The problems that maketh Tamland

It has been a long time of vanvaas, but it has been probably worthwhile to remain silent. But then they also say, "don't speak ill of the dead." And if we follow that maxim to the hilt, we would never talk about anyone or life in itself, since we are all eventually dead anyway. So I will ignore such maxims perhaps to my own peril.

1) Mu Ka was a great Tam litterateur and no one can take that away from him (not even Lord Yama!). He also ably contributed to nation-building by putting his foot down for the devolution of what were then Central rights more to the States --- a principle accepted much later by the Sarkaria Commission for the stability of modern India in contrast to a million mutinies in our extended neighborhood. Foremost amongst these was making a common cause with a wide base on issues of Tam pride in times that mattered the most, a much needed succor from the onslaught of the Congress-i/Jan Sangh-i/Samyuktha Socialist Party version of intolerance in the bygone era including those from the Nehru family, Raj Narain, etc.,  as well as many stalwarts from Tamland such as Rajaji, Satyamurti and Bhaktavatsalam. It may have been a mere coincidence that he and the other DK/DMK stalwarts took to protest on behalf of Tamil for what he/they felt, but in ensuring the version of the Official Languages Resolution, 1968 in the way it did (http://rajbhasha.nic.in/en/official-language-resolution-1968), he/others ensured that there was a lot less misery for a large section of the Indian population over time.

2) More to his credit, following his own misrule from 1989-91 and JJ's misrule from 1991-96, he did not get too bogged down by details in terms of who/what affiliation ran/wanted to run a certain business or how they ran it, as long as he/his family/party got his 5-10% cut (a precursor to the infamous Jayanthi tax or the Mr. 10% jibes at one AA Zardari across the border) letting Tamland march towards industrialization and progress in its own way, independent of whether it was an ADMK front or a DMK front ruling/misruling it. Both ADMK and DMK ensured continuity in terms of policies as long as they got their choicest porterhouses (no pun intended).

3) Much of DK/DMK's rise to fame is/was correlated with the meticulous use of the newly arrived propaganda medium in the form of films to social messaging whether it be caste affirmation in the form of self-respect/suya-mariyaadhai and non-Brahminism, Tam language pride, or social evil eradication. And in that segment, a lot of credit goes to people such as Mu Ka and the atheist-turned-theist of "Arthhamulla Hindhu madham" fame Kannadhaasan as well as brilliant orators such as Sivaji Ganesan, SS Rajendran, KR Ramaswamy (who is conveniently forgotten today), etc. all of whom could sting a bee like no tomorrow, let alone like one Ali. The imprint of the Soviet/Communist revolution on all that propaganda as well as social messaging cannot be ignored, as well as the deep reasons to rename oneself from a Dakshinamoorthy to a Karunanidhi, all the while going for a Muthu, an Azhagiri and then a Stalin instead of a planned Ayyadurai (a morphed version of Periyar 'Ayya' and an Anna'durai'). What that says about what he valued the most is left to one's own imagination!

4) That said, Mu Ka knew which side of the bread was buttered the best and played both BJP and Congress masterfully, as the time of the day demanded it. Like CBN in 2018, he sided with BJP and Vajpayee in 1999 and then dropped out of the coalition when BJP/NDA suited his needs less (that movement began as early as 2002, but nevertheless). He then sided with Congress/UPA and then dropped out of that coalition when he got sucked into inaction over the death of LTTE and more so, the 2G spectrum scam. He had like-minded friends, well-wishers and advisers on both sides of the aisle and kept his rhetoric primarily for the gullible electorate, especially as he aged, mellowing down fast, but not fast enough to witness some beautiful dung droppings such as, "Is Ram a civil engineer?"

5) Mu Ka was also a man of masterful guile in converting pawns to queens on the political checkerboard. If being a No. 3 in CNA's Cabinet to sidelining Naavalar Nedunchezhian with MGR's help first and then planting himself firmly as the CM/Party President face was not enough evidence of this, realizing the gullibility of the electorate that only appreciated the face behind the versatile oratory (and not the playwright) in putting up a Mu Ka Muthu against MGR and when that attempt flopped miserably primarily due to the ineptness of Muthu, to totally removing MGR from the party when MGR demanded the election finances for the 1971 hustings be audited was one too many for even the Frank Underwood's of Tamland.

6) The typical stick to beat Mu Ka is with the epithet bestowed on him by the MGR-demanded Indira-instituted Sarkaria Commission (a different one) report: "the man who institutionalized scientific corruption in Tamil Nadu politics" (not a paraphrase from the report, but the tenor of it). But a more realistic assessment of him is more of a man who institutionalized family politics in Tamil Nadu. All others from that era have mostly fallen wayside except his family. The numerous episodes in which the DMK leadership were sidelined to ensure the pre-eminence of the Mu Ka family starting with the Maaran-Mu Ka tag-team to promote Mu Ka Muthu over MGR in the late 60s and early 70s, followed by the vanvaas as the Ram-loving Mu Ka called it (the 1977-1989 interregnum with three ADMK governments), and the early 90s' sidelining of folks such as VaiKo when he became too big for his boots in being more-Tamil-than-Tamil, or those actions that sidelined K. Anbazhagan, Arcot Veeraswami, and even the scions of the Maaran family and Azhagiri, all in favor of one Stalin.

7) As much as Mu Ka moved away from the literary Brahminical Tamil dialogue delivery that was common during the 40s with a more colloquial and mass understandable Tamil dialogues that could easily reach out to the vast majority of the people, one could also accuse him of failing to move with the times as his screenplays bombed in the 90s. While his 80s renditions such as "Paasapp paravaigal" and "Paalaivana rojakkal" were still reasonably connected to the audience, his final film screenplay for "Ponnar shankar" was one distasteful and badly mangled version of what would be a pre-eminent story of the Gounder community. As expected, the movie miserably bombed at the box office.

8) A lot has been written about Mu Ka not losing a single election from 1957 to his death. But not much has been said about the 1991 scraping in the Harbour constituency (an 890 vote win) coming as it did in the wake of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination and the disrobing of JJ in the State Assembly by Durai Murugan. The other winner in that elections on behalf of DMK was Parithi Elamvazhuthi, someone who was tom-tommed to be one of the DMK greats that defied a sympathy wave in the Egmore constituency in those days. But if one looks 25 years later, Parithi is spending his time in the ADMK vacillating between OPS and TTVD gangs/camps, further bolstering the credentials of Mu Ka for sidelining everyone in the party except Stalin. Stalin, by the way, lost in the Thousand Lights constituency to KA Krishnaswamy (a family member of KA Mathiazhagan, one of the Five Founders or Aimberum Thalaivargal when CNA left DK to form DMK).

9) The other less talked about event is his skipping of the 1984 Assembly elections when he more or less knew that he would be ousted in the aftermath of the sympathy wave following Indira Gandhi's assassination, MGR's reasonably ok governance from 1980-84 despite his kidney failure, the sympathy in Tamland for MGR and the beaming videos from Brooklyn, as well as the charisma of Rajiv Gandhi. In some sense, Mu Ka had a good premonition of the whacking the DMK alliance would take in the polls (195/234 won by ADMK) and quite easily skipped the elections. MK Stalin had again lost to KAK in the same Thousand Lights constituency in 1984 also (in what was his debut fight at the Assembly level).

10) All this said, Tamland's pre-/post-independence electoral period can be neatly delineated into three or four eras depending on one's biases.

The first era from approximately 1940 to the mid-60s witnessed populist Congress governments carrying over from Gandhi's messages, with often incorruptible and clean leaders, only mightily burdened by their philosophical and ideological inclinations as they came from elitist Brahmin/forward caste/well-to-do families. Even the Opposition in this era could not find corruption or personal animosity against the likes of T. Prakasam, Ramasami Reddiar, Kumarasami Raja, Bhaktavatsalam, Rajaji and Kamaraj. In fact, the handing over of the baton from Rajaji to Kamaraj took the sting out of the likes of EV Periyar quite quickly.

The second era began a bit earlier in the mid-50s and continued through the mid-70s with the rise and popularity of the Justice Party/DK, social reform, anti-Hindi agitations, a transformation from a "vengaayam/kattumiraandi" religious/linguistic depictions to one of "ondre kulam, oruvane devan", and the rise of film icons such as Sivaji and then MGR to prop up the DMK to power. A lot has been written about whether the 1967 win of the DMK could be attributed to the shooting of MGR by MR Radha, but most likely even if this event had not happened, the social/linguistic churn would have meant a rise of the DMK at some point in this period.

The mid-70s to mid-2010s (a really long period) is basically the era of bipolar disorder in Tamland (pardon the pun) from sun-rise to son-rise, the demise of ideology and the natural reversion to the mean in the form of compromises, nepotism, money-making/corruption and caste re-affirmations in the form of petty and fissiparous outfits such as PMK, VCK, PT, DMDK, MDMK, IUML, etc., support for pan-Tamil causes across the globe with no heed to Tamil causes and issues in the state (e.g., VaiKo), and basically vindictiveness and melodrama that has often no parallels anywhere else in India (perhaps!). This is the period that completely drove away any space for nationalist/reasonable parties in Tamland, much to their own detriment, but perhaps reaffirming faith in the idea of India (in contrast to what the current Opposition dispensation would have you believe in) that one can start with a demand for a Dravida Naadu and end up with a demand for a Bharat Ratna instead! But then Periyar is in a thidal, Anna in a samaadhi, MGR in a mani-mandapam, may be that explains the trajectory that is Tamland, perhaps!!

