Category Archives: International

How to play the Indo-Pak endgame…

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Players: India, Pakistan

Non-playing captain: America

Step 1: Pakistan militants attack civilian target in India.

Step 2: India points a finger at Pakistan.

Step 3: Pakistan absolutely denies the attack.

Step 4: America threatens Pakistan.

Step 5: Pakistan starts to make the right noises.

Step 6: India smiles.

Step 7: Pakistan backtracks. India frowns.

Step 8: America armtwists Pakistan.

Step 9: Pakistan accepts blame.

Step 10: India celebrates. America pats its own back.

Step 11: America gives millions and millions and millions of dollars of aid to Pakistan as a reward.

Step 12: PLEASE GO BACK to Step No. 1… Thank You!

Also known as “The Circle of Life” in the subcontinent.

© Sunil Rajguru

The Thriller is now History (and probably Heavenwalking)

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All hail to the King of Pop and listen to HisStory
Most of it’s legendary and some simply gory
Of his parents Michael was the magical child Number 7
and he became a singing pro at the young age of 11
As part of the soon to go kaput Jackson 5
He was destined to go solo and rock and jive
He broke into the scene in the late 1970s with Off the Wall
How many 21-year-olds can stand so tall?
Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough
He never did stop and we never did get enough
Then Thriller sold nearly 50 million units and all the rest Beat It
Billie Jean is still on my mind and the all-time great list
8 Grammies in his hand on a single night
Never did any modern music star shine so bright
We are the World sent aid right into the heart of Africa
Even as his music stock was rising and rising in America
The going was still good with the rise of Bad
(Today he’s not around and the feeling’s simply Sad)
The way he made us feel: We just couldn’t stop loving him
The Man in the Mirror: You gotta just stand up and applaud him
His form continued to be Dangerous right into the 1990s
His music surrounded the world like a cool breeze
Remember the Time we were all humming to Black or White
You could dance to his tunes all day and night
Then came HIStory and Invincible and he was on the decline
Try telling that to his fans and he still sold millions and drew many a long line

MJ claimed that his father whipped him, beat him and called him names,
Did that affect all his future mind games?
He fought abuse allegations on many a day
He was made fun of and ridiculed in every way
He started off as a black and ended a white
That was attributed to a disease called vitiligo and made his skin go bright
In his twenties, he broke his nose while dancing like a demon
Lifelong breathing problems he had and multiple surgeries he had to rely on
The press called him Wacko Jacko and hounded him with delight
Sample some of the stories that gave his fans a fright
“He was about to dump his baby to his doom”
“His pet chimpanzee Bubbles shares his toilet and cleans his bedroom”
“He’s sleeping in an oxygen chamber to remain forever young”
“He’s bought the bones of The Elephant Man, how dumb!”
Said MJ himself throwing his hands up in the air
OK, call me a Martian, say I do voodoo, I don’t care…

At the end of it he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice
And his dances defied the laws of gravity and puzzled even the wise
Who can forget the legendary Moonwalk and the snazzy Robot
He left all the greatest dancers way behind in one single shot
Did you know that MTV initially didn’t want to air his videos
Today you can’t imagine a music channel without an MJ dose
We’ll never forget his live shows, pelvic thrusts and clenched fists
His quantum jumps and mesmerizing twists
After Elvis and the Beatles it’s MJ all the way
His music and beats and lyrics will forever stay
Elizabeth Taylor was right, he is the King of Pop
From the beginning to the end his music remains on top
Where is he now, I keep wondering and wondering
Maybe he’s jiving with the angels and now Heavenwalking

© Sunil Rajguru

Newton’s Third Law and the Indo-Pak conundrum

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For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

That’s Newton’s Third Law.
You can also apply it to India and Pakistan via the following theorem:

Whenever something good happens in the Indo-Pak theatre, something equally bad happens to counter it.

Here’s the historical proof:

Independence leads to a permanent Kashmir problem
Action: All the people of India (irrespective of religion, caste and creed) fight for and get Independence from the Britishers. 1947 was supposed to be a new beginning and a time of hope.
Reaction: Independence actually leads to two new nations that are in conflict with each other from Day 1. Communal riots and killings rule as more than 12 million are displaced from their homes. Millions carry the hatred in their hearts till death.

Rann of Kutch peace leads to 1965 war
Action: In 1965, Indian and Pak forces collide in the Rann of Kutch. British Prime Minister Harold Wilson negotiates a peace and the whole world is happy that there is no war.
Reaction: Pakistan, which was already planning something after India’s loss to China in 1962, is further emboldened by this peace, perceiving it as a sign of India’s weakness. It launches Operation Gibraltor (infiltration into Kashmir), which leads to an all out war and more than 5000 soldiers are killed on both sides of the border.

