Castaway like a Hobbit

This is a travelogue on New Zealand based on our (my wife and I) trip over the holiday break. We spent close to 10 days (4 nights in the South Island and 6 nights in the North Island). This has been a long time overdue just like the trip was and would have been better off written right away, but god knows why I did not (most definitely not for the lack of time). Anyway, better late than never... 

Intro: New Zealand is a postcard-sized country, much like its cricket stadia, split into two halves. Nevertheless, a cursory search of the Internet throws up beautiful vistas in its broad diversity and lots of advise on must-not-miss places somuchso that an expa(e)nsive itinerary is always the first draft. When the rubber hit the road (literally and figuratively), we pruned the itinerary so much that a postcard would have been the best epithet for our plan. Our real trip took us to Christchurch, Mt. Cook-Aoraki, Queenstown and Doubtful Sound in the South Island, and Auckland, Tauranga, Rotorua, Waitomo and Hamilton in the North Island with multiple stops in between. We skipped places such as Wellington, Taupo, Nelson, Dunedin, Invercargill, Whanganui and Napier, reasons for which are very easy to figure (it is impossible to drive a large circuit in either the North or the South Island within a short time-frame and still see enough places). In hindsight, we would have spent more time on specific spots in the North (Bay of Plenty region and Wellington) and South Islands (Franz Josef glacier and Dunedin may be), cut short a few (Queenstown) and skipped a few altogether (Hamilton and Doubtful Sound). 

Broad Impressions: 

1) Our visit coincided with the Christmas-Boxing Day-New Year break, a peak time for tourism in New Zealand as it is summer time in the Southern hemisphere and coincides with the holiday season in the Northern hemisphere. In hindsight, we were lucky to find dinner on Dec. 24, a timely and well thought out booking at an Indian restaurant in Christchurch saved the day. We were extremely lucky to find ANY food on Dec. 25, a drive to Mt. Cook where a crowded Chinese-run sit-down place was still serving some food and some hoarding from a local Supervalue chain in Christchurch did help. That should reinforce the point that immigrants work harder in the so-called developed world, whereas the long-bygone-immigrants chill out and sport around whenever they can -- a point reinforced from my personal observations in Australia (cry me a river on the essential shutdown of most things from approx. Dec. 1 through Jan. 26, only the 7-11s run by Indian immigrants are/were open on Dec. 31 when some choose to work -- a blasphemy that, right in the heart of Melbourne CBD). Boxing day was nt too bad, but Dec. 31 in Hamilton was a disaster with the whole city essentially shutting down for god knows what reason. 

2) Boxing day in Australia is an even bigger disaster than it is in New Zealand. The trans-Tasman cousins are conjoined in many ways, yet different in many other ways. Love for and crowding at the beaches is a common theme in both places, but in-your-face-sporting culture is almost absent in New Zealand, as much as I saw it and people are more chilled out to be in all kindsa shapes and sizes without having to worry about that. That probably reflects on the cricket field too where the Kiwis are the last ones expected to stand in your face with aggression, while their Australian counterparts would be expected to be number 1 (make it number 0, if you can) in that list. Yet for all this, my understanding on counterfactual history is that the course of New Zealand as a nation independent of the Australian Commonwealth was just only a bit more than an accident in ~1895-96. 

That said, the Kiwis are more British than the British in many aspects and this facet of the Kiwis has been noted by many a cricket commentator-turned-sociologist (or vice versa), whereas the Australians love to love and embrace their British past when things matter (war, intel cooperation, politics, policies on handling China or India or even the US, visa issues, pom beanies and other Kangaroo route-type shenanigans, different education-sphere boondoggles) and yet disown it when it does nt matter (on the sporting arena). The Australians are broadly more racist (clarification: I believe that everyone is a racist, they just differ relatively speaking from each other) than the Kiwis and a good exhibit of this fact is that the aboriginals have been completely wiped out of Australia (except perhaps for Northern Territory) unlike the Maoris who reside prominently in the North Island (even if that is just an uneasy truce going by the considerably many Maori narratives and renditions of the Treaty of Waitangi that I found in a Whitcoulls in Auckland). That commentary also extends to many Kiwi names, which carry a hoary Maori attribution (even if in just name) including that for New Zealand itself (some long white cloud somehow embracing a hitherto unnamed South Island), unlike the Alberts, the Elizabeths, the Georges, and the Prince and Dame charmings of bygone-England. It was indeed fun to see a Bombay on the drive to Auckland, but funnier to see the expression that "New Zealand stops at Bombay Hills" (a contemptuous description of Aucklanders by non-Aucklanders). As a big city boy, I have seen and heard that before (Madras does indeed stop at Tambaram). 

3) It is common for Indians to be fooled into believing that every Australian and Kiwi must love their cricket and to pick a random conversation with a random Australian or a Kiwi, only to be rebuffed by their slight indifference and lack of a joie de vivre Indian style. Reality is far from that sentiment. A vast majority of the long-bygone-immigrant people who love their dose of cricket in Australia and New Zealand are the old, the white and the men -- those that can probably sip their tea with a stiff upper lip perhaps. As much as NFL is a water cooler conversation at work in the US, that role is played by Aussie Rules Football (which I must also admit is a more artsy, athletic, suspenseful and a fun game if not for the rampant racism by its fanatic fanbois like with European football) in Australia and Rugby Union in New Zealand. I myself am an All-Black fanatic with a craving for the Haka (not surpassed by many other war-cries barring the Gorkha), a deep love to bash both the Wallabies and the 'Boks in the Tri-Nations and beyond, and an ardent belief that black/gray is the best manly color ever, so I will not be surprised to see such a feeling from the aam aadmi Kiwi around. And trust me that the Kiwis (both the Maoris and the whites) love the All Blacks more than you can figure out. It is as embracing as cricket is in India and if not for the Gallipoli bruising, New Zealand identity formation would have had much to do with the Invincible tour of 1924. The point being, the Indian subcontinent and its expat population drives the love for cricket on a global scale and make no mistake about that. If it were not for the subcontinentals, cricket would have been cremated literally and figuratively and saved in the Ashes urn. 

4) Kia Ora is just a hallowed Bula! Just as Fiji has oversold and overmilked Modriki island (the "false" island location for the shooting of the Tom Hanks-starrer Castaway somuchso that the mere mention of Wilson, the volleyball that kept company with Tom Hanks, made us cringe), New Zealand has oversold its Lord of the Rings sceneries (making us cringe everytime we heard either Hobbiton or a LOTR/middle earth theme somewhere). Our personal impressions of Fiji were of a place with not much to do except support tourism, sugarcane plantations, and a bit of this and that. Relatively speaking, our impressions of New Zealand were pretty similar. There is really not much to do in New Zealand (beyond Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch perhaps) except support tourism in exotic locales and the businesses associated with tourism (tour-day operations, selling cheap memorabilia, restaurants on the way-side, supermarkets, ferries, skywalks, hotels/BnBs, etc.), sheep and woolen industry, and dairy farming. In contrast, Australia seems to have a more varied economic profile (some form of educational infrastructure, mining industry, etc.) and it reflects in the University profiles in Australia, things to do, and more. That is, there is a good reason why New Zealand and Australia do not fare well with the US economically speaking. It is not just the lack of a scale or a population, it is also that things are far more chilled out outside the US with only the people in the US basically killing themselves with work (take it from my 1 1/2 years in Australia and far more in the US). 

5) In my stay in Australia, I had an uneasy peace with the "Hai Maite" English not following many things spoken and heard. But the Kiwi English seemed more at home with the Indian and the US English, a lot straighter than Australian, a lot easier on the ear and a lot simpler. In fact, I found the "mate" stuff peddled only when the Kiwis met the Australians, and things did get a bit hairy then unlike what one would assume. Call it friendly competition or needling or banter or chit-chat, whatever suits you. 

6) Enough sociologizing. In terms of travel planning, plan the itinerary well ahead and book hotels far in advance, especially in the tourism season. Fiji is far better in its touristy credentials with visa-on-arrival for Indian citizens, but that is that. Unless one is a citizen of a predominantly white country or barring a few other exceptions like Singapore, Japan or South Korea, one needs a visa to enter New Zealand. Just as the case with Australian visas, the Kiwis are fairly well-organized and an email/phone call will push the status of the visa application in case the visa is not issued on their declared/advertised timeline (which is often the case). I did notice that the immigration desk at the airport seemed to be quite nosy on arrivals that had booked their accommodations in a hostel or a backpacker alley and there is the usual noise on fruits and food items (as in Australia), but in general, things are as expected. We did have the mistaken rush in transferring from the international terminal to the domestic terminal in Auckland due to change in time-zones, but New Zealand has a common time-zone, so no worries like the US. 