With the passing away of both JJ and Mu Ka, we have a giant vaccum that cannot be filled in by the likes of the 4-5 percenters (aka Vijayakanth, Ramadoss, VaiKo, Thirumaa, etc.). Nor can they be filled by the likes of PC and the essential jokers in Satyamurti Bhavan. Completely out of picture are the nationalists in Kamalalayam. Just because that name sounds similar to Arivalayam or Anbagam, the BJP cannot overnight replace the Dravidian front with its own agenda. In fact, what is the agenda of BJP in Tamland, one wonders. May be nothing and that is not too bad in a way! This vacuum that corresponds to the fourth era sees the likes of Rajnikanth and Kamalahassan trying to wade into.

In fact, I did witness a surreal event before Vishwaroopam-II that was played out in the movie hall in the US --- an in-your-face petty propaganda clip for Kamal's party, MNM. Gone are the days when subtlety used to be an art-form with phrases such as "Anna, nee naalai aaluvaai" to "thalaivare" or movie titles such as "Kaanchi Thalaivan", or even Rajnikanth's quasi-political dialogues couched as real movie dialogues in such movies as Padaiyappa and Bhaasha. This in-your-face propaganda and the distancing of the party name itself by calling it a Maiyyam or Maiam (however that is written in English), instead of a Kazhagam or a Katchi (loosely translated as either an Organization, a Grouping, or a Party) + a more South-centric focus rather than a Tamland-centric focus (not quite sure what exactly would come out of it though) just stands quite opposite to what used to be status quo. Not much good is likely to come out of such ventures, especially if one has to see Vishwaroopam-II as the first-post MNM movie to showcase a new-Kamal, if there really was one who indeed needed a rebranding.

The continuing strong anti-Shaivite stand in some form or the other starting with Anbe Shivam and continuing through Dasavatharam and now Vishwaroopam + a world where all establishmentists speak a Brahminical Tamil (laughable even it were only a fraction true) + a confused stand on terrorism (with dialogues such as "religion does not cause terrorism, but people do" quite like the NRA's stand on gun violence) does not portend an intelligent yet unintelligible Kamal who is trolled by all and sundry. This is more of a useless idiot (in contrast to the useful idiots) wanting to be a do-gooder who is probably just the wrong pressure valve in a state filled with an enormity of confrontations, complications and confused histories.

The other side sees Rajnikanth's political fantasy-world with an always ueber-correct hero now having to confront political quagmires where one does have to make a significant compromise, and can and does get trolled ceaselessly in such ventures. This front is also not likely to see a great future ahead even if it presents a mirror to the hypocrisy of the state and its erstwhile/current crop of self-declared leaders (unabashed anti-Brahminism/anti-Hinduism, but with the reality of someone who cannot skip a yellow shawl for decades + need to pull the plug on an Ekadesi and a quick burial on Dwadasi so that one can attain saranagati at the lotus feet of the same venerable God who one can veritably question as if one is a Nakkeeran-lite just because they have read Tamil well + a clamoring for a burial site despite having pretty much a good chunk of Madras in one's possessions + a corrupt regime that is tolerated and accepted as lawful/reasonable/forgivable, let alone a bigamy + countless other accusations). Primary reasons for Rajni's failure would be the strong pulls and conflicts that he has to handle + the unrealistic expectations that he has already projected (real or imaginary) + the poor health he will have to confront in building an organization from the ground up despite the presence of enough of his rasikar mandrams + a changing reality of a significantly aspiring middle-class where there is no unquestioned loyalty to anything ideological/to any person, even if reality seems otherwise, etc.

With a similar age class as Modi and MK Stalin, these two film stars have probably 5-10 years (if at all!) of good/reasonably healthy life before all their vices start taking a real effect on their well-beings. This chasm is not likely to be filled by the different power centers in ADMK and its splinter-ist outfits corrupt as they are, nor is there an alternate hope when the reality of DMK's family-centric agenda comes up to the forefront. Whether such chasms get filled up by pro-leftist anarchist outfits that supposedly emancipate marginalized outfits or worse, pro-Tamil outfits with an axe-to-grind on every Tamil problem in this vast wide world, or whether they get pushed back by caste re-affirmation fronts, or whether there is a space for moderate yet nationalist forces would be an interesting problem to witness, if only one was an outsider peering in. For an insider peering out, these are bound to be eternally uncomfortable events where one lays low, watches the surreality of modern Tamland and its various actors get played out in real-life Big Boss type events, and possibly troll away to one's merriment!

Sadly, we may not have to witness anyone asking for a plot near the Cooum in a long time to come! That may be the only comforting reality in the short while!!

Response to a comment on the Madras Manade post

I found this comment on the post on claims to Madras city (http://dharma-yuddham.blogspot.in/2011/12/chennai-illai-madras-tales-from-city.html):

Comment:
The account given is evidently partisan as it is apparently written by a Tamil or a Tamil sympathizer.If history is written by an interested party, truth suffers. Go back to history. The city developed around the settlement (Fort Saint George) permission for which was given to the British by the Nayaks, Telugus, who ruled different regions of the province. The Nayaks controlled the coastal areas from Pulicat to Santhom.After all Chennai is a name derived from Chennapattnam, a village named after Damarla Chennappqa Nayaka. When readers wrote to The Hindu, your own paper, to keep politicians out of the issue and hold a referendum, it was not taken note of.If the Tamil leaders were so sure of their numbers in the city, they would have agreed for a plebiscite to settle the vexatious problem. Neither did they agree to the Wanchoo committee recommendation to allow Andhras to share Madras as capital for a limited period. It shows their intransigence, well supported by Nehru indirectly. The evil genius Rajaji, who is supposed to be a leader of national stature, was so cruel that the Andhras were forced to go overnight and put up tents in Kurnool to serve as capital. What is this "greater contact" of Tamils, Kalki, a writer of so repute and is supposed to be universal in his outlook. speaks of. He acted as a mouthpiece of Rajaji unashamedly. When so many readers wrote to The Hindu to keep politicians out of the issue and hold a referendum the Tamil leaders simply ignored it to their convenience. As there was genuineness to the Andhra Cause there was no response in support of Tamils from Tamil leaders themselves.

Response:
From what I can guess, the author of the piece that you are criticizing is most likely Tamil rather than Telugu. But he could as well have been a nobody. The point of his article was to expound on the claims and counter-claims on Madras city.

Madras did not exist in the form we know it today prior to the setting up of George Town (the then Black Town, which slowly merged with the White Town established by the British). Madras in the form it exists today has known of a substantial native population (by which I mean a predominant generation that has been born in Madras and grown in Madras) only over the last 60-70 years. Madras has primarily been an immigrant city, and even today caters to a large "immigrant" population from all over Tamil Nadu and also the rest of India, especially with the boom in IT, manufacturing and construction industries. While not as cosmopolitan as Bangalore or filmi Bombay are, Madras still maintains its ethos of crappy conservatism (copyrighted) by limiting/discouraging free-for-all immigration inside the city limits by an artificial and socially structured process of reverse gentrification.

That said, Telugu speakers have remained a significant part of Madras in the 40s as well as today. I know of enough cases of some version of Telugu spoken at home followed by fluent Madras Tamil conversations on the street. Nevertheless, claims to Telugu speaker majority are a bit of voodoo science. There are enough evidences to point to the fact that Telugu speakers were NOT more numerically preponderant than the Tamil speakers in the 30s and 40s. The 1941 Census under the British points to a 15-70 split (or so claims the author of the piece). From my understanding and studies in the by-gone days (on which I wont bet my paycheck, except for a first order claim), the 15% in 1941 census reflected a growing percentage of Telugu speakers in Madras city from what that number stood at in the late 19th century.

There are multiple reasons to explain that trend. Foremost of which was the rise of limited private enterprise in Madras city under the British. As is usually the case, the most sought after factor in private enterprise was kith and kin, followed by trust in the form of local, regional, religious and linguistic bonds. With trade and business firmly in the control of Telugu speakers (vis-a-vis the Tamil speakers), it was only a matter of time before the non-land owning Telugu speaker percentage rose in Madras city. Another important factor behind the rise of Telugu speaker percentage was the rise of South Indian cinema from the late 20s through 40s and beyond. Bilinguals (Tamil and Telugu) were a common feature as was the free use of resources (capital, people, ideas and audience) from all over Madras Presidency. With the cinema industry acting as the springboard for all types of social revolutions (version 1.0), Madras city attracted all kinds of people from far and wide. If the Telugu speakers had made a claim to Madras city and Andhra Pradesh in 1961 instead of 1951, there is a good likelihood that Madras city would have become a part of Andhra Pradesh.

There are no vexatious problems as for the claim of Madras city -- neither then nor now. The "referendum" idea makes no sense either especially when census figures are right there to look at. Even discounting a 20% adjustment from Tamil speakers to Telugu speakers, for whatever be the reason, there is no case made for Madras city as a part of Andhra Pradesh, if it is one vote per person. However, the idea of equal votes for all is an illusory fancy that titillates the imagination of socialists of all hues. In practice, every person can claim only as many votes as per the decibel level of ruckus they can raise. If that is the case, sure there is a vexatious issue to resolve. Unfortunately, I am not too bothered about such problems as I have enough of my own.