Liberation of Bangladesh leads to new post-Partition hatred mindset
Action: Indira Gandhi made one of the most decisive moves of her career with a military operation that led to the Liberation of Bangladesh. This was hailed as a permanent solution by some. Pakistan formally accepted the LoC and signed a peace treaty.
Reaction: Infiltration of Bangladeshis continues to this day. Bangladesh isn’t exactly a friendly country and hosts military training camps. The LoC is still where it was and is crossed with impunity by infiltrators. Most importantly, while a generation of people who were adults during 1947 no longer exists, it has been replaced by a generation of people who swore that they would avenge the Partition of Pakistan. One such individual was Company Commander Pervez Musharraf.

Stable nuclear India leads to unstable nuclear Pakistan
Action: In 1974 with the Pokhran nuclear blast and the Liberation of Bangladesh firmly behind us, many thought that India was virtually invincible. A new nuclear power surrounded by an enemy in two pieces.
Reaction: Zulfikar Ali Bhutto said, “We will eat grass but will make Atom Bomb”. And 35 years after Pokhran, Pak Nukes are still giving the whole world torrid nightmares.

Capture of Siachen leads to seeds of Kargil
Action: When Pakistan was planning to capture Siachen in 1984, Rajiv Gandhi pre-empted the move and the Indian Army firmly established base there.
Reaction: While people have talked of the high cost of maintaining Siachen in terms of expenditure and army lives, a little known fact is that the Pakistani Army worked out the Kargil Infiltration plan soon after that. The plan was given to Dictator Zia in the eighties itself and he struck it down. Benazir Bhutto also brushed it aside. General “Revenge” Musharraf took this file out of the backburner and made it the pinnacle of his military career.

Kashmir militancy follows democracy in Pakistan
Action: In 1988 when I was in school, the neighbourhood suddenly erupted in firecrackers even though Diwali was some time away. I learnt that Zia had died. That paved way for democracy in Pakistan.
Reaction: It was precisely during the democratic regime of Benazir that militancy made its debut in Kashmir. Zia may have been a dictator, but he understood the folly of an all out Indo-Pak war. He also had control over the extremist elements of Pakistan. Benazir in contrast had no control (neither today does Zardari have for that matter). As a result, thousands of lives have been lost in Kashmir and continue to do so till this very day.

Kargil victory leads to rest of India attacks
Action: When India won the Kargil conflict, there was great celebration and just like at the end every war or conflict, it was expected that the peace would be lasting.
Reaction: Face it. As an Indian, you feel less and less safe today. Post-Kargil is when the militants changed their tactics and started attacking cities. First it was just Kashmir. Now no place in India is safe.

When I was small, I heard that for every two steps India takes forward, it takes one backward. Well even that’s pretty good for you still end up with a step forward. When it comes to India-Pakistan it’s simply one step forward and one step backward. After more than 60 years, we are exactly where we started. We have the Valley. They have a bit of Kashmir. We’re still enemies with no solution in sight.

In the last 60 years, the Communist Russian Empire collapsed. The Berlin Wall came down. Fidel Castro quit after nearly four decades in power. America is warming up to India. China switched from Communism to Capitalism. India switched from Socialism to Capitalism. But the Kashmir situation and Indo-Pak relations seem to be getting worse. Despite that, the moment there’s an inch of progress, we start patting each other on the back and start celebrating, Breaking News… not knowing that the Indo-Pak matrix will be reloaded again and again and again…

Quick Facts
1. Kashmir was called Heaven on Earth by Mughal emperor Jehangir.
2. In 2005, there was a petition calling for the substitution of Sindh with Kashmir in the national anthem. The Supreme Court struck this down.
3. Pakistan founder Jinnah was under the impression that India would merely split into Hindustan and Pakistan. He was very disturbed when we retained the name India. He realized correctly that while Pakistan would suddenly become a new nation, India would continue to be thousands of years old.
4. Jinnah was suffering from tuberculosis throughout the forties and he died just a year after Pakistan was created. Some British officials are later said to have commented that had they known, then maybe they would have tried putting off the Partition!

Post Script
Post-26/11 a lot of people were happy at our “coercive diplomacy”. Then people started celebrating the Talibanisation of our neighbour and how Pakistan was being destroyed by the very thing it created.
Stop being happy. The more you laugh now, the more something will make you cry at some later point in life.
That’s an Indo-Pak truth atleast.

© Sunil Rajguru

The Curious Case of the Denial of Depression

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Ladies and gentleman, we just have a “credit crunch” or call it “credit crisis” if you like. Don’t worry, it’ll blow over. That was 2007. And there was still some optimism in the world. After that came denial and gradual acceptance:

It’s not a slowdown… wait! It is a slowdown!
It’s not a recession… wait! It is a recession!
It’s not a depression… wait…

Well, wait long enough and soon you’ll be told it’s a depression. Then it’ll be called the Great Depression II (GD2) a la World War II.