7) The domestic terminal in Auckland is quite a mess relative to the international one and people do look at you weirdly when you carry more than a small piece through the security line. The car rentals are randomly located relative to the baggage claim area, but right next to each other, and Christchurch seemed such a breeze relatively speaking. And since New Zealand is in the middle of nowhere (yes, it is), it is important to book inbound and outbound flights as well as all the connections on the same carrier. This helps with a uniform baggage allowance policy also. We had the most retarded scenario of an outbound connecting flight in Singapore pre-poned by an hour or so with no notice to us till the last few hours by either the carrier or Orbitz. Since the flights were on different carriers with noone clearly speaking (in English despite being in New Zealand, in facts or in details), it was indeed a horrid few hours that should have ideally been spent relaxing before the flight rather than Skype-ing to people and asking them to call and figure things out for us because you get only 30 minutes of free Wi-fi in the terminal per device. Indeed, Changi and its Wi-fi seemed to be far sophisticated relative to Auckland but deja vu again in Madras (which is another story, but Madras is still Madras -- you can talk in reasonably pure Tamil and you get a lot of help right from the policemen to the shop assistants to the security people roaming around, than if otherwise). In most of these places such as Auckland, its a chicken and egg where you need a phone connected to a local carrier to get a passcode before you can start accessing the Internet and you need Internet to pay for the local carrier because they are nowhere around. And this is in the international terminal, not the domestic one. In any case, a standard overnight stay in most places in New Zealand should be < 70-80 USD and most reasonable accommodations have free parking and wireless, but expect less and less of that in Auckland unless you choose to stay far away from the city center. Wireless internet speeds are as shoddy as in Australia, perhaps a little better, so do not go with too much hope. 

8) Do not take tour buses in New Zealand ever (especially if you can drive) for there are a plenty of them on a cursory Internet search. They are all safe, but they are all expensive, they go on the same beaten tracks that they irritate you seeing them when you drive alone, they follow a strict schedule with no control on anything in the bus, and they do not provide a good bang for the buck. If the lazy-me had to make a choice, it would have been a tour bus (99 out of 100 times), but I was correctly dissuaded by my wife. And thank goodness for that decision. The only times we actually regretted the whole trip was when we went on an organized tour of the Doubtful Sound, from out of Queenstown (a total disaster). The only forms of organized touring that I would recommend are things that require a motor/speed boat to either look at glacier spinoffs or high speed spin maneuvers or sophisticated equipment like hand glides, paraglides, sails, etc. 

9) Driving on the left is no different than driving on the right and it might be a small problem getting used to things as one heads out of the airport car rental, but once one heads out of the city center, you are pretty much lonely on the road with more leeway. This is true more so in Australia -- my prior drive from Sydney to Adelaide and back in 2005 was pretty much a lonely drive (not even a kangaroo or a wallaby in sight -- not even dead ones on the road, but with road trains, yes) except for a big speeding ticket in a village running short of resources to make their ends meet. In any case, it is always worth getting a liability insurance and unlike the US, the liability does not cover all of the damage(s) (if any). Depending on the daily rates, there is a certain uncovered amount of liability (could be 300$ or 3000$). We did not have any accident (good fortune that), but we did have a bird hit on the way to Waitomo (a disturbing incident even for someone well exposed to birds on the plate), which damaged the front grill. It could well have been far more than a damaged grill. 

10) New Zealand may seem like a postcard-sized country, but the moment you start driving, that impression comes to bite you back. Our drive took us around ~600 kms in the South Island and ~750 kms in the North Island (because of the circuit). Now that may seem short compared with the US roads and ridiculous to be nothing when one does that over 10 days, but being essentially lonely on the road is no fun thing. And doing that over ten days tires you out, even if it is the drive of a piddly distance. More so, enter a village and the speed drops from a coasting 100 kmph to a 40 kmph lest you want to share your savings in the form of a ticket (which you will get). In general, the South Island is more sprawled out than the North Island and that is seen in terms of the traffic patterns, the distance to destinations, the number of people as well as sheep density. It is clear that there are enough beautiful vistas in New Zealand, just getting to such vistas takes forever. Our oft-repeated statement over the whole trip was: miles and miles of nothingness leading to something pretty at the end. Things sure were pretty at the end with some blue lakes, glaciers, underground caves, geothermal outpourings, small mountain tops and some city views being the destinations. Initially strange are one-way bridges on the way to Mt. Cook with right-of-way for one side. The US-based GPS units do not work well (or at all) in New Zealand, and it is worth renting out a Navman or buying one outright (good luck with that chicken and egg problem). The Navman one rents is a crappy unit but does the job, except for one weird incident when it drove us into a closed road (locked with a grill and nowhere to go but backwards) near Tekapo, the Tekapo Twizel road, with water on both sides, noone in sight (not even a bird or an insect let alone people), and having to retrace the last 6-7 kms to the main road with an eerie feeling about the whole thing.

Other tidbits: 

1) Christchurch was knocked over by a few earthquakes in the recent past and it continues to be a place of seismic activity. We felt a minor tremor right after landing in Christchurch making us wanting to get the hell out asap. 

2) Gas is far more expensive than in the US and sometimes you have people helping with gas (much like in New Jersey). I have seen 100 and 110 kmph in Australia, but 100 kmph seems to be the universal maximum in New Zealand. Thats a piddly 62 mph for folks who drive at 70 or more in the US. Right after we landed, cops pulled us over for a customary pre-Christmas day alcohol test in Christchurch. Weird was that we were pulled over by the same cops on both directions even though we had to go through that point and turn back because we had come there by mistake. There are enough cops floating around and they come in different colors, sizes and shapes depending on where you drive, so it is pointless speeding past the 100 kmph mark anywhere any time. The speed limits make sense often because most of the roads do not have more banking. 

3) The long and lonely ride into Mt. Cook/Aoraki leads one to Lake Tekapo on the way. Lake Tekapo is beautiful with its brilliant azure blue waters, but after awhile it does get boring to see the same blue color sandstone from different directions and vantage points. Sad that we had to miss the North Island counterpart, Lake Taupo. 

4) After Tekapo, one sees the outline of Mt. Cook, but it does nt appear as majestic and before you as it is until you get super close. That said, Mt. Cook is even more awesome when you wake up to see the low hanging clouds right outside your hotel window. The glacier exploring at Mt. Cook was boring since I have seen far better glacier walks at Seward, Alaska. 

5) The long drive to Queenstown can be safely said to be one of the most unpleasant ones. Narrow roads winding up and down hillocks and valleys with big trucks and cars often tailing and goading you as the frontsman to hit way past the speed limit. Except for the Roaring Meg vantage point on the Kawarau Gorge, pretty much everything is a blur including the drive through Frankton into Queenstown. Queenstown downtown in itself is a messy mess with buildings packed like sardines on a death-wish and hotels are hard if not impossible to find that you end up with the least messy ones. 

6) That is because Queenstown is stated to be a good spot to take off into different directions: trekking, watching penguins and whales (penguins are easy to locate but for whales, one needs lady luck on one's side), coniferous trees (who cares?), just laying prostrate on the beachside, gliding, you name it. We tried to beat the beaten track (which is going to Milford Sound) and take a tour bus first into Te Anau, a boat on Lake Manopouri and then a bus ride into the accessible point in the Sound and a boat ride into the far reaches of the Sound. The rains did help bring out extinct waterfalls into action out of the hilltops, but spending the whole day (6 hour ride either way) and a whole lot of money with really pointless food on the bus on seeing this is taxing at best. It grates your senses after a few minutes and is a waste of time. Much ado about essentially nothing, but we did see a lot of locations that have been VFXed into Tamil movie songs and what not :). 

7) We returned the rental car at the Queenstown airport and took a flight to Auckland. Arriving after the sun had set (9ish), the most sensible thing we did in Auckland was to find a hotel very close to the airport. After the meandering drives in Christchurch and beyond, Auckland driving does shake you up a bit, especially late night. 

8) From Auckland, we headed to Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty region. We did a hike up Mt. Manganui (a small hillock) and it was a pleasant view from the top including watching someone trying to air glide himself into the seaside. The whole trip was ok except that we ended up picking a BnB without realizing it (excellent person hosting the BnB with spotless accommodation etc., just that it was odd in terms of privacy because it came as an unplanned surprise/shock). 

9) Happy to leave Tauranga, we did find the most brilliant fruit servings at Woodturners Cafe in Ngatea. Rotorua is just the stopping point to explore the geothermal wonders of this region. We were at Hell's Gate and Wai-O-Tapu. Both were brilliant beyond words, in color, activity as well as awe. If Hell's Gate was small and cool, Wai-O-Tapu was cooler. Skip the hot pool cooked food and the tinker bells. The only downside to these two places is the sulphur-rotten egg fumes and the heat that can potentially screw up one's contact lens. Even in Rotorua where we stayed, the restroom commode kept releasing gas endlessly (no pun intended) as did the mildly racist behavior from some Maoris. Of all the things in New Zealand, this short visit at the geothermal spots was really worth the cash spent. 

10) From there on to Waitomo Caves, we did the three cave Blackwater Company tour (Aranui, Ruakuri and the main cave). Aranui and Ruakuri are ok and they allow cameras inside, and after awhile one does get bored. How long can one watch stalactites and stalagmites? The most beautiful part of the whole cave thing is the boat ride in the main cave where you see a gazillion glowworms on the cave roof, which does wake you up if not anything else. Unfortunately, no cameras allowed at this point and even if they are, its almost impossible to get good shots unless one is a non-shaker with an SLR. The uneasy peace between the Maoris and the whites is visible at both Rotorua and Waitomo, but noone expressed it in so many words. 

11) On the way to Waitomo, we had the bird hit, which only re-emphasizes the point that the introduction of certain mammals has led to the extinction of certain predators and hence many birds have become flightless (with no fear of predators that are absent) and stay close to the ground. This point gets repeated so often on the boring bus ride into Doubtful Sound that it seems eerie when you face a consequence of this flightlessness. Australia and New Zealand, where nature has been skewed by man, seem to repent their innocent past with signs such as "dont bring fruits and food into New Zealand." That said, the whole ride into Waitomo caves seems like an endless series of deserted roads going from nowhere to nowhere, with only Navman to assure you that you are heading in the right direction and perhaps on time for your appointment. 