Chennai Illai, Madras: Tales from the City

A chapter titled, '"Madras Manade" -- How Chennai remained with Tamil Nadu" by A.R. Venkatachalapathy in a volume edited by him titled, "Chennai Not Madras: Perspectives on the City"

Chennai is now well-entrenched as the capital of the modern state of Tamil Nadu. Not only is it the administrative headquarters but it has also evolved over a century and a half since at least the mid-19th century as the social, political, and cultural capital of the Tamil country. Despite its cosmopolitan nature and a significant minority population, no Tamil could possibly imagine that Chennai could be anything but Tamil. But for some years in the mid-20th century the pre-eminent place of Madras as the Tamil capital came to be challenged by Telugu politicians. "Madras Manade" ("Madras is Ours") captures this controversy in an alliterative Telugu slogan.

Though Telugu speakers, at about 15 per cent of the population compared to about 70 per cent of Tamil speakers, constituted a clear minority in the city of Madras, for a variety of historical reasons they had high visibility. Proximity to Telugu regions, the dominance of the Telugu elite in the early history of Madras, their prominence in early nationalist politics where some of them founded organizations such as the Madras Native Association, and their preponderance in trade and business gave, at least to some, an illusion of Madras as a Telugu city. This was further accentuated by the disproportionate power Telugu speakers wielded in an electoral world where enfranchisement was based on property holding and direct taxation. With the gradual rise of Indian nationalist politics, at the threshold of its mass phase, legitimate demands were voiced for a separate province of Andhra for Telugu speakers. It is said that such demands were articulated as early as 1913. The Andhra Maha Sabha was a major voice in the articulation. By 1920, with its Nagpur session, the Indian National Congress had reorganized itself on linguistic lines and the newly-formed Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee demanded that the city of Madras come under its jurisdiction. Similar claims were made on Madras when a separate Andhra University was formed in 1926. Though such demands were articulated through the subsequent two decades, the issue came to a head only as Indian independence became imminent. The Telugu demand for Madras unfortunately got tied to the formation of a separate Andhra state and consequently became a running sore for over half a decade.

In June 1948 the Constituent Assembly of India appointed a commission headed by S.K.Dar, with Panna Lal and Jagat Narayan Lal as members, to examine the formation of the new provinces of Andhra, Karnataka, Kerala, and Maharashtra. Interestingly no mention was made of Tamil Nadu as it was erroneously assumed that the Madras Presidency was representative of Tamils. In the event the Dar commission recommended reorganization not on "linguistic consideration but rather upon administrative convenience." This was a view that was close to Jawaharlal Nehru's heart despite the many assurances the Congress had made over the years, and especially during the 1937 elections, on linguistic reorganization of provinces.

The Congress in turn, in its Jaipur session (December 1948), appointed a Linguistic Provinces Committee with Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, and Pattabhi Sitarammaya (hence commonly known as the JVP Committee after their initials). The committee, which presented its report in April 1949, more or less accepted the Dar Commission's views by recommending the postponement of linguistic reorganization by a few years. But Andhra was an exception. "In some ways," the JVP Committee observed, "the demand for an Andhra Province has a larger measure of consent behind it than other similar demands," and added ominously, "Yet there is a controversy about certain areas as well as about the city of Madras." While the JVP Committee argued that Greater Bombay should not be part of any linguistic province, it placed Madras on a different footing despite its apparent analogous nature:

to a large extent what we have said about Bombay city applies to Madras. At the same time there is a difference in that it is a clear Tamil majority area. It seems impossible to restrict the aspirations of the majority to the confines of the city and as far as we can see its isolated existence would be a perpetual source of conflict between Andhra and Tamilnad.

Therefore the decision of the Congress leadership was clear and unequivocal right from the beginning: "On the whole, therefore, we feel if an Andhra Province is to be formed its protagonists will have to abandon their claim to the city of Madras." But there precisely lay the problem. Inextricably linked with the demand for Madras, the declaration of Andhra province came to be delayed by a few more years. Further, it also occasioned unnecessary and tragic loss of lives and property and caused teething problems for the fledgling nation state.

Pressure began to mount as is clearly recounted in the voluminous Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru. By September 1949 Nehru had received at least three deputations: one an Andhra deputation led by P. Ramamurti, another of the Tamil members of the Constituent Assembly, and a third of the Andhra Maha Sabha. Meeting these delegations only further convinced Nehru of his position articulated in the JVP Committee. In November the Congress Working Committee, following the JVP Committee's views, recommended to the Government of India that an Andhra state be formed but without Madras city.

As Nehru wrote shortly later to P.S. Kumarasami Raja, the Chief Minister of Madras Presidency, "it now appears that the way to the formation of the Andhra Province is not as easy or clear as we had thought it was." An eight-member Partition Committee had been formed in November 1949 and the Madras Cabinet had approved its report in January 1950, "based on a large measure of agreement." But this was mired in controversy, with T. Prakasam ("one leading member from Andhra" in the words of Nehru) signing a note of dissent that the apparatus of the new province should reside in Madras city until a new capital was ready, clearly a ploy to subvert the federal decision not to grant Madras to Andhra.

In the ensuing months the movement for Andhra hotted up. In the coastal districts and Rayalaseema, support was welling up for a separate Andhra province. Apart from numerous public meetings, one Swami Sitaram even undertook a fast portending perhaps the subsequent fast of Potti Sriramulu which ended tragically. Given Nehru's view that "Personally I am opposed to bringing in fasting as a method of finding a solution for political problems" and his categorical statement in Parliament that "Government will ... submit to facts and not fasts," the fast was broken only with the intervention of Vinoba Bhave. During the course of this fast it all once again boiled down to one issue: while the protesters demanded a separate Andhra state and the government was more than eager to grant it, the doubtful claim over Madras was what stalled the issue. In Parliament on September 14, 1951 the government said as much when N.G. Ranga, the prominent Andhra Congressman, made an intervention in the debate.

As the agitation for a separate Andhra got protracted, the fault lines within the Andhra Congress began to be more visible. It became obvious that the interests of Rayalaseema and the coastal districts of Andhra were not in tandem. (Here it should be mentioned that, even after the so-called police action in Hyderabad which ensured its integration in the Indian union, its amalgamation with the Telugu state of Andhra was scarcely discussed.) Given their close proximity and other material interests in the city of Madras, Rayalaseema and Nellore could not envisage an Andhra province without it. Further, their people were also apprehensive about due representation to them in the new province and therefore demanded a proportionate share in the new legislature and other government offices. This amounted to putting a spoke in the Andhra wheel. The elite of the coastal districts of Andhra had a far larger stake in the creation of a separate state than in a faraway city. As Nehru observed in a letter to Swami Sitaram on September 29, 1951, "On the Andhra side, there appear to be varying opinions. Some people say that they were prepared to give up the city of Madras wholly; others are not prepared to do so; yet others ... want to reserve consideration of this to a later stage." To this may be added the view that Madras city should become a Chief Commissioner's province, effectively under the control of the Central government.

If this was the political division within the Andhra government, the situation in Tamil Nadu was even more complex. While the Congress was deeply faction-ridden, and the other dominant force, the Dravidian movement (both the Dravida Kazhagam under Periyar E.V. Ramasamy and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam under C.N. Annadurai), with their commitment to a Dravidian homeland consisting of the whole of southern India, did not divert adequate energy to the issue. The Communists on the other hand, emerging afresh from underground after being weakened by toeing the misconceived B.T. Ranadive line, reflecting the ground strength of their movement, preferred to be led by the Andhra section of the Communist Party. Ultimately it was left to the Tamil Arasu Kazhagam, headed by Ma. Po. Sivagnanam, a pressure group within the Congress, to counteract the Andhra demand. Apart from organizing meetings and conferences, the Tamil Arasu Kazhagam intervened effectively in the Madras Corporation by passing resolutions that thwarted Andhra designs on Chennai. (A particularly tactical move was the defeat of a motion brought forward in the corporation expressing sympathy for the death of Potti Sriramulu in December 1952, which was a moral blow to the Telugu demand.) An important all-party public meeting of Tamil leaders was organized in March 1953 by the Tamil Arasu Kazhagam where Periyar E.V.R., M. Bhaktavatsalam, S.S. Karaiyalar, Meenambal Sivaraj, and others spoke. In subsequent meetings widely respected Tamil cultural figures with no overt political connections also participated.

In this context, with the question of Madras and the interests of Rayalaseema acting as brakes, the struggle for a separate Andhra state went from strength to strength. The situation drove both the state and Central governments to exasperation. Once Nehru was even forced to write to P.S. Kumarasami Raja, "A reference in the Hindu says that your government is apparently waiting for us to do something about the Andhra province or for us to ask you about it. I do not quite know what is meant." By early 1952, Nehru was blaming T. Prakasam and his supporters alone for the stalemate in forming the Andhra province. In a press conference in New Delhi Nehru asserted, referring to Prakasam's dissent note to the partition committee's report where he had insisted that Madras city be the interim capital of the new Andhra province: "As a matter of fact, if Mr Prakasam had accepted that award three years ago, probably there would be an Andhra province now."

