling his support, by turns, to the Bharatiya Janata Party and later the Congress. (So much for the context).

Nevertheless, whether Nandy means well or not is immaterial. So is whether or not he suffers from some unwitting prejudices, even as he thinks he is being radical. The most important thing here is that he claims something as “fact” for which he offers no evidence and that he cannot support. Namely, he says that most of the corruption in India can now be attributed to the lower castes, which comprise the mid-level Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and the formerly untouchable Dalits or Scheduled Castes. (Yes, there's also the Scheduled Tribes, but only so much inside baseball for one blog post).

This is a widely held perception that I suggest is based solely on a handful of high-profile prosecutions: the notorious “fodder scam” case against Bihar's Lalu Prasad Yadav, the “Taj corridor scam” case against Uttar Pradesh's Kumari Mayawati and, more recently, the “2G telecom spectrum scam” case against former telecom minister Andimuthu Raja.

That's called “believing is seeing” – you only process the evidence that suits your preconceptions, if you bother with evidence at all. Surely there were corruption cases against high-caste Indians as well. And if they didn't generate as much heat, one might say with equal authority that Mayawati & co were targeted for serious criminal investigations, and the others ignored, precisely because of their respective castes.

Pakistan: Coup likely averted with fresh election date, opposition backing

Jason Overdorf — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 07:21:46 +0000

Surprisingly resilient Zardari may make history by completing his full term.

Jason Overdorf

Pakistan's opposition parties agreed to back the government against any “extra-constitutional changes” to prevent the country from holding elections this spring and the government announced Pakistan will go to the polls on May 15 – developments that will likely prevent the army from engineering a “soft coup,” if that was indeed ever on the cards.

India: Is the justice system broken?

Jason Overdorf — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 06:56:37 +0000

Rampant human rights violations, dismal conviction rates, skyrocketing crime, and nearly 400,000 inmates in prison--only a third of whom have actually been convicted. Justice, Indian style.

Jason Overdorf

A wag once remarked that a trip through the Indian court system is as near to experiencing eternity as a living soul can get. But it's not just slow. Despite well-written laws and legions of well-intentioned cops, lawyers, judges, and activists, the Indian justice system is abusive, arbitrary, and above all ineffective.

In short, it's badly broken. And the only answer that seems to gain any traction is to make it tougher, or more arbitrary.

The current arguments run that the death penalty to be meted out to rapists, or that juveniles should be tried as adults, or, as a cop friend pointed out, that the police must be freed from petty concerns about human rights, to strike fear of law and order into the hearts of criminals.

But consider some stats put together this week by the Wall Street Journal's Real Time blog, as part of a seris on the justice system.

India's rape protests reflect disenchantment with democracy

Jason Overdorf — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 06:23:52 +0000

Indians feel betrayed by a democratic system that has entrenched extortion of its citizens, argues Prem Shankar Jha

Jason Overdorf

They weren't really protesting against rape, Prem Shankar Jha argues in a persuasive and thought-provoking column in Tuesday's Hindu. They were really protesting extortion.

Huh?

"Barring a few lapses, the Central and State governments acted promptly, and with commendable efficiency," Jha writes. "The Delhi police captured the alleged rapists within hours and the government spared no expense in its attempt to save her life."

So why were people so angry?

"The answer is that the rape acted as the trigger for an older, and deeper, anger in people — one that has been smouldering for years in their hearts. This stems from a profound sense of betrayal. Democracy was meant to empower them. Instead, in a way that few of them understand even today, it has done the exact opposite."

I'm not entirely convinced. But as I wrote in my article on the protests, it does seem clear that anger over violence against women dovetailed with disgust over corruption and the government's many failures in service delivery.

More importantly, Jha draws out some interesting observations in arguing his point.

(1) Indians aren't mad about bribery, they're mad about extortion

Every Indian worth his salt has paid a bribe to get preferential treatment. But extortion isn't voluntary.

"It requires no contract; no negotiation; and therefore no element of consent. It is a simple exercise of brute power by an employee or representative of the state over the citizen. Its commonest form is to deny the citizen the services to which he is entitled until he agrees to make a ‘private’ payment to the functionary in whom the power of the state is vested. Every act of extortion is a fresh reminder to the citizen of his or her impotence. This becomes complete if he or she is denied redress for the abuse of power."

(2) Democracy hasn't empowered the people

"One set of figures illustrates the impunity with which civil servants can break the law. According to the National Crime Records Bureau’s annual report Crime in India 2007, between 2003 and 2007 citizens filed 282, 384 complaints of human rights abuses against the police. Of these only 79,000 were investigated; only 1,070 policemen were brought to trial and only 264 — less than one in a thousand — were convicted."