12) Hamilton seemed to be a short ride away from Waitomo, but except for the Waikato river (which we did not see and which seemed to be too close yet too far), nothing was great here at all. We did see the signs for the India-Ireland WC clash, but this place is so close to Auckland (2 hours and hence with no other way to access it than by bus), it must have been a pain ride into Hamilton for the Indian team. There is really nothing to do in Hamilton other than claim that one stopped here. 

13) The ride back into Auckland brought back civilization, so to speak, and with it all the parking and driving woes of being in a new country. Auckland downtown in itself is more livelier than much else that we had seen in New Zealand (even Christchurch) with even a book shop around. Our trip to Nadi in Fiji showed us that the main city bringing international flights into the country can be without a major/any book shop (perhaps there is something in Suva -- which we never visited -- given that the University of South Pacific is based there). I also did see the University of Auckland campus buildings right next to the CBD, which also assured me that there is indeed some life there. In general, Auckland mirrors Sydney -- the ferries to nowhere (at least ferries take one to nice beaches in Sydney), the bridges, Sky tower, the CBD layout, some reasonably questionable areas, the same George-Elizabeth-Victoria-Queen-Princes street names (the Swanson street reminds one of the Swanston in Melbourne, but yeah), high-end fashionista boutiques, and reminding one that New Zealand is as expensive as Australia is/was. 

With that uneasy number, let's close this travelogue. 

India and the Commonwealth: The Coarse Timeline

1867: The foundation of "Dominion" status was the achievement of internal self-rule in the form of "responsible government". Responsible government in British colonies began to emerge in the 1840s - typically with Nova Scotia cited as the first colony to achieve it in early 1848 - and then being granted to most of the major settler colonies - British North America, Australia, and New Zealand - by 1856. The British North America Act was formally promulgated in 1867 and Canada achieved Dominion status.

The British North America Act, 1867 established the Dominion of Canada by fusing the North American British colonies of the Province of Canada, the Province of New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. The two subdivisions of the Province of Canada, Canada West and Canada East, were renamed Ontario and Quebec, respectively, and were given equal footing with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in the Parliament of Canada, as representation by population was accepted for the Canadian House of Commons, as was a notion of regional equality in the Canadian Senate, with the Ontario, Quebec and Maritime "regions" receiving an equal number of senators. This creation, or Confederation, was done to counter the claims of manifest destiny made by the United States of America, for the defence of Britain's holdings. American threats were evinced by the invasions of the Canadas during the American Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Fenian raids.

Prior to the BNA Act, 1867, the British colonies of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island discussed the possibility of a fusion to counter the threat of American annexation and to reduce the costs of governance. The Province of Canada entered these negotiations at the behest of the British government, and led to the ambivalence of the Province of Prince Edward Island, which delayed joining the new Dominion for seven years. The constitutional conference, ironically, was held on Prince Edward Island, in Charlottetown.

1880s: Four colonies of Australia had enjoyed responsible government since 1856: New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia. Queensland had responsible government soon after its founding in 1859. Because of ongoing financial dependence on Britain, Western Australia became the last Australian colony to attain self-government in 1890. With Federations emerging in the United States, Canada, and Switzerland, a serious movement for the Federation of the colonies that make up Australia today arose in the late 1880s. In this period, there was increasing nationalism amongst Australians, the great majority of whom were native born. The idea of being "Australian" began to be celebrated in songs and poems. This was fostered by improvements in transport and communications, such as the establishment of a telegraph system between the colonies in 1872. In 1884, Lord Rosebery is said to have used the term "Commonwealth" for the first time, while assuring an Australian audience that the "fact of your being a nation need not imply any separation from the Empire... There is no need for any nation, however great, leaving the Empire, because the Empire is a commonwealth of nations."

As a result of the long and tortuous (see [1]) Federation process, six separate British self-governing colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia formed a federation and collectively became states of the Commonwealth of Australia. The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (UK) was passed on 5 July 1900 and given Royal Assent by Queen Victoria on 9 July 1900. It was proclaimed on 1 January 1901 in Centennial Park, Sydney.

1907: The desire for New Zealand to create and maintain a separate national identity is a predominant theme in the country’s history, which was demonstrated clearly at Australia’s federation and not only New Zealand’s decision not to join the Commonwealth of Australia, but the clear indifference of the population and its governing officials to the issue. A growing sense of nationalism has been submitted as one motivation (see [2] for details) for the decision but this theory is not easily measurable. The differences in colonisation influenced decisions on federation by creating a foundation from which concepts of national identity might subsequently emerge. Although both countries were colonised for the similar purpose of settlement, the practical implementations of colonisation were distinct. Similarity of purpose does not equate to the uniformity of process, just as other colonial settlements such as Canada and South Africa experienced variations on the single aim of colonisation.

The decision for national separation in the Antipodes can be traced through each country’s colonial history. Claims of a unique national identity are symptomatic of the myths created through distinct modes of colonisation. Despite sharing numerous similarities, Australia and New Zealand’s colonial disparities caused their national separation and differing national identities in the early twentieth century.

Labelling Australia as terra nullius cleared the path for colonial conquest by ignoring the Indigenous presence and ownership of the land. The island continent’s subsequent colonisation occurred with the definitive purpose of establishing a site to assist in relieving the overcrowded prisons in England. Geoffrey Blainey further suggests that the Australian continent required a greater rationale to justify colonisation other than as a remote prison. According to Blainey, Australia offered an effective location along trade routes to Asia and a supply of flax and timber for shipbuilding. Australia’s geographical location provided the British with an opportunity to further establish the empire’s presence south of Asia and therefore, ‘Australia then was not designed simply as a remote gaol, cut off from the world’s commerce. It was to develop its own export trade’. Despite these purposes and the subsequent passages of free settlers later in the nineteenth century, the convict element gained prominence in perceptions and representations of the Australian population. Interpretations of colonial history influenced how a national identity was formulated and how the Australian population was assessed by their Tasman neighbours. Australia became depicted as a colonial child, separated from its imperial parent, adrift in a foreign sea.

New Zealand’s colonial process was, comparatively, awkward and indecisive. New Zealand, as a geographical space, had been previously overlooked as a site for colonisation. Blainey writes that ‘while the continent of Australia flanked routes to many trading points, New Zealand was too far to the east and south to be prized as a potential port of call’. British ports and penal settlements were already established in Australia, leaving little incentive to annex or colonise New Zealand. As the trade relations between the colonies gained momentum during the first half of the nineteenth century, the European population in New Zealand expanded. By 1840, New Zealand was populated by traders and whalers as well as missionaries who were intent on introducing civility to the ports such as Kororareka and converting the Maori to Christianity. Their demands for law and order and the alarming rate at which settlers and squatters arrived looking for land prompted consideration of annexing the remainder of New Zealand and implementing colonisation. This decision was accompanied by the New Zealand Company’s desire to colonise locations in New Zealand by launching a social experiment to create settlements resembling the homeland both physically and in class stratum. Keith Sinclair writes Edward Wakefield’s version of colonisation meant that ‘the new colonial society would consist of a vertical selection of English society, excluding the lowest stratum. It would form, not a "new people", but an "extension" of an old, retaining its virtues, but eliminating its poverty and overcrowding’. The Treaty of Waitangi was significant in establishing sovereignty and, unlike the Australian colonies, acknowledging the Maori presence upon—although not ownership of—the land. The Pakeha population perceived itself as better than previous colonial settlements, as they were free settlers, some ‘selected’ for the colonies, and these ideas extended to the Maori. The Maori Wars provided historical reference for the colonial concept of the noble Maori warrior and their fighting prowess proved to the colonists the Maori were superior to other Indigenous peoples. The disparate intent of colonisation enabled New Zealand to produce an alternative rendering of identity to Australia.

Despite their separate histories and distinct modes of colonisation, Australia and New Zealand share an enmeshed history. New Zealand’s initial population was acquired through Maori trade with the New South Wales colony, and ‘it was this trade which brought to New Zealand the early Pakeha settlers. They were mostly young men from the Australian colonies’. The subsequent gold rushes in Victoria, then Otago and the Westland produced a trans-Tasman population wandering between both countries. These connections constructed the ‘Australasian’ region and established the grounds for considering New Zealand as a possible seventh state at Australia’s federation. The inclusion of a clause in the Australian Constitution to allow New Zealand (or other states) to join the federation after 1901 demonstrates the two countries’ integration during the nineteenth century.

Captain William Russell submitted to the Australasian Federal Council in 1890 that New Zealand should remain separate to the Australian federation because ‘colonisation had proceeded in an entirely different manner’. His statement implied New Zealanders were not tainted by a history of convictism and were hence, socially and culturally superior. It is not difficult to dismiss Russell’s assertion of a morally superior New Zealand ‘type’. Asserting the moral superiority of New Zealanders forgets South Australia was not a convict colony, but the original Wakefield settlement in the Antipodes. However, the bare facts of immigration were not as powerful as the myth the New Zealand Company had constructed that New Zealand ‘was at least created as nearly in the image of the motherland as could be expected’.