By this time however the first general elections of January 1952 had added more variables. The Congress failed to win a majority in the Madras Presidency, weakening the hand of K. Kamaraj, its leader, and paving the way for Rajaji to form a Congress government through a prescient form of horse-trading. On the other hand, T. Prakasam had himself lost his deposit in the North Madras constituency, exposing the weakness of his demand. He headed the United Front, a motley alliance dominated by the Communists, which opposed the Congress. Despite Rajaji's well-advertised view that the demand for linguistic provinces was a "tribal demand", he nevertheless supported the formation of an Andhra province but without conceding the city of Madras. (It was widely believed that Rajaji's support for the immediate creation of Andhra province would give him a reprieve from the relentless attack of the Communists whose legislators mostly came from Andhra.)

Various Andhra leaders such as Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy and V.V. Giri put pressure on the Central government. Even the philosopher Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was not to be left out in this regard. All this only drove Nehru to exasperation. Nehru refused their demand for the appointment of a commission without general agreement: "Even reference to an arbitration means consent of parties." He also ruled out plebiscite, as it would not throw up a clear result. By July 1952 Nehru made it ever more clear that "there has been so much argument on this subject that no one can say anything new or worthwhile."

This, however, was to change with one as-yet-unknown Congressman's fast. In a letter to Rajaji, Nehru had observed that "some kind of fast is going on for the Andhra province .... I am totally unmoved by this and I propose to ignore it completely." But it was not to be. Potti Sriramulu epitomized the demand for Andhra. Actively egged on by T. Prakasam and Bulusu Sambamurthy, he began his fast at the latter's hime on October 19. 1952. Within days Nehru had to sit up and listen: "I do not know how long we can just go on postponing it. If we are clear that sometime or other we shall have to face it, it does little good to go on postponing this and waiting for a more favourable opportunity. The probability is that conditions will deteriorate."

T. Prakasam kept on the pressure by convening an all-Party convention in Madras on December 7, 1952, and dissolved it after calling for immediate formation of Andhra with Madras as capital. It was left to T. Nagi Reddy, the Communist leader, to reconvene the meeting and pass a resolution that left the question of Madras to a plebiscite.

Nehru hoped to seize this psychological moment to the advantage of the nation-state. He feared that otherwise there would be complete frustration. He even suggested the appointment of a one-man commission which was turned down by Rajaji as he feared that it would only help "to keep alive the claims which we wish to be abandoned."

The death of Potti Sriramulu on December 15, 1952 after 57 days of fasting led to violence in Andhra, especially in Nellore, and the looting of Vijayawada railway station. Genuine fears arose about the safety of Tamils in the Telugu districts. Despite Nehru's bold statement in Parliament that "we must not mix up various things because a riotous mob did something", the Government of India appointed in December 1952 a committee under K.N. Wanchoo.

Wanchoo's report, submitted in early February 1952, unequivocally favoured the creation of an Andhra state but equally clearly recommended that Madras should not be included. However he indicated that until a new capital was built the Andhra government could be temporarily (for about five years) lodged in Madras. Understandably Nehru was inclined to accept this recommendation but Rajaji stoutly opposed it on the grounds that the troubles would spread to other Tamil areas where a sizeable Andhra population lived. He even went to the extent of threatening to resign from the chief-ministership. This finally convinced Nehru and he agreed that this move would only result in "unseemly agitation, acrimonious controversies, and administrative conflicts" and would adversely affect the friendly atmosphere.

By 1952 the question of Andhra was pretty much settled, if ever it was in question. Despite the seeming controversy, the Andhra demand for Madras was a rather sectarian one raised by a group of Andhra leaders from the Rayalaseema region. What gave some impetus and nationwide visibility to the agitation was that it was linked to a very popular, genuine, and longstanding demand for a separate Telugu-speaking province of Andhra. But in fact the demand for Madras unnecessarily delayed the formation of this province. The relative quiet with which Tamil Nadu responded to the Telugu demand for Madras was rooted in the certainty that it was most obviously a Tamil city conceded by one and all.

The bitterness between Andhra and Tamil Nadu festered for some years after, with the controversy over the northern borders becoming the subject of further agitation and necessitating yet another commission. That however is a separate story.

SOURCES:
1) Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Second Series, Volumes 10-22, Nehru Memorial Fund, New Delhi, 1990-97.
2) Ma. Po. Sivagnanam, Puthiya Tamilagam Padaitha Varalaru, Poonkodi Pathippagam, Chennai, 1986.
3) T. Vasundhara and S. Gopalakrishnan, Sub-Nationalism: A Case Study of Modern India, New Era, Madras, 1996.

Other updates (October 22, 2010)

1) Nepal: Gurkhas in UK army Linky

Britain has officially dismissed reports that it is planning to discontinue the age-old Gorkha soldiers’ brigade. “The British government has no plan at all to discontinue the Gorkha soldier unit of the British Army,” a British Embassy spokesman told PTI. The remarks came in response to media reports quoting a British Parliament member about the possibility of closure of the Gorkha brigade by the British Army as a result of budget cut downs. The parliamentarian also reasoned that the Gorkhas had been expensive due to equal pay, pensions and rights with regular British soldiers. The statement comes in the wake of the British Government making public new security strategy and strategic defence and security review.

At present there are around 3,500 Gorkha soldiers serving in the British Army. Gorkha brigade is regarded as one of the most trusted units of the British Army and the Gorkhas are regarded as very brave and obedient soldiers. The British Army has very old and cordial relations with the Nepal Army. The British Army had expressed commitment to continue its assistance to Nepal during Nepal Army chief Chhatraman Singh’s official visit to UK at the invitation of British Army chief G Peter Wall.

Here is another development: Linky

Nearly a dozen ‘commanders’ of their People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and lawmakers are on a nine-day visit to China. These include two former deputy chiefs of the PLA, Barsha Man Pun Ananta and Janardan Sharma Prabhakar. Both are sitting Maoist MPs while Sharma is also the former Maoist peace and reconstruction minister. Ananta’s wife Onsari Ghartimagar, also a Maoist lawmaker, is member of the team that includes PLA spokesman Chandra Prakash Khanal Baldev. The Nagarik daily, which broke the news on Thursday, said that though the Maoist party said the 11 were on a personal visit, they had met officials of the Communist Party of China as well as Chinese army officials in Beijing and Shanghai. Both Ananta and Prabhakar are members of the special committee that was formed to facilitate the disbanding of the PLA. With the two Maoist MPs on ‘vacation’, the special committee has not met even though time is running out for Nepal.

Nepal News adds this bit: Linky

UCPN (Maoist) chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal left for Shanghai, China, on Friday on a 4-day official visit to participate in the closing ceremony of Shanghai Expo 2010. Speaking to media-persons at the Tribhuvan International Airport before departing for China on a China Air flight, he said his visit is solely focused on participating in the Shanghai Expo 2010 and that he has no such plans as of now to engage in high-level political parleys with Chinese leaders and government officials. He, however, didn't deny the possibility of such meetings taking place.
...
Dahal is accompanied by party's foreign department chief Krishna Bahadur Mahara, and his top aides. Top party leaders including vice vhairmen Mohan Baidya and Dr Baburam Bhattarai and senior leader Ram Bahadur Thapa were at the TIA to bid Dahal farewell. "There will be bilateral talks during the meeting," Maoist politburo member Agni Sapkota, who is also accompanying Dahal during the trip, said without revealing if Dahal will meet Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Dahal is heading to China a day after an eleven-member team of the UCPN (Maoist) party, most of them military commanders, returned from China after a nine-day long "private trip". During their trip, the Maoist commanders are known to have met leaders of the Chinese Communist Party along with those overseeing the military affairs. They went to Beijing via Lhasa.

More unending trips: Linky

Chinese ambassador to Nepal Qiu Gohang called on President Dr Ram Baran Yadav at the latter's office, Shital Niwas, on Thursday. The Chinese ambassador met the President in connection with the latter's China trip later this month.
...
Vice President Paramananda Jha has left for Beijing, China on Thursday to attend the Western China Economic Fair in Chengdu of Sichuan province. Vice President Jha is scheduled to deliver a speech during the inaugural of the Fair on Friday, it is learnt. Jha is accompanied by his wife and six officials from his office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Elsewhere, SATP reports:

Leaders of the three major parties – Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-Maoist), Nepali Congress (NC) and Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) - met President Ram Baran Yadav at Shitwal Niwas in Kathmandu on October 19 (today) to discuss the current political stalemate and its possible solution, reports Nepal News. Caretaker Prime Minister and leader of the CPN-UML Madhav Kumar Nepal, UCPN-M Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda, NC president Sushil Koirala and CPN-UML chairman Jhala Nath Khanal went to Shital Niwas (President’s Office) to meet the President.

Meanwhile, the UCPN-M Standing Committee member Dev Gurung said that the caretaker Government does not have the right to bring in the full budget under any circumstances, warning that if it does so then that will be construed as a violation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). Speaking at an interaction in Kathmandu on October 18, Gurung also said that if the current Government brings in the budget then such a move will be against the "interim constitution".