India: Life of Pi, a touch of frivolous whimsy

Jason Overdorf — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 06:51:18 +0000

Here's why I haven't seen Ang Lee's latest, and don't plan on it.

Jason Overdorf

Booker choice all at sea
Life of Pi, By Yann Martel.

By Jason Overdorf
(This book review appeared the Far Eastern Economic Review in November 2002).

LIFE OF PI, the winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize, is a delightful little book--and I mean that in the worst possible way. Author Yann Martel and the British-based committee that chose the winning book made much of the novel's supposed religious overtones. But Martel's claim that this is a book that will make you believe in God, or at least question why you don't, is a gross exaggeration.

Life of Pi is no Moby Dick. By choosing to award the Commonwealth and Ireland's highest literary prize to Life of Pi, the Man Booker committee has rewarded the most irritating characteristic of contemporary literary writing: whimsy.

The plot summary is itself discouraging. A young Indian boy, Piscine Molitor Patel--named after a Parisian swimming pool--cutely adopts Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. A shipwreck strands him on a lifeboat in the Pacific with a 205-kilogram Bengal tiger. Relying on nothing but his wits and an amusingly frank survival guidebook, "Pi" must find a way to collect water and catch fish. Pi must also tame the tiger, which has its own name to inspire a collective groan, Richard Parker (which was also the name of a victim in a notorious case of cannibalism at sea in the 1870s).

Reviewers and publicists have described this story as a boys' adventure for grown-ups and as a fable of magical realism. But it lacks the seriousness to rank among either. Because the tale is told tongue in cheek--precluding readers' suspension of disbelief--it fails as a boys' adventure story. Nor does the novel have the historical sweep and philosophical depth on which magical realism depends. Life of Pi gives you the feeling the author is just fooling around. Moreover, and this is its worst failing, Pi's sojourn in the lifeboat--with no speaking companions--feels about 50 days too long.

India: Has Mediocracy already convicted Delhi gang rape 5?

Jason Overdorf — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 09:47:00 +0000

India's high-profile gang rape case has parallels with New York's Central Park jogger case

Jason Overdorf

Can the five adults and one juvenile suspects in the notorious Delhi gang rape case expect a fair trial? Probably not.

On paper, the men accused of the vicious assault will enjoy all the advantages of India's liberal justice system, apart from the high-priced, influential lawyers that only the wealthy can afford. But cases are not tried on paper, and this one exhibits every sign that it will not be tried in the Saket district court where they made their first appearance on Monday. Instead, like so many court cases, government policies, and bureaucratic actions, it will be decided by the country's real rulers: The Mediocracy.

"This is a media trial," senior Delhi High Court advocate Rajinder Singh told me in a Q&A yesterday. "Even the judges who are going to be responsible for these trials are motivated by the media and what is going on in the country."

In almost every story I've reported, whether it's about poor people starving because of government corruption or a city cleaning up its act after an unhealthy dose of the plague, somebody will say it: All this is only happening because of the media attention. And if the media attention goes away too soon, "all this" stops happening, too. (Consider the Wall Street Journal's neat encapsulation and the Washington Post's history of "high profile" Indian rape cases and the policies they engendered, such as an innovative and effective Delhi Police outreach program called Parivartan, which began in 2006 after a sensational case and then quietly died as the media attention to the issue waned, according to the Economic Times).

Call it the power of the press, and it's a good thing. The government isn't functioning -- it's failing to feed the hungry, or failing to curb corruption (the main cause of the first failure), and the journalists step in. But the short attention span of the news cycle isn't enough to initiate real change--consider the country's revolving door elections--and as the Delhi gang rape case indicates to some degree, what makes news is often connected with caste- and class-related biases. (Rape and humiliation is a daily reality for women from the castes once known as "untouchable," for instance, yet the media's sporadic coverage of the problem has never gained much traction, as Badri Narayan pointed out for The Hindu).

On Wednesday, a high-handed New York Times editorial cautioned that "there are disturbing aspects to the way the case is being handled." They're right. But the editors might have a look at the newspaper morgue before they get TOO snippy: There are several parallels (as well as contrasts) here to the brutal New York City rape and beating of the so-called "Central Park jogger" in 1989-- which ignited a similar media frenzy.

India: Why "vested interests" might not be so bad

Jason Overdorf — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 06:43:45 +0000

Lifting India's ludicrously low limits on campaign finance could drum rapists out of politics, argues India's business press

Jason Overdorf

Americans often lament that the massive campaign contributions of the tobacco lobby or arms manufacturers stack the deck against our politicians passing certain types of legislation. But India's experience with drastic limits on these documented campaign contributions tells a different story, according to the local business press: When you keep big business out of politics, you let (alleged) criminals and gangsters in.