The propaganda of the New Zealand Company offers partial explanation as to how New Zealanders configured themselves differently to the Australian colonial population. The Company desired settlers who were ‘of good character’ and their advertising created the belief settlers were specially selected, not corrupted by convict origins and they would flourish in a climate similar to the British homeland, or at least, more similar than their trans-Tasman neighbour. A sense of identity was crafted ‘from the unholy alliance between formal and informal myths of settlements, from the ideas of the progressive British paradise’. From this perspective, Australia’s population, due to its convict past and lack of rigorous selection, was of poorer physical quality, as was the environment, and ‘it was widely believed that a climate ranging from bracing to temperate produced the strongest physical and moral character’. At the time, it appeared New Zealand’s federation with Australia would compromise the purity of a ‘carefully selected’ population. Australians were the descendents of convicts and ‘it was in 1902 that New Zealanders were famously hailed as not simply "British" but "best British"’.

While the above seems like a popular reason for the lack of a Federation, as Phillipa Mein-Smith notes, "the environment was shaping the politics of identity." A distinct purpose of creating an Australian federation was to implement a White Australia policy, and prevent migration from the Asian north. Rather than accept this measure as a strategy in maintaining the British exclusivity of the colonies, New Zealanders believed ‘that Australia in fact needed coloured labour because white labour was unsuited to the tropics and this put the purity of New Zealand "stock" at risk’. Queensland’s practice of using ‘coloured labour’ in the sugarcane industry fuelled these theories and it was feared the practice would continue after federation, allowing easy entry of Islanders into New Zealand. Chan states, ‘racialism in Australia helped to bring together political opponents in the cause of federation, but in New Zealand it had the opposite effect – it helped in the decision not to join the Australian Commonwealth’.

The signing of the Treaty of Waitangi caused New Zealand’s colonisation to unfold differently to Australia’s. The Maori Wars and King movement provided the Maori with a visible presence in New Zealand and allowed the incorporation of noble Maori warrior into the myth of superiority of the population. The Treaty offered the colonists proof they possessed greater ethics when handling their country’s indigenous affairs and ‘it was widely assumed that race relations were better in New Zealand, both because white New Zealanders were morally superior, lacking the taint of convictism, and because the Maori were a superior "native" type’. Such assertions overlook the raw facts of the Maori Wars and the loss of Maori land rights. When considering federation, the advancement of the argument to ‘protect Maori rights’ is based upon historical colonial myths. Australia was declared terra nullius and Aboriginal rights to the land, and subsequent land struggles and massacres, were never acknowledged. Colonisation erased the existence of an indigenous people in history. New Zealand colonisation required the acknowledgement of the Maori people to allow settlers access to the land. By federating with the Australian colonies, it was believed the Maori would lose their rights to vote, despite alterations to the First Commonwealth Franchise Act (1902), which prevented Asians, Pacific Islands and Aborigines from voting. The Act was modified, ‘in deference to New Zealand’s concerns and the possibility that it might one day enter the Federation, an exception was made in this Act for the Maori’. These practical measures made by Australian politicians failed to impact upon the historical concept that New Zealand was the more socially just colony. The federating colonies shared a different colonial history, and subsequent perception, of indigenous rights and bloodshed to their smaller Tasman neighbour and these differences could not be reconciled. The disparity in addressing indigeneity was absorbed into the national identity, causing national separation to appear natural and inevitable.

In terms of other factors, the complementary Gold Rushes in Victoria and Otago, the economic depression in New Zealand in the 1880s followed by a depression in Australia in the 1890s, etc. meant that Australia and New Zealand grew too far apart despite the twelve hundred miles of separation between the two countries. With the advent of refrigerated shipping in 1882, the larger British market was a more attractive economic enterprise and ‘refrigeration and the export of frozen meat, butter and cheese reinforced New Zealand’s identity as different from Australia’s, as "Britain’s farm"’. New Zealand established an independent identity through trade relations but this economic reasoning cannot be presented in isolation from historical and other factors in decisions of federation.

The Royal Commission established to investigate the viability of joining the Commonwealth after 1901 found that ‘there was a minor economic advantage in federation but that it was outweighed by all the disadvantages, the chief of which was the loss of independence’. New Zealand chose not to take part in Australian Federation (see [3]) and assumed complete self-government as the Dominion of New Zealand on 26 September 1907.

1910: In 1871, diamonds had been discovered at Kimberley, prompting a diamond rush and a massive influx of foreigners to the borders of the Orange Free State. Then, gold was discovered in the South African Republic in 1886. Gold made the Transvaal the richest and potentially the most powerful nation in southern Africa, however the country had neither the manpower nor the industrial base to develop the resource on its own. As a result, the Transvaal reluctantly acquiesced to the immigration of fresh waves of uitlanders (foreigners), mainly from Britain, who came to the Boer region in search of employment and fortune. This resulted in the number of uitlanders in the Transvaal eventually exceeding the number of Boers, and precipitated confrontations between the old order and the new.

After an uneasy peace in the First Boer War, the Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Dutch-speaking Boer inhabitants of the two independent Boer republics: the South African Republic (Transvaal Republic) and the Orange Free State. The last of the Boers surrendered in May 1902 and the war ended with the Treaty of Vereeniging signed on 31 May 1902. It ended with the annexation of the region under the British Empire. Thus, for the first time, the four colonies of the Cape of Good Hope, Natal, the Transvaal, and the Orange Free State were under a common flag, and the most significant obstacle which had prevented previous plans at unification had been removed. Hence the long-standing desire of many colonial administrators to establish a unified structure became feasible. The Union of South Africa was formed in 1910 from the four colonies.

The Early Ideas of the Commonwealth: Conferences of British and colonial prime ministers had occurred periodically since 1887. Issues of colonial self-government spilled into foreign affairs with the Boer War (1899–1902). The self-governing colonies contributed significantly to British efforts to stem the insurrection, but assured that they set the conditions for participation in these wars. Colonial governments repeatedly acted to assure that they determined the extent of their peoples' participation in imperial wars in the military build-up to the First World War. The assertiveness of the self-governing colonies was recognised in the Colonial Conference of 1907, which implicitly introduced the idea of the Dominion as a self-governing colony by referring to Canada and Australia as Dominions. Followed by this lead, the colonies of New Zealand and Newfoundland became Dominions in 1907, and the Union of South Africa became a Dominion in 1910.

The Colonial Conference of 1907 also retired the name "Colonial Conference" and the term "Imperial Conference" was to be used instead from 1911. It mandated that meetings take place regularly to consult Dominions in the running the foreign affairs of the empire. The idea of the Commonwealth developed from the Imperial Conferences. A specific proposal was presented by Jan Christian Smuts (of the Boer Wars fame) in 1917 when he coined the term "the British Commonwealth of Nations," and envisioned the "future constitutional relations and readjustments in the British Empire." Smuts successfully argued that the Empire should be represented at the all-important Versailles Conference of post-first world war in 1919 by delegates from the dominions as well as Britain.

In the Balfour Declaration at the 1926 Imperial Conference (not to be confused with the Balfour Declaration of 1917 that sowed the seeds of the Palestine-Israel conflict), Britain and its dominions agreed they were "equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations". With the British King at its head, the Commonwealth was likened to a family, its members - Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland - united by race, culture and language; and family relationships were based on mutual accommodation and understanding, not on contracts, the successful working of which, in any case, required a spirit of compromise. Formal organization would have destroyed the organic unity of the Commonwealth. Within the family, members would attain self-government as they reached political maturity and were capable of exercising independence of judgement and action. Disagreements might prevail within the family, but all members would stand together in time of need.

The substance of the Balfour Declaration of 1926 was incorporated in the 1931 Statute of Westminster, whose purpose was to give effect to the resolutions passed by the 1926 and 1930 Imperial Conferences. The Preamble to the Statute speaks of the Crown as "the symbol of their free association" and of those nations being "united by a common allegiance to the Crown." The Statute of Westminster applied to the six dominions which existed in 1931: the Dominion of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, the Irish Free State, the Dominion of Newfoundland (see [4]), the Dominion of New Zealand (see [5]), and the Union of South Africa.

The Course of the Dominions post-Balfour: While the dominions had no wish to dissolve old family ties, through which they might be able to influence Britain's European policy, thereby enhancing their own international status, the dominions had slowly but steadily started disassociated themselves from British policy. This started with the Chanak crisis of 1922 in Canada; the non-endorsement of the Locarno treaties of 1925 and the Anglo-Egyptian treaty in 1936.

But all had rallied behind the British in the second world war. Each dominion government had secured the support of its parliament to support the British; and the dominions had arrived independently at identical decisions, symbolizing the essential unity of the Commonwealth. Australia ratified the Statute of Westminster in 1942; to clarify government war powers, the adoption was backdated to 3 September 1939—the start of World War II. Independent foreign policies and regional interests since 1919 had led the dominions, by the forties, into regional defence pacts to safeguard their security. Australia and New Zealand had signed the Canberra Pact in 1944; Canada and the US had entered into the North American Defence Pact in 1940; and, after the war, Canada sponsored the formation of NATO. So the dominions, like the UK, sought post-war regional agreements with the Americans.

British Foreign and Military Policy in the Aftermath of WWII: The manner in which the Commonwealth family would function after 1945 would depend largely on the situation in which Britain and the dominions found themselves at the time. The British realized that they were no longer the primary global power, and that the USA was the ultimate bulwark of western security against the USSR. With British resources greatly diminished by war, a White Paper admitted, in 1946, that Britain could not revert to its pre-war imperial role and that regional defence arrangements would be necessary in the future. The British knew that their security was now tied up with that of West Europe; at the same time, West Europe was then taking the first steps to economic recovery and could not be relied upon to guarantee western security. Meanwhile, the Soviet threat to the continent loomed large - in February 1948 the communists seized power in Czechoslovakia and in June 1948 began the Berlin blockade.