Separately, Constituent Assembly (CA) Chairman Subas Nemwang said amendment to the constitution and the CA Regulations might be necessary to elect the new Prime Minister (PM) as the current election process has not produced results despite a dozen rounds of voting in the legislature Parliament. Nemwang mentioned this during his meeting with President Ram Baran Yadav at the latter's office, Shital Niwas, on October 15. The meeting dwelled mainly on the successive failure of the PM election and ways to end the stalemate.

DNA adds this: Linky

During the meeting today, Prachanda and Khanal asked Nepali Congress to withdraw 65-year-old Ram Chandra Poudyal from the prime ministerial race as he has failed to garner a majority even after 12 rounds of election in a row. However, Koirala told the leaders and the president that his party will not withdraw his party's candidate until there is a complete understanding on key political issues, including who will be the next prime minister.

Meanwhile, political parties have managed to find a common ground on nine of 11 contentious issues being discussed by the Constituent Assembly Committee on System of Governance. The meeting has resolved nine of the 11 major disputes on drafting a new Constitution, according to minister for law and justice Prem Bahadur Singh. The taskforce of top political leaders, however, are yet agree on the new electoral system and whether to adopt the presidential or the Westminster model. "We will enter into the issues of system of governance and electoral system in the next meeting," Singh said. Maoists are pitching for an executive presidential system and unicameral parliament while Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN-UML and other parties are for an executive prime ministerial system with ceremonial role for the head-of-state.

And as china builds its rail network to Nepal, this is what happens on the other side: Linky

India has urged Nepal to make necessary security arrangement across the survey portion of ongoing Jayanagar-Bijalpura-Bardibas railway link. Survey work of the longest rail link between the two countries has remained halted since mid-October following protests by Maoist cadres. Nepal and India had signed a memorandum of understanding in February on the development of a railway infrastructure through five border points along Nepal-India border. “We want continue the work but due to the continuous obstruction form Maoists we are forced to halt it,” said an Indian Embassy official requesting anonymity.

Last year, a local group had taken away equipment used in the survey, prompting to halt work. “We have hoped to complete the construction of the railway link by 2015, but reoccurring obstructions will dealt a blow to the targeted timeline,” the official added. The 68-km railway service will link Nepal’s Bardibas with India’s Jayanagar, where almost half (34 km) sketch lies on Nepali side. Indian government has prioritised Jayanagar to Bijalpura Gauge Conversion and its extension up to Bardibas.

2) BD: Border haat agreement Linky

India and Bangladesh are set to sign pacts which would clear the decks for setting up of border haats between Meghalaya and the neighbouring country. Led by Commerce Minister of Bangladesh, Faruk Khan, a 21-member delegation arrived here late in the evening. The two countries are slated to sign an agreement to set up border haats, a traditional commodity market. Initially border haats are going to be started at two places along the international border at Sunamganj and Kurigram districts. The trading will be held once a week in both the sides and an individual will not be able to trade above US $50 at the border haats. New Delhi has agreed not impose local tax on trading at the border. The trading would be conducted in local currencies of the two nations. Farm and home made items produced within 10 Km radius of border haats would be traded at the markets to be set up within five Km of the international border. The commodities to be traded in these haats include locally produced agriculture and horticulture products, spices, and minor forest products excluding timber, fresh and dry fish, dairy, fishery and poultry products, cottage industries items, wooden furniture and cane goods, handloom and handicraft items.

The star adds this: Linky

Bangladesh will demand a separate quota for raw cotton from India to ensure the item's adequate supply for the readymade garment sector, the prime foreign exchange earner. The cotton price has reached its all-time high of $1.19 a pound on the international market this month, which troubles Bangladesh and China -- the two countries that depend on cotton imports for their textile industries. Industry insiders pointed out that crop damage by floods in Pakistan, the world's fourth largest cotton producing country, and a ban India has imposed on cotton exports have led to the price spiral.

"We'll demand a separate quota for raw cotton during the bilateral trade talks with India," said Commerce Minister Faruk Khan yesterday, before leaving for New Delhi to lead a 23-member business delegation. Khan said Bangladesh wants to settle the cotton supply problem with India so that the country remains immune to any Indian ban on the item's export. Delhi enforced the ban in April in an effort to ensure supply to its own textile mills. Apparel makers of the neighbouring country also opposed the export of 5.5 million bales of raw cotton pointing to a possible deficit. Ashish Bagrodia, chairman of North Indian Textile Mills Association, has been quoted by Indian newspapers as saying: "Cotton exports beyond 5.5 million bales should not be allowed at any cost, since domestic industry consumption as per projections by the Cotton Advisory Board is going to be more than 26.6 million bales."

Bangladesh is expected to sign four memoranda of understanding on border haats and standard operating procedures of trucks with India. Primarily, two border haats -- one at Kurigram and the other at Sunamganj -- will be operational as soon as possible, Faruk Khan said. Easing business terms for bilateral trade expansion, zero-tariff for 61 Bangladesh products, removing non-tariff barriers to jute export and duty-free export of RMG products to India will be high on agenda.

India has pruned its list of products that cannot be exported to India from 700 to 480. However, Bangladeshi traders have been complaining that the cuts did not help much as garments and footwear, where Bangladesh could easily gain a market in India, were still on the banned list. In 2008, India had allowed import of eight million pieces of Bangladeshi garments but Dhaka points out that Bangladeshi has already exported 70 percent of its allowed quota in five months of this calendar year and the quota needs to be expanded besides withdrawing duty on 61 product lines.

Meanwhile, BD population is ticking at 16.44 crore

The country's present population is 16.44 crore with a 1.4 percent growth rate and 2.25 total fertility rate, according to the United Nations Population Fund's (UNFPA) annual report - state of world population 2010. This year report styled 'From Conflict and Crisis to Renewal: Generations of Change' said presently average life expectancy of the country's male is 65.4 years while 68.1 years for the female. Only 18 percent of pregnant mothers of the country get skilled birth attendant while giving birth to a child, the report said. Food and Disaster Management Minister Dr Abdur Razzak spoke as the chief guest while UNFPA's Bangladesh country representative Arthur Erken formally released the report at a city hotel here. UNFPA simultaneously published the report at all capital cities around the globe today.

The arms drop case plods along: Linky

Former NSI chief Rezzaqul Haider has told CID that former state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar assigned him to handover the 10-truck arms to United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa) on Sherpur border. Rezzaqul, however, clamed that he couldn't play any role regarding the 10-truck arms smuggling bid as the arms were caught at the Chittagong port, said CID sources. He made the statements yesterday, the third day of his six-day fresh remand. Rezzaqul added he agreed to carryout the assignment just as a government employee and he was not responsible for the smuggling. Rezzaqul was taken to the CID headquarters on Monday as the department was set to interrogate him in the sensational 10-truck arms haul case in Chittagong.

While GoI's intervention sees Lafarge go through: Linky

The traditional council of Nongtrai village in the Indian state of Meghalaya, where Lafarge's limestone mining project is located, has extended no objection to the French cement giant. In a court affidavit filed at the court on October 5, the head of Nongtrai village Durbar BL Lyngdoh said the arrival of Lafarge in their area has opened up employment opportunities along with many other benefits and assistance, according to a press release. He said some vested groups comprising exporters, whose business interests have been affected by the Lafarge project, filed the application to the Supreme Court opposing Lafarge operations.

The affidavit countered the claims of Shella Action Committee, the organisation whose primal objection spawned the whole affair. The affidavit states that the opposing party consists of limestone exporters who used to export limestone to Bangladesh without sharing any benefits with the locals. Lafarge pays a royalty fee which resulted a total amount of 3.15 crore Indian Rupee for the whole village and 1.4 lakh for each household, till December 2009.

3) Burma: Burma has a new flag

Military-ruled Myanmar unveiled a new national flag yesterday, just two weeks before an election that the government calls a major step in a transition to democracy. Government offices replaced the old standard with the new one at exactly 3 p.m. At a fire station in central Yangon, blue-uniformed officers lined up at attention during the replacement ceremony. The new flag has horizontal stripes of yellow, green and red with a big white star in the middle. The announcement of the new flag was made on state television just prior to the ceremonies, which were supposed to take place simultaneously all over the country. "We received the instruction to bring down the old flag and to fly the new flag at 3 p.m.," said an education officer in Pathein township in Irrawaddy Division, who added that shortly before the ceremony his office still had not received its replacement.

The 2008 constitution pushed through by the military called for fresh national symbols, including a new flag whose colors of yellow, green and red would stand for solidarity, peace and tranquility, and courage and decisiveness. Still, the abrupt release of the new flag came as surprise. A yellow, green and red flag was used during the Japanese occupation in 1943-1945, though the emblem in the center then was a dancing peacock. A fighting peacock is a symbol used by the country's democratic opposition, including Suu Kyi's now-disbanded party.

More from here
4) Maldives: Here is Md. Nasheed's interview to Asian Tribune when he came to India for the CWG Linky
And SAAG's take on it: Linky

There are two other issues which Nasheed pointed that need introspection and deep thought in India. First, he called upon India to drag neighbouring countries in the development efforts as other wise it would give rise to “deep resentment” in the region. Given the present trend of India moving higher and further away economically from other countries in the south Asian region and given the trust deficit in some of the countries, it needs to be examined how other countries in the region could be helped to partake in the prosperity and the economic opportunities which India has.