The US Government is $10 trillion in debt. The $6 billion Lehmann Brothers shut down. The 100-year-old Ford Motor Company is fighting bankruptcy. The Sensex has crashed from 21,000 to below 10,000 wiping out thousands of crores of virtual money in one shot. (Thank God we recovered half of it in the euphoria of a new stable government. What happens when that euphoria wears off?) And you still think the recession will blow over in 2009. Well, keep thinking.
Denial is actually a great place to live in.

But I digress from why I am writing this. I wanted to make a few other points about the depression. And why it’s “Great”.

1. You asked for it!

Here’s what I (and probably you) keep hearing all the time:

*These ITwallahs are getting too much money, IT is really over hyped…

*These real estate wallahs charge five times the rate of a flat, they are all crooks…

*There are too many cars on the roads, there should be a cap on the auto industry…

*The stock market is more than double of its actual value, it’s all inflated…(@21K levels)

*Too many people are getting rich too fast, we’re getting to be an opulent and lazy country…

*We ape the Americans too much, dependence on America should go…

*These youngsters have too much money to spend on mobiles and pubs…

And so on and so forth…

Well guess what? God has finally answered your prayers! The answer is called GD2 (2007- ). Check all the above laments. They no longer hold true, for a couple of years at least.
Nice na?

2. India gets to be a superpower

OK, OK, maybe I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. But I think that at the end of GD2 India will go on the road to superpowerdom. At the end of GD1, America built the foundations for being a superpower and the post-GD2 world could just be India’s.

For one, according to some experts, depression in America was caused by the vast economic boom in the 1920s, overproduction, plunging farm incomes and ill-regulated markets. Doesn’t all this sound familiar and something that’s happening in India: post 1991 economic boom, overproduction, plunging farm incomes (for the small farmers atleast) and ill-regulated markets. While America corrected itself, here’s India’s chance to do so. With Manmohan’s stable dream team in the saddle, we could get it right eventually. Manmohan looks destined for even bigger things. Just look at his path: Oxford-Cambridge-IMF-World Bank-Finance Ministry-RBI Governor-Dy Chairman of Planning Commission-Finance Minister-Uncertain Prime Minister-Certain Prime Minister…

It was during GD1 that road making got a big boost in America. In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave his team a hand-drawn map of the US marked with eight superhighway corridors. Sounds familiar? That’s something like what former Prime Minister Vajpayee promised when he was in power. The Golden Quadrilateral. Something a lot of people scoffed at, but the results are there for all to see. The National Highways Development Project is pretty ambitious in proposing 45,000 km of roads. Though we saw a blip for a few years, there’s every chance of it picking up speed in this term, with Kamal Nath at the helm.

After 9/11 America lost it’s aura of invincibility and faced great economic vulnerability. Its economy is shrinking and gradually the world’s dependence on American economy will go down slowly and steadily. Even the oil industry may de-link itself from the dollar in the long run.

That leaves countries like BRIC—Brazil, China, Russia and India. Russia is yet to get its act together. China is way ahead of India, but only as long as Communism lasts. When Communism finally collapses in China, all the fudged figures will come tumbling down and all the near-slave labour economy will disintegrate. While China dazzled everyone with the Beijing Olympics, in the aftermath, all the stadiums are not being put to good use and are lying idle with many whispers that it has been a colossal waste. This is in contrast to other cities where Olympic infrastructure is put to good use. That leaves India and Brazil in the running for the title of Emerging Economic Power. So we do have a good chance.

Quick Facts

Many people think that the Great Depression of 1929 didn’t affect India. But it did hammer the economy and was also a possible catalyst for India’s Independence:

1. There was a steep fall in imports and exports hitting India’s international trade severely. Inflation levels soared and the British refused to devalue Indian currency, making matters worse.

2. People started selling their gold in large numbers to meet expenses. Lord Willingdon, the then Viceroy of India is quoted to have said: For the first time in history, owing to the economic situation, Indians are disgorging gold. We have sent to London in the past two or three months 25 million sterling and I hope that the process will continue.

3. Did the Great Depression spur on Indian Independence? Anti-British sentiment became higher. Prices and other factors also led to the Mahatma Gandhi’s Salt Satyagraha.

While the US stock market crashed on October 29, 1929, Nehru first officially talked of Poorna Swaraj at the December 31, 1929, Indian National Congress session. Coincidence? If it is, then let’s hope another one happens after GD2 and India gets another fillip.

Post Script

Strictly speaking, it’s not a depression in India and not even a recession since the economy is still growing. Only certain sectors like real estate and the auto industry are in recession. But it’s an interconnected world and the depression in the West is bound to catch up with India even more in 2009-10. So as of now it could be called the Great Slowdown (GS), but GD2 will eventually get to us, for a little time at least.