Could the Commonwealth play a role in this situation? The British had no doubt that it must serve as 'an independent and strong unit' among the world's chief powers. The Commonwealth was the fount of British power; and it gained strength through the united front it presented to the world. The integrity of each member was the common concern of all, so the defence of the UK was the 'vital concern', not only of the British but also of each separate member of the Commonwealth. Equally, the UK alone without the support of the Commonwealth 'would lose much of its effective influence and flexibility of power'. Indeed, the British Chiefs of Staff thought that one of the 'essential measures' required to assure British chances of survival and victory in a war was the maintenance of the united front of the Commonwealth. All dominions shared the British desire to contain the Russians, and none thought it could stand on its own against them. On Europe, British relations were, by mid-1948, closer with the US than with the Commonwealth; but as head of the Commonwealth, Britain could envisage herself as the link between the US, Europe and the Commonwealth. And the dominions would realize that the consolidation of West Europe could only safeguard the Commonwealth by building a barrier against the Russians.

Indian Centrality in the British Empire (see [6] for details): The British Chiefs had no doubt that India (and Pakistan) would be a 'most desirable addition' to Commonwealth defence. India had been the backbone of British power since the nineteenth century, providing four-fifths of the British defence effort east of Suez during the second world war. At a time when Britain was experiencing difficulty in raising sufficient forces to meet its international commitments, the withdrawal of more than 20,000 Indians who were manning most of the administrative sections of the SEAC would leave two alternatives to the British - either to replace them with local men - a task time-consuming and expensive - or to introduce British troops in the SEAC; but only at the cost of abandoning their commitments in the Middle and Far East. One of India's main assets was, in fact, 'an almost inexhaustible supply of manpower'; India could produce 'almost as many soldiers as the Commonwealth could mantain'. In October 1949, the Cabinet Defence Committee admitted:

The effect on Army organisation of the granting of self-government to India and Pakistan is often overlooked. For here was a highly trained expandable reserve on which we could count in time of emergency or war. While the cost of this Army to the United Kingdom in peace was relatively small, it was a definite factor in our potential military strength.

Not surprisingly, any discussion on the transfer of power since the forties was usually accompanied by rumination on the participation of an independent India in the imperial defence system. The offer of dominion status with the right to secede from empire, made in the Cripps plan of March 1942, was qualified by the stipulation that power would be transferred to Indians subject to the signing of a treaty to safeguard British interests - and the war cabinet clearly had military interests on its mind. In March 1946, the Labour government intended to accept the recommendation of an Indian constituent assembly for independence only if 'satisfactory arrangements' were made for the defence of the Indian Ocean area. In May 1947, the imminence of partition did not dissuade Lord Mountbatten, then Viceroy, from suggesting to Nehru that India and Pakistan could establish a joint defence headquarters on the lines of the Austro-Hungarian empire before 1914. The Austrian and Hungarian armies had been separate, but there had been a defence headquarters consisting of representatives of both according to their strength, 'with the Emperor at its head'. Military and foreign policy considerations received top priority in official memos and discussions during the negotiations for the transfer of power in 1946-47; and the India Office affirmed, on 8 November 1946, that the military aspect of a future treaty between India and Britain had received most consideration from the British, although it had never been mentioned to Indian leaders.

The chief advantage of India to Britain was strategic; India was the only base from which the British could sustain large-scale operations in the Far East. If India left the Commonwealth, the British position in the North Indian Ocean would be weakened and oil supplies from the Persian Gulf could not be guaranteed. The British conceived India's participation in a loose organization of Commonwealth defence. The maximum military requirement of India would be that she participate actively in any war in which the Commonwealth might get involved; the minimum was that she accept responsibility for her own frontiers. The British should also try to get Indian assistance in a Middle East war. India should accept only British assistance for maintaining the efficiency of her armed forces, and make available and maintain bases for offence at the required degree of readiness. This conformed with the conclusion of the Commonwealth Defence Conference of 1946 that Commonwealth forces should be standardized and have uniformity of organization and training, and the closest possible liaison should be maintained between officers of dominions, so that collaboration between Commonwealth countries in war would be 'easy and effective'. The British were concerned at Indian approaches to the USA for economic and military assistance; and American diplomats in New Delhi resented British attempts to play off Indians against the US by warning them of the dangers of 'dollar imperialism'.

The March Towards 1947: Political discord and administrative exigency prompted the British to wind up the Raj in August 1947 without achieving any of the conditions that would have guaranteed their military and economic interests in an independent India. Nevertheless, the fact that the British contemplated treaties to safeguard their interests in post-independence India, even while they hoped she would remain in the Commonwealth, suggests an attitude to India quite different from that to the old dominions. India owed her position in the Commonwealth to conquest; the 'natural link' of race, culture, common loyalties and instincts - in the words of the Economist - 'all that is involved when one people regards another as its own kith and kin' - did not exist between her and Britain. The 'old' Commonwealth could be 'an effective unity' without formal organization and treaties; with the membership of the new dominions of India, Pakistan and Ceylon, it would be difficult for the new Commonwealth to ensure that anything was understood 'unless it is put down on paper'.

Thus, a Cabinet Committee on Commonwealth Relations, with an official committee in support, had already been established under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, in 1947, as the time of Indian independence approached. In addition to the Commonwealth Relations Secretary, Philip Noel Baker, the membership included Ernest Bevin, the Foreign Secretary; Stafford Cripps, the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and Lord Jowitt, the Lord Chancellor. The Committee’s main concern up to that point had been with finding a formula "to enable the greatest number of independent units to adhere to the Commonwealth without excessive uniformity in their internal constitutions." But their efforts were concentrated on attempts to devise some form of relationship through the Crown. The idea had been aired of distinguishing between acceptance of the King’s jurisdiction in external relations on the one hand, and in internal affairs on the other. Where the latter jurisdiction was not acceptable, continuing Commonwealth membership might nonetheless be feasible on the basis of the former.

Debates in India: On 22 January 1947, the resolution passed by the constituent assembly had declared that India would become a sovereign, independent republic (see [7]). However, in order to facilitate a smooth transfer of power, India agreed to temporary Dominion status in August 1947, although no final decision about continuing membership in the Commonwealth was then taken. A constituent assembly met in Delhi to frame the constitution. The question regarding Britain was what would happen to the position of the Crown when India got her own constitution? The Congress policy on this was clear and had been so for decades. That India would become a republic and while there would be friendly ties with Britain there would be no formal ties with the British Crown. The basic nationalist position had been stated by Subhas Bose (see [8]):

Independence which India aspires after today, is not ‘Dominion Home Rule’ as we find in Canada or Australia – but full national sovereignty as obtained in the United States of America or in France.

Bose was writing in 1933. By 1947 nationalist India was even more determined to have an India totally free of British control in any shape or form.

However, the post-WWII scenario had set in an ambiguous phase with regards to the Commonwealth. This is certainly true as seen from Jawahar lal Nehru's correspondences with Attlee and with his Cabinet colleagues. While the British and Americans' negative role in the Jammu & Kashmir crisis and the subsequent United Nations sponsored ceasefire, and direct association with an overtly racist apartheid-era Pretoria regime and the Australian government with an official "White Australia" policy, and a covertly racist regime in New Zealand were serious causes for doubts on the part of Nehru, Iqbal Singh (see [9]) opines that V.K. Krishna Menon and Nehru were veering to the possibility that India's continued association with the Commonwealth would help India in influencing Commonwealth policies on international politics and thus in shaping world events on the parallel of the main body of the dog wagging the tail rather than the other way around. Besides that, the possibility of gaining technologically and economically from the UK-USA bloc versus non-association with any other bloc also seems to have played its role in the considerations.

Nevertheless, the British intelligence had an almost complete knowledge of the shift in the Indian debate and as a result, Attlee and the last British Governor-General Mountbatten were applying tremendous pressures on India to accede to the idea of the Commonwealth under more and more unacceptable demands. Despite these pressures, Nehru maintained an ambivalent stand citing the constituent assembly process. Upon invitation of Attlee, Nehru had promised to visit Britain to discuss the idea of Commonwealth. However, the departure of Mountbatten and the takeover of C. Rajagopalachari in June 1948 plus a host of other reasons meant that Nehru could not visit Britain to discuss this issue.

1948 Conference (see [10] for details): A plan to discuss the idea of the Commonwealth at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers Meeting of October 1948 was overtaken by the decision of the Irish Republic in effect to drop out of the Commonwealth by virtue of the repeal of the External Relations Act of 1937 as well as by the Indian decision to become a republic. What was now at issue was thus something very different. It was not whether a distinction could be drawn between the rôle of the Crown in relation to external relations on the one hand and internal affairs on the other; but rather whether, by means of some dilution in the applicability of the principle of allegiance to the Crown, the political advantages of India remaining in the Commonwealth could be secured and the substance of Commonwealth cohesion, which had been so imaginatively conjured up could be safeguarded and developed.