The second issue about India that President Nasheed has rightly pointed out is in describing the Indian Oceans as India’s “soft belly” posing increasingly serious concern. He favoured a framework agreement with India to take care of the security and other issues. The strategic community in India itself has to change its mind set and think of India not as a regional power alone but as an Indian ocean power. If this is done, India’s relationship not only with Sri Lanka but with other Indian ocean countries will also be have to be suitably restructured to meet the growing security concerns of the region.

It is in this connection that Maldives should be fully supported in its dispute with United Kingdom Foreign office over its claim of 160,000 square kilometers of British Indian Ocean territory (BIOT) that impedes on the 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone that UK claims extends from the island of Diego Garcia. Also, connected to that is the declaration of UK of the Chagos Archipelago as a BIOT marine reserve extending over an area bigger than France. Chagos is said to have been bought from the Mauritius Government in the year 1965 by the United Kingdom.

5) More on Koro and the ongoing academic dishonesty: Linky

Having discovered the endangered Koro language in Arunachal Pradesh, a team of linguistic researchers that includes a teacher of Ranchi University is now busy preparing “revitalisation kits” to save the vernacular tongue. The kit, containing audio and video records of Koro with phonetics, will be distributed among people in the region, where a small group currently speaks the language. “We are preparing revitalisation kits for the endangered Koro to popularise the language and ensure its propagation,” said Ganesh Murmu, a teacher and researcher in the tribal and regional language department of Ranchi University (RU).

Murmu was among three members of the linguistic team that recently discovered the endangered tribal language hitherto unknown to the world. The other members were David Harrison of Swarthmore University, UK, and G. Anderson of Oregon University, US. Their discovery was announced on October 6 in National Geographic magazine, which financially supported the research. The team had stumbled upon Koro in 2008.

Updates (October 17, 2010)

1) Much has been bandied about in terms of the utility of a Commonwealth or its lack thereof. It would be great if all the ornamental benefits get translated to trade. And so think the babus. Linky

Studies by London-based Royal Commonwealth Society (RCS) showed that India bought goods worth $53.15 billion annually from Commonwealth countries and sold goods worth $39.65 billion. Exports to Commonwealth nations account for 21 per cent of India’s total exports, while imports make up for around 17 per cent. The UK’s trade with the Commonwealth nations is 8-9 per cent of its total trade, while Canada’s stands at 6-7 per cent. The other two large economies in the Commonwealth — Australia and South Africa — continue to sell about 22 per cent and 24 per cent, respectively, of their total exports to fellow members.
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Top Indian officials said India had long advocated turning the “club” into a trade bloc where members enjoyed exclusive tariff advantages but has been thwarted by the British who preferred an euro-centric trade policy. However, it intends to use the former British colonies’ club to strike trade and investment deals to its benefit over the next few years. “We do not envisage a Commonwealth trade pact in the near future but do visualise using the club to catapult FTAs (free trade agreements) and economic pacts. We are working on FTAs with Australia, Bangladesh and have similar deals with two other members — Sri Lanka and Singapore,” the officials said. A trade pact with Canada is also on the anvil.

2) Help from BD:

The change of guard in Bangladesh has resulted in sharp downfall in militancy related incidents in Tripura, said outgoing Director of Police (DGP) Pranay Sahay on October 13, reports Tripuratimes. Pranay Sahay, who handed over the charge to K. Saleem Ali on October 11 to pave the way for taking over the charge of Special Director General of Border Security Forces (BSF), told media that the insurgent hideouts in Bangladesh has got dwindled from 45 in 2005 to 18 in August, 2010. Of the total hideouts, 15 camps being operated by National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) while rest 5 hideouts belong to All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF), according to intelligence inputs. “There was a time when militant camps were set up just across the India-Bangladesh border but now they have shifted their basses around 12-15 km from the international border”, he added.

3) On Anthony Shimray: Linky

Sources said investigation into Shing’s alleged arms procurement deals might now involve the Thai and Bangladesh police forces. He is alleged to have several bank accounts in these two countries perhaps in the names of other people as well. The ministry of home affairs is likely to write soon to authorities in Bangkok and Dhaka to investigate into the matter.
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“He probably has an account in the HSBC bank in Bangladesh and a major Thai bank,” a source said. He flew from Bangkok with Royal Nepal Airlines flight number AR 402 reportedly after being deported following the lapse of his resident visa in Thailand.
...
With the arrest of Shing, the rebel outfit is in a quandary over how to handle the situation in the midst of peace talks because Shing is a key functionary and his arrest prevents the NSCN (I-M) from taking a high moral ground. Following the development, the Centre has managed to win a bargaining chip it may now use to alter the course of the peace talks.

4) Bihar Assembly elections is spelling boom for FM radio in Nepal.
Linky
5) Pre-census time: What is the real Jarawa number? Linky

The latest report by the Andaman Adim Janjati Vikash Samity (AAJVS), a government-affiliated autonomous agency headed by the Union territory’s lieutenant governor, shows the Jarawas now number 365 — 125 more since the 2001 census — kindling cautious hope for the threatened tribe. The indigenous people were estimated to be just 89 in the 1991 census. In 1981, they were said to have numbered 275. The huge fall in numbers between 1981 and 1991, said S.R. Rao, an anthropologist with the tribal welfare department of the Andaman and Nicobar administration, could be explained to an outbreak of epidemics in the late eighties. But the latest census, Rao added, shows the Jarawas, who first came in touch with the outside world in 1979, had recovered enough to increase their population.
...
Some experts, however, said the increase of 125 might not be accurate as, till the late nineties, anthropologists were either unable to locate all the habitats of the Jarawas who are spread across the south and middle Andamans, or census workers were too scared to survey remote areas. “It was only in 2002 that a team of anthropologists, of which I was a part, had made door-to-door visits to get an accurate picture. That time the figure was 310. I can vouch for its accuracy,” said S.S. Barik, a senior anthropologist with the Anthropological Survey of India in Port Blair.

Professor V.S. Sahay, head of the department of anthropology, Allahabad University, said all the previous figures were declared “estimated to be”. “I was among the first group of anthropologists who befriended the Jarawas in 1979. Aboard a ship we made first contact at a south Andaman island and distributed some food to some Jarawas. They quickly lifted them and ran back to their habitat without speaking a word,” he recalled.

6) NBA redux in Assam: The connection is spooky and KMSS' boss Akhil Gogoi has been awarded CNN-IBN's award (Linky) for his lobbying efforts. In any case, some action on this front has already begun. Linky

The KMSS also threatened to observe November and December as ‘Brihat Nadibandh Birodhi Andolonor Mah’ (protest months against mega dams) if Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi failed to clarify his stand on the issue by Monday. The Arunachal dams have evoked protests from other quarters also with prominent Assam intellectuals, including Gnyanpeeth awardee Indira Goswami and Sahitya Akademi honour recipient Prof Hiren Gohain, calling for their review.

7) Anti-corruption drive in Tripura?

A total of 90 Tripura government officials have been suspended since last year for corruption, a minister told reporters here Wednesday. "Around 90 government officials, including four block development officers (BDOs) and 13 middle ranking bureaucrats, were placed under suspension for financial misdeeds," said Tripura Rural Development Minister Jitendra Choudhury. The suspended officials included 70 panchayat secretaries posted in the rural areas across Tripura. "For achieving the desired goal in implementation of central and state government schemes, the government has engaged all principal secretaries and commissioners in monitoring works at grass root levels," the minister said. "Departmental vigilance and audits are also being further strengthen to deal with corruption," Choudhury added.

8) Intellectual dishonesty, thy name is academe: A few days back some american linguists had reported a new language "Koro." Here is the rebuttal to this "discovery." Linky

Barely a week after two US linguists claimed they uncovered a hidden language in Arunachal Pradesh, an academician based in the frontier state said his post-doctoral work in 2008 dealt extensively with the issue. But Gibji Nimachow would rather not stake any claim to have discovered Koro, which he says is a dialect and not a language as Americans K. David Harrison and Gregory DS Anderson announced. "To say one has uncovered a language known to many in our reasonably educated state is a bit too much," Nimachow told Hindustan Times. "That is half as ridiculous as turning a dialect into a language."

Anderson is director of Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages in Salem, US, and Harrison is a linguist at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. They said they uncovered Koro during a trip to Arunachal Pradesh in 2008. Their findings will be published in the journal Indian Linguistics. Nimachow, assistant professor of geography at Rajiv Gandhi University near state capital Itanagar, belongs to the Aka tribe, which is divided into two sub-groups — Hrusso and Koro. Besides, he had researched various aspects of his tribe for his thesis. Arunachal Pradesh Director (Research) Tage Tada agreed. "I don’t think Koro, or for that matter any dialect or language of Arunachal Pradesh, needs to be discovered," he said.

9) How Stuxnet Is Rewriting the Cyberterrorism Playbook? Linky
10) Elsewhere, some old news:

Mizoram govt to hold talks with underground "Hmar" outfit

PTI, Aizawl, 11 October : Mizoram government would soon hold talks with the underground Hmar People's Convention-Democrats (HPC-D), Home Secretary Lalmalsawma said here today. Lalmalsawma said the HPC-D had approached the state government, which agreed to engage the outfit for negotiations. The HPC-D is a Hmar outfit, operating mainly in neighbouring Manipur and demanding a separate Hmar Autonomous District Council comprising Hmar-inhabited areas in the north eastern part of Mizoram.