Delhi gears up for renewed protests after gang rape victim succumbs to injuries

Jason Overdorf — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 03:00:16 +0000

Anger mounts over government's decision to send victim to Singapore for treatment, and police barricades designed to limit protests.

Jason Overdorf

Protesters have already begun to gather at New Delhi's Jantar Mantar on Saturday morning, as the city wakes to the news that the victim of a brutal gang rape died in a Singapore hospitalovernight.

India: Can rape protests be the beginning of broad social change?

Jason Overdorf — Tue, 25 Dec 2012 07:59:28 +0000

India's angry reaction to the gang rape of a 23-year-old physical therapist in New Delhi could strengthen various movements for social justice.

Jason Overdorf

New Delhi police charged into a crowd of young men and women protesting the country's apparent impotence in the face of rampant violence against women over the weekend, evoking memories of the massive 2011 Indian protests against corruption and more ominous comparisons with Egypt's Tahrir Square. And while the anger is rooted in rage, fear and bitterness over the brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old physical therapist in New Delhi, disgust with India's corrupt, callous and incompetent public officials has stoked the flames.

The question now is: Where do we go from here?

Can a rape protest be the catalyst that injects life into India's amorphous "women's movement" -- which can seem moribund compared with the strides that women are making for themselves professionally? Can a rape protest be the catalyst for a badly needed reconception of "law and order," including police reform and a legitimate attempt to untangle the broken court system? Can a rape protest be the catalyst that replaces the now-compromised anti-corruption movement, creating a committed, mobilized throng of non-partisan political activists out of the historically apathetic middle class?

So far, there are both promising and discouraging signs. On the one hand, both mainstream and social media are devoting new attention to women's rights activists who are otherwise widely ignored. But on the other, the most simplistic, ineffective, and unsurprising "solutions" have already dominated the discourse on what needs to be done -- with kneejerk calls for the death penalty and chemical castration giving rise to all the usual arguments and objections against those harsh measures, in an increasingly pointless back and forth.

In today's newspapers, for instance, the Communist Party of India-Marxist's (CPI-M) Sitaram Yechury bemoans India's 29 percent conviction rate for rape cases. The government has unveiled fast track courts and other legal measures to claim that these offenses will no longer be ignored or allowed to languish for years in the system. Meanwhile, protesters continue to wave signs reading "Hang Them" and "You Rape, We Chop."

The idea that "Delhi is the rape capital of India" remains widely accepted, despite many intelligent op-eds and a spate of "rapes around the country"-type reports to the contrary. An assumption that violence against women is increasing has been taken for granted without much scrutiny or reflection. And the police have been raked over the coals for failing to stop rape, and then cracking down on rape-protesters, as thoughtful insights on the reasons for their failings, and how those failings might be corrected, have been shunted to the side. (Note: New York City, about half the size of New Delhi, actually faces about 50 percent more rape cases -- 990 versus 660 or so, while Delhi's 26-29 percent conviction rate isn't so dismal compared with New York sentences that allow 42 percent of convicted rapists out on probation or "conditional release," according to the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault.)

India: Narendra Modi is nothing to fear

Jason Overdorf — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 10:34:32 +0000

By winning a third consecutive term as Gujarat's chief minister, the controversial Narendra Modi has boosted his chances to become the BJP's candidate for prime minister. Here's why you needn't worry.

Jason Overdorf

Narendra Modi delivered a convincing victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Gujarat elections Thursday, winning an unprecedented third consecutive term in a nation where elections are nearly always decided by the "anti-incumbency" factor.

India: Playboy unveils Bunny sari as nation rages against rape

Jason Overdorf — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 06:58:06 +0000

Playboy is betting that sheer saris will be enough to stave off protests. Don't count on it.

Jason Overdorf

Playboy unveiled the bunny costumes for its upcoming Indian Playboy Clubs on a day when thousands protested violence against women, following a brutal gang rape.

As GlobalPost reported earlier, India is confronting brazen and spectacular acts of violence with the same national outpouring of grief, rage and confusion with which Americans are reeling from the Sandy Hook shooting.

“The reason it's become such an emotive issue is that the expression of violence, particularly gender violence, is in a way a public event,” said Delhi University sociologist Radhika Chopra. “This is not secret violence. This is not happening in a dark corner of a street or shady corner of a park. It's on a bus. It's in broad daylight. It's on flyovers. It's in the most public spaces of all. And there are always people there.”

Plenty of people will see the entrance of Playboy -- even with demured-down Bunnies -- as throwing fuel on the fire.