Nehru broached this question during the 1948 Conference, the first such gathering which he had attended. Liaquat Ali Khan and D. S. Senanayake were also attending for the first time as Prime Ministers of Pakistan and Ceylon respectively. At the meeting, Nehru proposed a 'Ten Point Memorandum' drafted largely by G.S. Bajpai and B.N. Rau (and a subsequent 'Eight Point Memorandum') on the settlement between India and the Commonwealth, under which the President of India would act as the representative of the British monarch in India. Among some of the ideas floated by India include the concept of "dormant sovereignty" of the Crown on India (V.K. Krishna Menon), the role of the Crown as "the fountain of honor", etc. The Cabinet Committee on Commonwealth Relations recognised that Nehru's proposals could not constitute a basis for continued Commonwealth membership. The authority to appoint Heads of Missions abroad being vested in the Crown was a further stumbling block. It was generally agreed that a further conference would be required to deal exclusively with the issue at an early date, specifically before the enactment of the new Indian Constitution in July 1949. Consultations indicated that it would be practicable to hold such a meeting in London in late April, or at the beginning of May.

Towards the 1949 Conference: Attlee further decided that, in order to prepare adequately for a meeting of this delicacy and importance, it would be advisable to send personal emissaries to the other Commonwealth capitals to explain to the other Pr ime Ministers both the position reached in the discussions in London and the various considerations which, in the opinion of UK Ministers, must be taken into account in reaching a decision. Attlee put all this to the full Cabinet on 3 March 1949, and secured their full agreement. Lord Listowel, a former Secretary of State for India and Burma, went to Australia and New Zealand; Patrick Gordon-Walker, then Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Commonwealth Relations, went to Pakistan and Ceylon, and subsequently to India; Sir Percival Liesching, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Commonwealth Relations Office, went to South Africa and Sir Norman Brook, the Secretary to the Cabinet, went to Canada. It was during Gordon-Walker’s visit to India that the term "Head of the Commonwealth" seems to have been aired. In his book "The Commonwealth," he suggested that the idea originated in a letter he had written to Mountbatten in the previous year. At all events it was not a total novelty when it made its appearance at the Prime Ministers’ Meeting. Among other things proposed by Gordon-Walker would be the power of the King to appoint the President of India and such authority "would be renewable each time a President assumed office." Such preposterous ideas (see [9]) left Nehru insulted, not to mention the insult over lobbying efforts in Pakistan and Ceylon prior to visiting India.

Meanwhile, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was signed and sealed on 4 April 1949 with initial members being the U.S., the U.K., Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Iceland and Portugal (under Salazar). News of the signing led to more opposition in the form of Jayaprakash Narayan, H.V. Kamath and N.G. Ranga. Nehru assured Narayan that "neutrality ultimately depends on the strength of a country and not on any vague association." By predicating India's stand as a self-enlightened one, Nehru was treading on slippery lines. The other claim to the membership in the Commonwealth was that Indian diaspora was spread all over the Commonwealth and this number amounted to 9 1/2 million people (then). The internal debates within the Constituent Assembly and the Congress leaves us with no doubts that the tensions were palpable on this matter.

Squaring the Circle: The Commonwealth Prime Ministers gathered at Downing Street (in London) on the morning of Friday 22 April 1949. The Indian Prime Minister recalled that he had spoken informally to Attlee and other Prime Ministers during the 1948 Meeting about India’s desire to remain in the Commonwealth while becoming a republic. He had no desire to create difficulties for other Commonwealth countries; at the same time he could not accept the idea of two-tier membership. He thought rather that India’s association with the Commonwealth might be based on (i) Commonwealth citizenship, deriving from the British Nationality Act of 1948; (ii) a declaration of India’s continuing membership; and (iii) continued acceptance by India of the status of the King as the symbol of the free association of Commonwealth countries. This should not create difficulties in international law. Commonwealth peoples were not foreign to one another. The strength of the Commonwealth had rested in its power to change and adapt its forms. Nehru hoped that this suggestions would meet the views of other countries. They went as far as India could go to meet those views and to avoid damage to the feelings and sentiments of the other countries of the Commonwealth.

Dr Daniel François Malan, who had recently replaced Smuts as South African Prime Minister and was welcomed by Attlee to his first Prime Ministers’ Meeting, spoke at some length. His statement was subsequently circulated at his request as a Meeting document. He thought it natural that a gradual relaxation of the common allegiance to the Crown should accompany the growing consciousness of separate nationhood. The situation was different in countries with a mixed population. The present strength and cohesion of the Commonwealth derived from factors less tangible but even more potent than the common allegiance to the Crown: tradition; consciousness of a common outlook and way of life; a sense of community of interests covering a wide field. The most important factor was the capacity to adapt: rigidity in the constitution would have disrupted it long ago. A further step in this direction would ensure its continued existence, enhance its prestige and increase its usefulness.

A pre-arranged division of labor between the white countries ensured a tough stance on the matter by Australia and New Zealand. Iqbal Singh (see [9]) opines that Nehru's "scepticism seemed to have mellowed down for some reason." At the conclusion of the discussion the Prime Ministers agreed to meet again after the weekend. Attlee said that he would circulate some proposals for consideration then. There would be separate discussions meanwhile. There ensured four short meetings during the course of Monday 25 and Tuesday 26 April, at which agreement was hammered out on the basis of successive drafts. An initial draft used the word "common security" which was opposed by Nehru. The concept of "Head of the Commonwealth" was introduced, and was disliked by both Malan and Nehru. In answer to objections to be expected to dropping the word "British," Nehru said he would agree to its retention in the first paragraph of the text on the grounds that this was historical. As for the question of whether the designation of the King as Head of the Commonwealth implied any new Crown responsibilities in relation to individual countries, the Meeting agreed that it should be placed on record that this was not the case. Moreover the title did not connote any change in the constitutional relations existing between the members of the Commonwealth.

After jointly presenting the Agreement to the King, the Final Communique was released and presented as the London Declaration on the issue of India's continued membership of the Commonwealth (see [11] for details). The Final Communique found instant favour with the press. The Times said that "the Prime Ministers had met to confront a problem which would have split apart any organization less flexible than the Commonwealth. The upshot of their work had been set out 'with a lucidity which could not be bettered.' 'It is doubtful whether any agreement of such consequence had ever been evolved in so short a time.'" News of the agreement was hailed by all those on the opposition benches in the British House of Commons, including Winston Churchill and Clement Davies. By contrast, Jan Smuts, who had been defeated by Malan in the South African general election the previous year, was bitterly opposed.

The Aftermath: Modulo the lego-diplomatese, the declaration had two main provisions. First, it allowed the Commonwealth to admit and retain members that were not Commonwealth realms, including both republics and indigenous monarchies. Thus, Republicanism, in the past synonymous with secession, was now accepted as compatible with full membership. Second, it renamed the organisation from the 'British Commonwealth' to the 'Commonwealth of Nations', reflecting the first change. The London Declaration also established a Precedent in the sense that, while the discussions in 1949 were concerned with the specific case of India alone, the Prime Ministers agreed that it "should be put on record as the opinion of the Meeting that, while it was not possible to bind future Meetings or Governments, it could be logically assumed that a future Meeting would accord the same treatment to any other member as had been accorded to India at this Meeting."

While the reception accorded to the agreement was naturally of interest in the case of all the participating countries, nowhere was the reaction of more importance than in India. In a broadcast on his return, Nehru emphasized that he had "looked to the interests of India, for that is my first duty." While the draft of the Agreement was informed to Patel (who approved it with his own suggestions), there was much dissension on the "easy acquiescence" of India. In a speech to the Constituent Assembly, Nehru spoke of the need to touch upon the world problems "in a friendly way and with a touch of healing. And the fact that we have begun this new type of association with a touch of healing will be good for us, good for ['certain other countries'] and I think good for the world." Despite the misgivings, the Constituent Assembly ratified the Declaration by an overwhelming majority (as had the Indian National Congress in December 1948). His handling of the issue puts beyond doubt that Nehru was one of the key figures in the making of the modern Commonwealth.

References
[1] Timeline for the Federation of Australia
[2] Joanne Smith, "Twelve hundred reasons why there is no Australasia: How colonisation influenced federation," Australian Cultural History, Vol. 27, No. 1, April 2009, pp. 35–45
[3] Timeline for the Dominion of New Zealand
[4] Newfoundland never adopted the Statute; by request of its government, the United Kingdom resumed direct rule in 1934 and maintained it until Newfoundland became a province of Canada in 1949.
[5] Prime Minister Gordon Coates, who led the New Zealand delegation to the 1926 Conference, called the Balfour Declaration a 'poisonous document' that would weaken the ties of empire. At the 1930 Imperial Conference, the conclusions of the conference were re-stated, and Sir Thomas Sidey obtained a clause exempting New Zealand from the Statute of Westminster until such time as it should be ratified by the New Zealand Parliament. New Zealand adopted the Statute on 25 November 1947 by its Statute of Westminster Adoption Act.
[6] Anita Inder Singh, "Keeping India in the Commonwealth: British Political and Military Aims, 1947-49," Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Jul., 1985), pp. 469-481
[7] Debates of 22 January 1947
[8] Mihir Bose, The Magic of Indian Cricket: Cricket and Society in India, Routledge Press, 2006
[9] Iqbal Singh, Between Two Fires: Towards an Understanding of Jawaharlal Nehru’s Foreign Policy, Volume Two, Orient Longman, New Delhi, 1998
[10] Peter Marshall, "Shaping the 'New Commonwealth', 1949," The Round Table (1999), Vol. 350, pp. 185-197
[11] Statement of The London Declaration, 27 April 1949

The Governments of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan and Ceylon, whose countries are united as Members of the British Commonwealth of Nations and owe a common allegiance to the Crown, which is also the symbol of their free association, have considered the impending constitutional changes in India.