Clarifying a post on brf

I had posted on brf the following:

You put that left and right with what goes on in what could well be Bangassam, you get the stark contrast of the divide. I could stretch this far and add a gloomy subtext just to seek a counter-point: Maulana Bhasani^1 could be rotfling in his grave given that our internal religious consciousness looks pretty much like how Churchill's position was in 1941 vis-a-vis the liquidation of the British empire.

Sum had asked me to explain what the last line meant. I will be going seriously OT in brf, so I am taking the liberty to ramble away here.

Disclaimer: This is necessarily going to be long-winded and seemingly unconnected, so please hold on. Borrowed liberally from "The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire" by Peter Clarke.

While WWII is generally known as a World War, it was primarily an imperialist war between the satisfied powers (England and France) with empires long established over much of Asia and Africa and the unsatisfied hunger of the Axis powers (the expansion of Germany seeking Lebensraum in Eeastern Europe and the good-old opportunism of Italy seeking colonial glory in North Africa). While the Soviet propagandists initially labelled it an "imperialist war," it overnight transformed into "the Great Patriotic War" when Hitler attacked Russia in June 1941. Same for the Americans, prior to the Pearl Harbor attack they were openly reproaching the Brits over their Empire. After the attack, the criticism was muted in public, but suspicions were wide.

Just to give a flavor of the Empire, the Official Programme of the Victory Day Celebrations in June 1946 looks like this: the order of march is led by the representatives of Britain's Allies, from the fighting French to the gallant Greeks and the doomed Poles to the improbable Mexicans with the massed bands of the US and the USSR at the head. The Empire dominates the Parade. In pride of place comes the Dominions, with bands from Canada, Australia and New Zealand followed by South Africa, Southern Rhodesia and Newfoundland. India comes next: not only the Royal Indian Navy, the Indian Armoured Corps, the Royal Indian Artillery, the Royal Indian Engineers, and the Indian Signal Corps but also the band of the Royal Garhwal Rifles leading the Indian infantry, the Gurkha Rifles, the Indian State Forces and the Royal Indian Air Force. Then comes Burma, ten West African corps from Nigeria, Gold Coast, Sierra Leone and Gambia. No fewer than 26 from East and Central Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia, Zanzibar and British Somaliland). Then comes Aden, Bermuda, Ceylon, Cyprus, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Malaya, the West Indies (Bahamas, Barbados, British Guiana, British Honduras, Jamaica, the Leeward Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, the Windward Islands), Fiji, Tonga, British Solomon Islands, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, Mauritius, North Borneo, Brunei, Labuan, Serawak, Palestine, St. Helena, Seychelles, Basutoland, Bechuanaland, Swaziland and finally, Malta (uh!!).

The dramatic point being: one of the major consequences of the War was the liquidation and unraveling of the British Empire. There have been many explanations for why this happened. Historians have blamed the USSR for starting the Cold War, the USA for taking unfair advantage of its loyal ally, the Labor Government back at home, etc. etc. and more. However, there is a good reason to believe that Churchill, despite his inspirational skills was the one under whose watch the Grand Liquidation Process made the most progress. Churchill^2 had inspired a resolution in war and defiance in defeat, yet his expectations of magnanimity in victory and goodwill in peace were grandly taken away right before his very eyes.

If Churchill was the architect of British Victory in WWII by his inspirational leading of the masses, he was also the author of Britain's post-war distress. Chruchill's Thousand Year Reich^3 only outlasted that of Hitler's. In short, what we now pithily can call a Pyrrhic victory. In some sense, the internal situation in India resembles Churchill's dilemma during WWII times. We are screwed if we do, and screwed if we dont. The point being Tamil Nadu did what others should have done to Cap Roll-back and Eliminate (CRE) the fissiparous tendencies due to populist political Islamism. In some sense, it was serendipity; in some sense, it was deflection of one fissiparous tendency with another milder one. The Partition Belt responded to populist Islamism in varied ways: rise of the meek defeatism that is the Communist front in the East, tit-for-tat eye-for-eye gore in the West, and sab chalta hai attitude in between. The South essentially put a "dont-care" state on political Islamism because it could afford that, being shielded by the Partition Belt.

But then taking great pride in Tamil Nadu's "achievement" will be nothing but height of folly and misleading in making a decent prognostication of the future. The genie of linguistic chauvinism has no limits if it is "utilized" appropriately -- we saw that in the Mukti Bahini exhibit and we keep seeing it time and again when some loser reignites the "national" language debate. Utter the phrase "Classical Language status" and you will know what I mean. In some sense, Tamil Nadu (and much of India) being a neo-tribalist state in all but name, the vacuum created by absence of one fissiparous tendency can only mean more trouble of yet another unpredictable kind. The Dravidian bogeyman is long past its shelf-life just like its stalwarts are, as much as Communism may be^4 in much of India in a few decades. This vacuum has to be filled by nationalist forces, and I see no hope yet on that front. I can certainly say that both BJP and INC are putting the cart before the horse in understanding what drives Tamil Nadu and Tamils, and if the two leading national parties are a no-show in a big enough state, it is cause enough for gloom. There has been some open talk about healing West Bengal in the post-Communist phase, but what about healing Tamil Nadu in the post-Dravidian phase? Tamil Nadu is not only the land of many a grand temple, but also was foremost in exporting Shaivism to much of South East Asia and was a major cog in the wheel in killing philosophical^5 Buddhism and Jainism from India. Thank goodness for that, I cant begin to ask a polemical "what if" for what would have happened had the Buddhists won over in the battles with Sankaracharya, Ramanujacharya, Madhavacharya, etc.

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Notes:
1. Maulana Bhasani was one of the foremost proponents of Bangassam -- an imaginary state where Bengal (both East and West) and Assam would be united even as they separated from India. Convenient in this bogeyman is the poorly hidden motif that the folks in charge would be political Islamists.
2. After bowing out in elections, Churchill wrote six volumes of The Second World War, the motto of which stood as "In War: Resolution, In Defeat: Defiance, In Victory: Magnanimity, In Peace: Goodwill."
3. Churchill gave a speech in the House of Commons right during the start of what is now called "Battle of Britain." In it, he called it Britain's finest hour and urged people to fight hard and in british-like fashion to ensure that the Empire lasted a thousand years.
4. There is enough space in India for leftist socialism of various moderate tripes to co-exist with national assertion. But it is hard to visualize and expect (at least for me) a philosophically motivated pan-internationalist Communist doctrine to wield a significant hold in India even as the per-capita income rises above a certain threshold.
5. It is hard to cover up my hatred for philosophical Buddhism especially as the gap between the Theory (as the Buddha preached) and the Practice of Buddhism grows wider and wider in most of the so-called Buddhist countries of today. This calls for a separate post, but I will refrain from that now. My interpretation of the Buddhist dictum is not the absence of self, but realization of self. In this, I am with Stephen Batchelor Linky.
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Just for the record, the prequel to this post was as follows:

Statement: The consequences of an anti-Indian Caliphate deep South with neighbours like old Hyderabad, S.Karnataka (Bangalore, the costal regions like Bhatkal and Ramanagaram (which seems to have disproportionate lot of IM population)) and an assertive IM population waiting to explode in TN (just held back by Dravidian movement till now) are really frightening.

Response: I dont know about other places, but in Tamil Nadu, the assertion of the Muslims can only go so far. For that one has to understand the context of "ass"ertion in Tamil Nadu.

Just look at Sri Lanka as an example study. As the Muslims tried to assert, the backlash was violent and even though the Muslims speak the same language, the divide goes very deep even to this day. The only reason that the Muslims have a political voice today is because of demographic play -- the Buddhists used and continue to use the Muslims as a pawn in the chess game between Hindus and Christians (!) on one side and Buddhists on the other side. You take away the politically devious and cunning set (which the Sinhala Buddhist chauvinists have been from the pre-1948 days) from this midst, this game can only end in one direction: immense blood-letting on both sides. Since demographics is no issue in Tamil Nadu, the Muslims will end up losing far more than the Hindus. To top that, blood-letting is par for the course in the rural hinterland of TN. The game changer is obviously the slow conversion of the Tamil population to Christianity, especially in the lower Cauvery delta districts of the Southeast -- we have at least 3/40 (including Pondicherry) constituencies where BJP even harbors hope; obviously that cannot happen without the Least Common Multiple (LCM) being Hindu assertion rather than caste assertion which is par for the course in TN so far. But before the critical mass builds up on that side, the contour of civilizational crisis might have just shifted up North and East IMHO -- an allusion to demographic changes in Assam, Bengal, Bihar and UP.

You know, there is quite a segment that takes pride in saying that The Partition Riots had no impact in the South, but for may be the erstwhile Hyderabad Province. There is a lesson there for folks to understand. When many of these language dhaagas open up and loadsa folks rile about why Tamil Nadu is being an ass in terms of the "national" language debate, I cant but rotfl at the ignoramuses. One has to give credit to the old custodians -- however divisive and oiseaulish they were from the point of nation-building as seen today -- who could channel the genie into a language consciousness rather than a religious consciousness. That unity is perhaps more clearer in the case of Kerala, but the godless Communists hijacked the language consciousness in the post-1956 phase and bulldozed their own brand of utter rubbish. Less clear is the case of AP.

