58th Republic Day in Washington DC

We were planning a quick trip to Washington DC on 26th January to visit the Indian Embassy to attend the Republic Day celebrations there. It was sunny but a really cold day – about 18 deg. F (about -7.7 deg. C) at 9.00 am that day.

The function at the Embassy started sharp on time at 10.00 am with the unfurling of the flag at the hands of the Indian Ambassador Ronen Sen. Bowing to the elements, the rendition of the national anthem and other festivities were held indoors in the Chancery building of the Indian Embassy.

The Chancery building is not huge but nonetheless an impressive building (actually two adjoining ones) and one of the oldest properties held by GOI abroad. In the front of the building is a statue of Mahatma Gandhi. The function was held in the lobby of the building. It was a neat little lobby but a little too small to accommodate crowd nearly a hundred strong. The lobby is has photographs of sitting President and PM as well as those of late Mrs. Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. An impressive oil portrait of Sardar Patel also adorns the walls. There was a small reception room and two bigger adjoining rooms on either side of the lobby, which that day were reserved for food arrangements.

The function indoors began with the national anthem. Later the Ambassador read the speech by the President Dr. Abdul Kalam. While the contents of the speech were impressive in the usual Kalam style, the listless reading by the Ambassador turned it into a test of audience’s endurance. Also lacking was any note of welcome from the Ambassador himself and this made it feel as if he was there only because he had to. The cultural program was a display of typical “babu”dom that the GOI is famous for. After a couple of decent patriotic songs rendered by some Embassy staffers, there were a few songs by an ex-AIR lady singer. Some were OK and some quite so-so. Then came something, calling which a song would be a crime. The beautiful “Ae mere watan ke logon…” was destroyed to shreds by a lady who was introduced as being from the World Bank. There was no tune, notes were all over the place and it was just plain torturous. The master of ceremonies had told us this divine song would move us and bring tears to our eyes. It almost did – albeit for totally different reason than intended. The saving grace of the function was the last performance by an elderly gentleman who rendered a Tamil song in praise of India. It was quite good though I do not understand Tamil myself.

Then it was time for some refreshments. As I noticed this time around and also on last Independence Day, Embassy does a good job of arranging for hearty refreshments for the gathering. The fare war tasty and appetizing; consisting of dhokla, pakode, chana-puri, upma, gajar halwa and laddoo and hot and cold beverages.

The crowd was mostly enthusiastic at the function and as always, the most impressive attendees were the members of Indian Armed Forces currently posted in the US. Their faces showing the pride they took in defending our frontiers and their demeanour stately like lions and tigers. They are the main reason that made it worth our while to attend the function in the bitter January cold in Washington. Jai Hind!

Why ban AXN? Just stop this hypocrisy!

The self appointed guardians of all things moral are at it again. The I&B minister P.R. Dasmunshi has banned the Sony-owned AXN channel on the grounds that its “world’s sexiest advertisements” was “a programme against good taste or decency and is likely to adversely affect public morality,”.

Why do these politicians consider themselves the vanguards of Indian morality? This entire concept of the government teaching us individuals about what our morality is or should be is a throw back to socialist and communist times and not worthy in an open and democratic society. In democracy, it is absolutely imperative that people have a right to read and watch anything that they please so long as it does not adversely affect anyone else. And this should include the so-called “morally objectionable” content as well.

What we need is a well-defined system where by channels who use free public airwaves to broadcast without paying any airwaves license fees to the government (like Doordarshan) to abide by the “decency” standards until say 11 pm (as proposed for everyone under the proposed Broadcasting Bill). However, if public is paying for certain channels – as will happen with the upcoming conditional access system for cable television, the choice should be left entirely up to the consumers.

We do not need moral policing – especially from the politicians who, except for a few exceptions, are shameless users of their power and position to advance their own agenda and not their constituents' and have no right to talk about morality and definitely don’t have the right to force it down society’s throat.

SC cracks the whip on IXth Schedule

Supreme Court of India on 11th January 2007 delivered a significant judgment that is sure to wake up the politicians who run our parliament and the government. SC essentially made it abundantly clear through its 9-judge Constitutional Bench’s near unanimous (8-1) judgment that it alone has the right to interpret the Constitutionality of acts passed by the Parliament and that the Union and State governments cannot slide statutes into the IX schedule of the Constitution for the sole reason of avoiding judicial scrutiny. It is heartening to note that in its judgment, the bench has noted that any statute violating basic structure of the Constitution and fundamental rights afforded to citizens under the same.

This judgment essentially throws open the floodgates for a lot of potential lawsuits challenging the validity of umpteen numbers of statutes that politicians managed to stuff in the IX schedule – one of the most prominent being the one reserving 69% seats in Tamil Nadu which directly contradicts SC’s judgment limiting all reservations to no more than 50%.

While I do believe that in a democracy, the will of elected representatives should prevail, the statutes like the anti-defection law make it all but impossible for our representatives to vote their conscience and they have to toe the party-line. Thus we end up depending on the unelected judiciary to do the job of protecting and strengthening our constitutional rights.

Let us hope that our politicians leran their lesson and apply their minds to the laws and legislations they pass.