The Government of India have informed the other Governments of the Commonwealth of the intention of the Indian people that under the new constitution which is about to be adopted India shall become a sovereign independent Republic. The Government of India have, however, declared and affirmed India’s desire to continue her full membership of the Commonwealth of Nations and her acceptance of The King as the symbol of the free association of its independent member nations and as such the Head of the Commonwealth.

The Governments of the other countries of the Commonwealth, the basis of whose membership of the Commonwealth is not hereby changed, accept and recognize India’s continuing membership in accordance with the terms of this declaration.

Accordingly the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan and Ceylon hereby declare that they remain united as free and equal members of the Commonwealth of Nations, freely cooperating in the pursuit of peace, liberty and progress.

"It is not Australian": The subtext to the happenings on the cricket pitch

This is a brief commentary as well as a review of Brett Hutchins' work "Unity, difference and 'the national game': Cricket and Australian National Identity." Some part of the text of the article can be obtained from his book "Don Bradman: challenging the myth" available at Google Books Linky.

The main plank of Brett Hutchins' article is that cricket in Australia is emblematic of the uneasy tension between the Anglo-Celtic (or British, if you are short of words) code of values to which many white Australians claim a legacy to (which is often symbolized by the over-arching and at times overbearing presence of the Union Jack, the Queen and the Commonwealth in matters of life and luxury) and the cultural independence that Australians look up to (especially as witnessed by the various mythologies of the "defiant and independent Australian character; the self-styled underdog who 'knocks' authority figures and loves to lambast a 'whingeing Pom'").

What this uneasy tension means is that cricket is widely touted as "the national game" and cricketing values are characteristic of what an ideal Australian will have to live up to. In reality, however, cricket neither has the widespread coverage that would be expected of a "national game" (A national survey in 1996-97 showed cricket to be 17th in terms of sporting participation, well behind swimming, tennis, golf and cycling. Of those who played cricket, males outnumber females by 5:1. Cricket was watched by 54% of the respondents, with contests between state teams in the Sheffield Shield essentially getting little to no coverage.) nor is it all-embracing as expected of a game that is expected to unify and embody the unique Australian identity (The primary fan-following of cricket is described as white, male, Anglo-Celtic origin.). Nevertheless, the myth of the aura of cricketing prowess as the unique hallmark of an undying Australian character has been well-established right from the days of Sir Robert Gordon Menzies to his peer (in all but chronology) John Howard. Even cutting across the Liberal vs. Labor divide, the narrative remains essentially the same as can be seen from the outpourings of grief during the Bradman passing away and the love of the game expressed by such an august body as Evatt, Hawke, Kernot, Ray and Faulkner.

In short, this article tries to deconstruct the aura behind Sir Donald George Bradman (or The Don, as he was widely touted) and in return, understand what drives Australia or the various psychological underpinnings behind a "whineging Australian" attitude to "The Third World." Some exhibits in this goal:
1) Up to 1987, there had been only EIGHT Aboriginal first-class cricketers from a pool of 3000+ players. From that time onwards, the only Aboriginal players to have been selected nationwide (to the best of my memory) are Jason Gillespie, Andrew Symonds and Faith Thomas (a woman). In contrast, the game of rugby sees an enormous contingent of Aboriginal/Maori/Polynesian origin players, whether it be in New Zealand, South Pacific or Australia.
2) The treatment of Aboriginal origin players under the White Australia Policy of the 30s was shameful at best. The much hallowed Australian, "The Don", bestowed the indignity of not playing a game if the opposition team played Eddie Gilbert. Eddie, an Aboriginal from Queensland, was a fast bowler with a slinging action from a short run-up and took out Bradman for a duck in a 1931 State match. Over the 30s, he had to suffer such disgraces as being called for throwing by suspect umpiring, team-mates refusing to speak with him, as well as a demonstrated reluctance to share taxis or rooms with him. In the match in which The Don refused to play the opposition team, he was withdrawn citing "shoulder injury."
3) The embodiment of non-Anglo-Celtic participation in cricket Len Durtanovich, a first generation immigrant from Yugoslavia, had to change his name to Len Pascoe to avoid ethnic abuse on the field, a move that was not very successful when playing against the Chappell brothers.
4) The history of women's cricket in Australia has been one of success and inattention. Australia has won 4 of the 7 World Cups in the women's arena and the then national captain, Belinda Clark, was recognized as the Cricketer of the Year in 1998, ahead of such competition as the Waugh brothers, Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath. Yet, after their 1997 World Cup win, the then Prime Minister, John Howard, organized a much belated official reception for the returning team, much in contrast to the overwhelming reception received by the 1999 World Cup winning men's team.
5) While Sir Robert Menzies touted the strict separation of sport from politics (especially when it suited him the best), he was not too far from using Sports as a political weapon when he needed it the most. In this sense, he is close to his Conservative colleagues, who describe Conservative politics as a way of life and the natural state of order, while critical and radical politics is 'politics' and is to be resisted. For example, during the Apartheid era, Menzies claimed that Apartheid was a 'rude word' that simply meant 'separate development' and defended the then South African president, Dr. Vorster, as no racist. When the 1971-72 tour was cancelled, it was due to security considerations than due to Apartheid. This is confirmed by the 1974 visit of the Chairman of the Australian Cricket Board to South Africa to resolve the matter. While it is a mistake to cast value judgments on past happenstances on today's code of ethics and morals, the simple fact to be borne in mind is that the Chairman was none but The Don.

That also leads me to the following disclaimer. While it is easy to cast stones sitting in India, especially given Indian cricket's ostracization of selected communities, especially as portrayed by Ramachandra Guha (of which a review will soon follow), it is more important to note that the British Empire and its outposts were built on a readily accepted theme of white supremacy, not only of the valiant kind, but also the moral one. Thus, it behooves such a supreme culture to act in accordance with themes that are only naturally Just, not merely in the immediate present, but in the subsequent. The sub-text of the "Third World"'s selected castigation of such a "whingeing Australian" attitude, as exemplified by Anil Kumble during the "Sydney-gate" crisis, is not hard to follow once an Australian reads Australian history with a non-Anglo-Celtic-immigrant pair of lenses.

PS: The title of this piece is meant as a parody of the famous "It is not cricket" utterances during the Bodyline series, and later. It might also bear a striking chord with the verbal delirium of the Anzac kind over the running of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

Some more updates

1) Rail connectivity in the Northeast Linky

All the eight state capitals of the Northeast will boast of a railway link by 2016, the DoNER ministry said today. The railway ministry gave a presentation according to the North East Vision 2020 yesterday and assured the North Eastern Council (NEC) that it would connect all the capitals by 2016, DoNER minister Bijoy Krishna Handique said today. The cost of the mammoth project is Rs 17,000 crore for which all approvals have been acquired. Sources said the project would certainly be implemented as it was a national project committed by none other than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The cabinet has also approved the budget, the sources added.

There is more for the region’s rail connectivity as the railways may commission a link between Akhaura in Bangladesh and Agartala, the capital of Tripura, by 2013. In the meantime, sources said Bangladesh had given the go-ahead for a link between a location close to the Indo-Bangladesh border and Chittagong port. The next problem now is for the state governments to pull up their socks on acquisition of land for the railways. Many states have still not been able to convince people to giving up their land.

There is hope though. “The Meghalaya chief minister yesterday promised he would clear land acquisition within three months,” an official present at the NEC meeting here said. This will put Shillong up in the list of go-getters for the railway link. At present, only Assam’s capital Guwahati is connected to New Delhi by the NF Railways. Though the rail link to Dibrugarh in north Assam passes through Dimapur in Nagaland, the state’s capital, Kohima, remains unconnected. Sources said Kohima will be connected by 2016.

Engineers of the railways have saved time by doing a GPS-based techno-survey, a time-saving departure from manual surveys that are manpower intensive and time-consuming. Handique will visit the Badarpur part of the Lumding-Badarpur section, work on which has been going on for the past several years. “We are pressing for the project to be completed at the earliest so that Agartala can also be connected,” Handique said. The Lumding-Badarpur line that passes through the North Cachar hills has one small hitch — a 3km-long tunnel. The railways plan to complete the tunnel by 2013. Connectivity to Tripura and thus, into Bangladesh, would then be complete. Complementing the new railway plan with inland waterway connectivity would increase productivity for the region manifold. The NEC meeting also declared two inland waterways on the Barak and the Brahmaputra to be national waterways.

2) A district call comes before Nagalim Linky

After the people of four underdeveloped districts in Nagaland have sought a separate state, a Naga community — Yimchungrü — living in parts of Tuensang and Kiphire — has now raised a demand for a separate district carved out of these two areas. “The Yimchungrü Tribal Council demand for separate district headquarters is genuine. The demand does not simply appear out of recent happenings but is a revelation of long sufferings,” the former president of Yimchungrü Tribal Council, S.J. Akhum, said.

He said the government believes that every community of Kiphire district was equally treated following an MoU was signed in 2003 between Sumi, Sangtam and Yimchungur communities, but it was not the case at the district level. “If Yimchungrüs were weak in passion, they could have immediately reclaimed the missing villages in the past. We understand that lives guided by the human values would be enough to permeate peace among the people but some have failed to live as good citizens and that disturbs the whole environment and affects the future lives of other communities,” Akhum said.

3) Little known facts on the Tirupur RMG industry Linky1 and Linky2

The value of exports was Rs.15 crore in 1985. In 1990, exports crossed the Rs.300-crore mark and in the next three years touched Rs.1,000 crore. Exports were at Rs.11,000 crore in 2006-2007, but it slumped to Rs.9,950 crore in 2007-08 because of the economic slowdown. It picked up steam in 2008-09 to record Rs.11,250 crore. Last year, the total value of exports stood at Rs.11,500 crore. The Tirupur Exporters' Association has set Rs.25,000 crore as the export target for 2012.