Point being: there has been quite a segment in India where despite the best efforts of those trapped in particular circumstances, actions taken for good motives have only resulted in bad consequences. Tamil Nadu is a good example of where actions taken for bad motives have resulted in some good consequences as seen in hindsight today. You put that left and right with what goes on in what could well be Bangassam, you get the stark contrast of the divide. I could stretch this far and add a gloomy subtext just to seek a counter-point: Maulana Bhasani could be rotfling in his grave given that our internal religious consciousness looks pretty much like how Churchill's position was in 1941 vis-a-vis the liquidation of the British Empire.

Updates and Misc. posts

1) Dialects and language-lets wither away Linky

Narayan Singh Negi, leader of the Rong Ba tribe, in the village of Bagori in Uttarakhand, doesn’t know how to stop their native language Jad from passing into oblivion. The youngsters of the tribe are reluctant to learn or speak Jad and the village elders who use the language still are slowly dying out.

The Rong Ba are not the only people witnessing the slow death of their language. Jad, spoken by about 2,000 people, is among 196 minority languages in India that are either extinct or endangered, according to the recently released Unesco Atlas of Languages in Danger. It’s a disturbing trend, say linguists, as the passing of a language also means the death of a culture since language contains the cultural records of a community.

2) Linky

A recent report of the National Crime Records Bureau revealed that 51 per cent of all train robberies took place in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The jurisdiction of the Patna Railway Police alone accounted for 23 per cent of all crimes in trains committed throughout the country. The bureau’s report also disclosed that in the past eight years, Bihar recorded a total of 2,076 crimes on trains, which is about 11 per cent of the crimes recorded in the country.

Records with the and the railway police show that most crimes in trains passing through Bihar occurred on Patna-Gaya, Mughalsarai-Jhajha, Danapur-Mughalsarai, Patna-Kiul, Gaya-Mughalsarai, Hajipur-Gorakhpur, and Barauni-Samastipur routes. Patna-Pune Express, Punjab Mail and Mahanand Express have recorded the maximum number of train robberies in the past two years.

3) Coal acquisition in Oz Linky

Adani Enterprises is close to buying coal mining rights in Australia from Linc Energy for over $900 million. The deal with the Australian company is likely to take place over the next few days.

4) SATP

Meanwhile, Maoist-backed People''s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA) on July 31 declared the name of the new commander in chief, reports the Times of India. On July 31, PCPA spokesperson Asit Mahato told that Tota Hembram will replace Sidhu Soren as new commander in chief. Hembram hails from the Baita area. The outfit has named Monoj Mahato as the new secretary. Sidhu Soren was the founder secretary of PCPA.

4) Meghalaya - SATP

Meanwhile, militancy has adversely affected the Union Government's flagship programme, National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), in Garo Hills. There are instances of huge number of people, working under NREGS projects in East and South Garo Hills Districts, who cut short their work to go home early due to fear of being intimidated by Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA) militants. "The villagers do not feel safe to remain out of their houses till late due to the rise in criminal activities of the GNLA," a senior Government official said on August 1. The official on condition of anonymity admitted that implementation of the Centrally-sponsored programme has suffered badly in both the districts of Garo Hills due to this emerging problem. The GNLA has also continued to serve demand notes and send SMS to Block Development Officers (BDOs) and other Government officials asking for millions of rupees.

Had also read somewhere that Champion Sangma led GNLA has looted a state small arms repository and gotten away with it. A massive boost to this terrorist outfit.
5) Anti-talks faction of the NDFB and ULFA are on a resurgent note with many casualties on the police/para outfits.
6)

The National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM) criticised the unity between the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplang (NSCN-K) and Naga National Council (NNC) at Monyakshu in Mon District on July 15 terming it as a betrayal of the efforts of the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR), according to Shillong Times.

7) Badruddin Ajmal and Rockybull Hassan have united under the Jamiat flag to launch a united campaign against the NRC update. As Tarun Gogoi recuperates, his sub-Bhumidhar Barman is leading a new committee to look into NRC update matters. All in all makes for delaying tactics which will get eroded as the elections near. Linky

Miscellaneous posts

1) Linky

It has emerged that professionals from India took a third of the available US work visas under the H-1B category last year. Among foreigners living in the US on a temporary basis, India made up the largest group, second only to Mexicans. Last year there were 364,757 non-immigrant Indians residing in the US and 403,793 Mexicans. Among H-1B holders, the largest group by far were from India, with 123,002 people from the sub-continent taking H-1B US work visas last year. Overall, the leading source countries for non-immigrant residents of the US in 2009 were India, taking 36 per cent of the US visas; Canada with 6.5 per cent; the UK with 4.3 per cent and Mexico, taking 4.2 per cent.

In terms of the US student visas issued, students from five countries accounted for more than half the total number. These countries were China, taking 14 per cent; South Korea, with 13 per cent; India, taking 9 per cent and Mexico and Japan, who took 8.2 per cent and 5.6 per cent respectively. California and New York headed up the list of preferred destinations for holders of temporary US visas.

2) D. Udhayakumar on choosing Devanagari for the Rupee symbol (xlated from Ananda Vikatan with due liberties on Anglais-Tam xlation) Linky -- Paid website

It was one of the conditions of the competition that the proposed symbol should reflect India's culture and ethos. I believed that only a Devanagari character could reflect the entire cultural mileau of India. Our Puranas and Vedas are all written in a script that is close to Devanagari. If you say the word "India" outside India, the first thing that hits you would be Hindi and Bollywood. Since I thought from this global perspective of India, I could not avoid the Devanagari script. Why do you see it as a contest between Hindi and other languages? See it from the viewpoint that only a Tamil showed the world the importance of Hindi.

There is a message in this for Tamils. Hindi is a language that we should not avoid. I could come up with the symbol and understand the intricacies behind its construction only because I know Hindi. All this said, I am contributing to Tamil welfare too. My Ph.D. research is centered around the Tamil language. The scripts that we have been using for writing Tamil have been changing ever since man has been around. My research is focussed on understanding the reasons behind such changes and identifying those characters that can be easily represented in a computer. We call this field typography.

The changing face of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam

AS: Sorry folks for the long break. Too many hard deadlines in the business.

Sorry to bother folks with TN matters, but it is amusing to note some statements and events.
1) Linky

“Though we adhere to the principles of rationalism and self-respect, we are not against temples and the beliefs of all,” said Agriculture Minister Veerapandi S. Arumugam.
...
Though the principles of DMK had been different, once in power, the party would never harm one's religious sentiments. “The DMK government in fact will never resort to the acts of hurting any one's feelings. But the acts of a few of those who claim to be Godmen are doing irreparable damages to their religion and faith,” he said. The Chief Minister had already asked the temple administrations not to favour any individuals when they come to worship since temples were common for all.

This coming from a loyal partyman whose leader asked for the credentials of some random aanjaaneyar!
2) Coming from 200 metres of one of these temples, I cant but not notice it: Linky

The Kapaleeswarar temple in Mylapore was on Monday awarded ISO 9001:2008 certification. Deputy chief minister M K Stalin handed over the certificate to Hindu religious and charitable endowments minister K R Periyakaruppan at the secretariat. The other two city temples — the Parthasarathy temple in Triplicane and the Dhandayudhapani temple in Vadapalani — have also got ISO certification, according to official sources. Early this year, the three temples had applied for ISO certification following an announcement by Periyakaruppan in the Assembly.
...
The three city temples had included their fixed assets, accounts and strict adherence to rituals for scrutiny by the ISO. According to HR&CE officials, Meenakshi Amman temple in Madurai and Srirangam Ranganatha temple will also apply for the ISO tag shortly. “We were waiting for the city temples to get certification and now we will ask these temples to apply,” they said.

Comment: The imminent calling of Paramapadham on our "Dear leader" will release a pent-up energy characrerized only by the arrival of yellow shawls, angapradakshnams, thee midhis, alagu kuthhal, etc. Dont be surprised if you see Dear leader's pic in the form of one of Shri Shiva-Vishnu's incarnation. My only advise is that: Dont stand in the way when Dear leader's coffin passes through to the burial yard in the Madras beach for your life and security is NOT in your hands. For even higher, bigger and thicker mortals such as Mata Biryanandha-mayi were beaten black and blue when Tam-land witnessed the previous rendition of saavu dance in 1987.

I have a further take on the "Janusian" case of Tamil nationalism, where anti-Hinduism was just the visible face. The invisible face used the anti-Hindu feelings to corral fissiparous tendencies in other religions and within Hinduism -- a casteist whine profile. But making this case to a non-Tam (especially, a Hindi-lover), who can only see the Tamil linguistic jingoism/fanaticism would take a while. A long-winded history lesson on the rise, fall, re-rise and eventual ebbing away of linguistic identities in South India would be necessary. But that would also take us into identifying the commonalities and differences in linguistic whine profiles in the Northeast India and Sri Lanka. Perhaps, when I have the time for this...