And after the darkest night, comes the dawn…

© Sunil Rajguru

Breaking News: The state of Pakistan no longer exists

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In a stunning development, it has just been announced that the state of Pakistan will no longer exist. In a unique and unheard of 21st century reengineering, the state will now be called Tatastan and will be ruled by the erstwhile Pakistan Army, the Taliban and the Federal Government of the US of A.

After a secret 10-day brainstorming session, it was decided to name it after the actual rulers of the region.
So T (Taliban, Pakistan Chapter) A (Army of erstwhile Pakistan) T (Taliban, Afghanistan chapter) A (America) –stan has come about.

The name is also symbolic, as one never knows when one will have to bid Tata to Tatastan. It may also trigger a chain of events involving nuclear weapons, which may make us all bid Tata to the world as we know it. So all in all, it is a very apt name, agree experts.

In a late night press conference Mr Ratan Tata was at great pains to explain that they had absolutely no hand in the naming of the new state, they were not the sponsors of Tatastan and they had enough problems of their own, so would the people and media please leave them alone. (Mr Tata is still reeling from all the “Mamata says Tata” type headlines post Nandigram, disclosed a senior Tata employee on condition of anonymity)

(It was also realized that the K of Pakistan stands for Kashmir, something that Pakistan has failed to get in its 60 years of existence and will never get, the shoddy way it is going about its business in all aspects. Renaming it Paistan would make no sense (though some citizens in the Punjab region were for Pajistan) Other suggested names were Talibania, the United States of Pakistan and simply Armyland).

It was also decided to abolish the posts of President and Prime Minister, as most of the people who occupied them were either irrelevant or killed in the long run.
The General of the Army will now be the undisputed CEO of Tatastan.
The distribution of other portfolios will be as follows:
America: Ministries of External Affairs, Nuclear Energy and Culture (Urban)
Taliban: Ministries of Home, Education, Law & Order, Agriculture and Culture (Rural)
Musharraf: Minister of Information & Broadcasting
Zardari: Minister of Finance, Commerce & Trade (In another development, the CEO of Tatastan claimed that he had cut Mr Ten Per Cent down to size. He will henceforth be known as Mr Five Per Cent. The savings will go to the Tatastan Army Welfare Fund)
There are also rumours that Tatastan is being made the 51st state of America, but these are all unsubstantiated at the present.

Economy
With all other problems being solved, the attention is now on the economy and the following measures will be made to boost it:

1. Most nuclear weapons (save a few to serve as a deterrent) will be auctioned with a starting price of $1 billion per bomb. America would have opposed this move, but they are unaware of it, just as they have been officially unaware of the whole nuclear weapons programme in Pakistan for decades. Disgraced scientist AQ Khan gets a new lease of life and will be the Chairman of NuclearMart, as the initiative tentatively has been called.
(Unofficially, Lehmann Brothers may be revived and be the front to buy all these nukes, which will go well with its other holdings of value: The stockpile of 450000 lb of uranium “yellowcake”. They may also be renamed as Nuclear Brothers)

2. The Poppy will now be the national flower of Tatastan. Opium trade would serve as a source of annual income after the nuclear money runs out. This new agricultural revolution will give employment to huge numbers of farmers who will also have some dope to fall back upon in case things really get bad. The Taliban claim great expertise in this field and are happy that PoppyMart is turning multinational.

3. Tatastan will set up elite IITs (International Institutes of Terrorism). People all over the world will be able to hire elite pass outs of the IITs, who can be used in wars, domestic strife, hitmen etc. (Multinationals banks in India may also need their services as the criminals who collected debts have been outlawed)
The main aim of IITs is to make organizations like the mafia and underworld extinct. All these will be available under the services of TerrorMart.
IITs and the Opium Ministry can also get together and give the Columbian Drug Lords a run for their money. As expected, an agency called DrugMart is being proposed.

Financial experts conjecture that NuclearMart, PoppyMart, DrugMart and TerrorMart (all registered Trademarks of the Government of Tatastan) together have the potential to generate more than $100 billion a year, giving a chance for Tatastan to leapfrog emerging economies like India. (However these are the same experts who said that the World Economy would double from 2006 to 2015)

India has dismissed the whole exercise calling it a cosmetic change and a meaningless naming ceremony. Better alternatives would have been Atankvadia, Talibinstan or simply Amrika ka Puppet.

Further details are awaited.

OK, Tata Bye Bye. Let’s all make this world a safer place.

© Sunil Rajguru

A sample ballot paper from Pakistan…

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Pakistan is going to the polls shortly. Citizens face the following choices:

Please choose out of the following which suits you the most:

1. Corrupt civilian democratic rule continues indefinitely

2. Ruling General takes charge and messes things further

3. Time for a total change, choose Taliban and get into a mess from where there’s no return

4. All of the above

P.S. And people of India, you think you’re facing a tough choice in this general election…

© Sunil Rajguru