Once the quota system ended, buyers looked for big units, big facilities and also complete-compliance-certified factories. Under the quota system, we had small factories and the buyer had to go to as many as 20 exporters. In the situation prevailing now, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is built-in. Exporters are also aware of compliance requirements and of CSR. All factories have good toilet facilities and a good working atmosphere. The workplace is kept neat and clean. We also have the system of bringing workers to factories and dropping them back. Compared with the situation 10-15 years ago, now our factories have undergone a sea change. This is because we have found that unless we change, buyers will not come to us. The realisation that we have to fulfil our responsibilities has resulted in our voluntarily effecting the necessary changes in the factories, besides meeting the compliance requirements.

4) Oz updates: Greenhouse gas emission trading seems to be the issue over which the new Oz government will face its first acid-test. If the Oz government lasts till the next year, with the expected completion of the NBN pilot project in Tasmania, more sparks are expected to fly. With the beginning of the Parliament session, it seems like sledging Kevin Ruud has become a fair-game for any and every Rep from the Coalition. The following is a take on how Julia came to wrest the government. Linky

Julia offered Oakeshott, Windsor and Katter a package of measures designed to close the development gap between regional Australia and metropolitan Australia. The three independents had, on their own, come together to explore which side to support. Towards this end, the trio sought and obtained the Treasury's estimates of the public funding required to implement the poll promises of Labour and the Coalition respectively. With Abbott having initially suspected the impartiality of the Treasury in a highly surcharged political atmosphere, Julia was able to turn this issue to her advantage. In her narrative, she could be trusted more than Abbott for transparency in governance. In the end, it suited her that the independents detected what was described as “a huge black hole” in Abbott's funding plans for translating the Coalition's poll promises.

As a critical interlude in this process of decision-making by the trio of independents, an agreement was reached across the federal political spectrum for reforms in parliamentary procedures. An idea much talked about was the need for an “independent” Speaker in the House. Another strand of thought was that the constitutionally validated three-year term of any House of Representatives should not be trifled with. In such a new ambience of debate on issues, as distinct from a debate on parliamentary numbers, Oakeshott and Windsor chose Julia, while Katter sided with Abbott. Oakeshott cited the glamour or reforms – especially that of a fair deal for regional Australia – while Windsor was fascinated by Labour's plan for a national broadband network. On a parallel track, Wilkie, the whistle-blower, opted for Julia's continuance in office after she agreed to address his local concerns about hospital and health care reforms and gambling excesses. With the Greens, which secured a seat in the House for the first time, sensing that Labour, not the Coalition, would be its natural partner, the parliamentary numbers fell in place for Julia.

Meanwhile, the country as such is recovering from the replay (after the first Grand final was drawn) of the Grand final of ARL (Aussie rules footie) between the victors Collingwood Magpies and St. Kilda Saints. The NRL Grand final is to follow soon. For those who are not aware, Aussie rules or footie (as it is known) is THE premier sport in Oz. It is far more egalitarian in terms of gender, ethnicity (given the huge immigrant set in Oz -- Greeks, Italians, this that), social status etc. in contrast to its country cousin of cricket, which is more of a rich, white, male-dominated sport followed by the likes of John Howard, Pete Roebuck and Gideon Haigh. While the establishment has been vigorously trying to put Don Bradman as the epitome of Australian-ness, the country as such is fiercely ignoring the Gentleman's game, except when "Its not cricket" rules the airwaves. Even then, most of the Aussies really could nt care two hoots about cricket. It is ONLY us, folks from the Indian subcontinent, who would make a life or death heart-attacky setting out of a bloody cricket game. The rest of the Commonwealth just moves on happily. That explains why Fiji has little enthusiasm in cricket other than watching us subcontinentals make a mountain out of a molehill.

In any case, this is what an Aussie (Andrew Herrick in The Age) could think of when the word India came up: "upfront, garrulous, colorful, diverse, religious, relentlessly activist." For himself, he came up with this: "reserved, laconic, complacent, boisterous, tendentiously monocultural, and occasionally uncivil." An Australia-India tete-a-tete is mentioned as "an insular society wary of a sophisticated and complex 3000-year old civilization, and unused to dark-skinned people articulate in English."

5) NSCN senior terrorist goes missing from Nepal Linky

Nepal's biggest organisation of indigenous peoples has taken up the cause of a rebel leader from India's Nagaland State who reportedly went missing last week after arriving at Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport from Bangkok. "We were alerted by an organisation in the Philippines, the Asian Indigenous People's Pact, that Ningkhan Shimray, head of the foreign affairs of the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah), disappeared on Monday evening after he emerged from the airport at Kathmandu," said Ang Kaji Sherpa, general secretary of the Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (NEFIN).

Shimray, also known as Anthony Shing, was to have proceeded to India to take part in a new round of peace talks with the Indian government. He was to have flown to New Delhi the following day. However, even though he was allowed through by Nepal's immigration and customs authorities at the airport, he vanished soon after that.
...
This is the second "disappearance" of a rebel Indian leader from the east in less three months. In July, Niranjan Hojai, leader of the Dima Halam Daogah (Jewel) organisation in Assam, was arrested in Nepal and handed over to the Indian authorities.

6) ULFA parleys reach a certain stage of raised anxiety in me Linky

Highly placed official sources told The Assam Tribune that though the ULFA leaders, who are in judicial custody, cannot be released by the government directly, their release can be facilitated if the Government does not reject their bail petitions. The Government already facilitated the release of ULFA vice chairman Pradeep Gogoi and central publicity secretary Mithinga Daimary and in the same manner, the other jailed central committee members of the outfit can be released. According to information available, in the first phase, the deputy commander in chief of the ULFA, Raju Baruah, adviser Bhimkanta Buragohain alias Mama and cultural secretary Pranati Deka may be released on bail and the other senior leaders can be released in a phased manner depending on the progress made in the efforts to start the process of talk with the militant outfit.
...
Meanwhile, it is now clear that more than 30 members of the ULFA, who came back to Assam from Bangladesh recently, were compelled to do so because of the pressure mounted on them by the security forces of the neighbouring country. Security sources as well as sources close to the ULFA leaders revealed that the Rapid Action Battalion of Bangladesh launched a massive crackdown on the militants in recent times and even took action against those who provided shelter to the militants. On September 12, the personnel of the Rapid Action Battalion picked up one ULFA member Tinku Sonowal and roughed him up during questioning. The ULFA members, who were under pressure following the arrests of senior leaders including their chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa came under tremendous pressure following the crackdown launched by the Rapid Action Battalion and decided to return to the State as their security was at stake. The ULFA men along with their family members came to Assam in two batches—28 in the first batch and three in the second batch. They were received at the international border in Tura sector by a team of police officers and a ULFA leader on bail and brought to Assam. However, they were not kept in police custody and the commander of the 709 battalion of the outfit, Hira Sarania was entrusted with the responsibility of keeping them in safe places.

Meanwhile, sentinel has this to add on what will be a momentous turn on GoA-ULFA parleying: Linky

Seven more top ULFA leaders may come to Assam from Bangladesh and Myanmar after the Durga Puja in order to speed up the peace process with the government. According to intelligence sources, the ULFA leaders in question are staying along the Arunachal Pradesh-Myanmar and Bangladesh-Meghalaya borders now. They are 109 battalion’s operation ‘wing commander’ Dristi Rajkhowa, 28th battalion’s Myanmar camp in-charge Jibon Moran, political wing leader Sujit Mohan, upper Assam finance secretary Michael Deka Phukan, 28th battalion’s ‘operation commander’ Bijoy Chinese, 709 battalion ‘commander’ Heera Sarania and 28th battalion’s ‘second lieutenant’ Antu Saodang.

7) Uranium mining impasse Linky

The new acting Syiem (Chief) of Hima (Chiefdom) of Langrin, Nangtei Singh Syiemiong, emphatically said that the voice of the people would guide him while taking any decision on the proposed uranium mining in the Mawthabah-Phudkylleng-Nongbahjyrin areas of West Khasi Hills. These areas are under Hima Langrin (Langrin chiefdom).
The decision of the Syiem is critical, especially when the Centre and the State Government have long been trying to persuade the local people to allow the proposed uranium mining. When asked, the newly appointed Syiemiong stated: “We are aware of the different points put forth by the government and different agencies. However, my decision will be in line with the opinion of the people”. He gave a strong indication that the Hima would continue to oppose the proposed uranium mining in the areas under his domain.

8) An op-ed on IMDT
Of Fake Fencing and Deportation Hoax Linky

The sorry plight of the barbed wire fencing along the border not only reflects total apathy of the political parties in power in the State and the Centre, but more seriously a commitment and sinister design on the part of the powers-that-be to keep the border open for unabated influx of Bangladeshi nationals into Assam in the interest of vote-bank politics indulged in mainly by the ruling Congress while a few other parties are following suit.

While the blame for failure to seal the border with Bangladesh should be borne by both the Congress and the opposition parties, statistics drive home the point that the lion’s share of the blame goes to the ruling Congress. However, the AGP in the State and the BJP at the Centre must also bear a significant quantum of the same. On this count, seemingly Sushma Swaraj alone had the guts to speak the truth that failure to fence the border was a collective political failure.

9) DHD whinefest Linky
NDFB whinefest Linky