THE DIARY OF Z

Here is my suggested wish list for celebrities stepping into 2010…

Madonna: Stop giving young boyfriend Jesus a $10,000 monthly allowance and adopt a dozen more babies instead.

Rakhi Sawant: Find a maid (male) in Mumbai on reality TV.

Kareena Kapoor: Ditch ‘size zero’, so Saif has more surface area of his beloved to explore.

Sachin Tendulkar: Organise more auction workshops for charity than play the actual game. Keeps him ‘fit’ that way.

Shashi Tharoor: Stop being a ‘Twitter minister’ and start being out and about.

Nicole Richie: Three resolutions - eat something, eat something, eat something.

Mukesh and Anil Ambani: Smoke the peace pipe even if it contains the harmful petrol fumes.

Jude Law: Not to get back together with Sienna Miller for the fifth time and instead find a woman to date with less of a penchant for shacking up with co-stars.

Shah Rukh Khan: Stop making news based on caste, creed or colour.

Paris Hilton: To get a real job other than just being a party girl and lose the catch phrase, “That’s Hot” because everyone is sick of hearing it now.

Ashutosh Gowariker: Start cracking jokes at himself, so others don’t.

Paul McCartney: Perform thorough background checks on all future girlfriends and start work on new album to increase cash flow.

Salman Khan: Find a surrogate mother and end all speculation regarding Katrina Kaif. He is no Salman Rushdie.

Kevin Federline: Buy condoms in bulk and actually use them, and also get a real job other than just being Britney’s ex-husband.

Britney Spears: Wear underwear on a daily basis, especially underneath dresses in public.

Gul Panag:  Replace frequent tweeting with regular conversations and stop calling up friends from an unknown number and offer them loans.

Amitabh Bachchan:  Stop blogging, because the more he blogs, the more enemies he makes.

Cameron Diaz: Continue with the same New Year resolution of last year: stop smoking, stop shopping and start wearing a bra.

Here are a few budget reactions from the corporate world sent to me by the respective PR agencies. While some are lauding Pranab, others are not too happy with him. As a layman, I am only happy with Pranab for making it a rural-focussed budget. After all, a large part of India still resides in the villages. Farmer loan waiver, social security for the rural youth and focus on education is definetely something I am completely in favour of.

Without further ado, here is what the corporate world has to say about Pranab’s budget:

Gaurav Dua - Head Research , Sharekhan Ltd

The Union Budget has fallen short of high market expectations. The street has reacted negatively to issues such as high projected fiscal deficit of 6.8% (and more importantly there is no roadmap of bring it down), no mention of reforms in petroleum and insurance sectors, and absence of focus on aggressively pushing ahead the divestment program. On the positive side, the Finance Minister announced specific measures to enhance investment in infrastructure and boost domestic consumption through lower tax burden (higher standard deduction, withdrawal of surcharge and education cess). Overall, the focus continues to remain on stimulating economic growth in spite of further deterioration on fiscal front.

Vijay Bobba, CEO, I-Mint

The government has taken specific measures to increase disposable incomes. With a more friendly tax structure, individuals will have more cash in hand which may lead to increase spending and hence augment demand. Exemptions and reductions on excise and service tax on specific areas will also lead to additional margins that can be passed on to the end consumer. Also, the budget aims to rationalise taxation policies with the introduction of the GST next year. However, from a retail perspective, FDI was a major issue which has not been discussed.

SC Agarwal, CEO, Indian Tools Manufacturing, part of Birla auto and engineering group

The Budget appears to be neutral  to Cutting Tool Industry. Due to increases in Planned Expenditure,  allocation for rural employment and additional disposable income on account of individual Income Tax benefit, consumption level can be sustained in the short term. Private capital investment in the Industry  may not get stimulated soon until Engineering Goods  Export and Commercial Vehicle Sales improve.

Kaushal Sampat, Chief Operating Officer – Dun & Bradstreet - India

The Union Budget 2009 -10 is  largely positive, and seems to be an ‘aspirational’ budget in terms of what it seeks to achieve over a long term horizon. As we had expected, the Budget clearly breaks down into three parts – short, medium and long term. The short term proposals, which are focused on economic revival, are slightly above our expectations, and are welcome for the support they’d provide to an economy which is expected to get back on the revival path soon. Of course, these measures would have been even more welcome if a specific road map for containing the fiscal deficit had been laid out for the medium term. Having said that, the government does not have too much room to maneuver and perhaps, living with a high fiscal deficit may be inevitable for the time being. As economic revival sets in, and the high fiscal deficit becomes a potential bottleneck, monetary policy may have to be appropriately adjusted to take care of the issues pertaining to fund availability – which in itself may not have too much room. Hence, over the medium term, concerns remain over the fiscal deficit. The positives contained in this budget will become most apparent over the longer term, and that is where it scores the most – provided the intent and aspiration is met. While disinvestment could have found greater articulation, there seems to be a positive movement in that direction. The large number of measures proposed with regard to institutional, procedural and regulatory reform in such diverse areas as petrol prices, taxation and growth inclusiveness will unlock much of the economic growth potential. As the FM indicated, one budget speech will not solve all our problems! Hence, we may see some key policy initiatives being taken off-budget.

MS Arora, CEO, Zenith Birla, flagship company of Yash Birla Group

It is good to note that the Excise duty rates on Steel related products have not been increased from present 8.24% it will help in demand to grow in the country under these trying times. However no change in the policy, on Restriction to be removed on Flat Steel import is a negative aspect as this will create & increase the imbalance in the prices of steel in the domestic market. Removal of FBT is a welcome step which will help eliminating the cumbersome procedure to keep a track of figures under this head. No initiative to boost Exports to steel product related industries is a cause of worry and hope that the forthcoming Exim policy will take steps to help the declining figures of exports.

Yash Birla, Chairman, The Yash Birla Group

The Budget 2009-10 is all about getting the India Growth story back on track. This is targeted to be achieved through the short and long term measures that have been introduced. The unique aspect of focus on efficacy of delivery mechanisms for various measures is heartening. Due importance to infrastructure has been rightfully given as well as a boost to exports which will stimulate the sector that has been languishing. The disinvestment announcement is welcome but the targeted amount could have been higher which would have freed up resources to invest in the various social schemes that have been announced. This is in short a budget that aims to jumpstart a economy that has slowed down which is good but it could have been more aggressive. For our Group, the positive measures announced for Education, Textiles, IT, Exports are welcome and would give a fillip to our group companies in this sphere.

Kalyan Bhattacharya, President& CEO,  Birla Power Solutions Ltd

The increased budget allocation on social development schemes with focus on health and education for the rural population is indeed a right step for the ‘inclusive growth’ highlighted in the pre-budget survey. The areas which will allow BPSL to increase its contribution towards national development are:
1. National Rural Health Mission
2. Mission in Education through ICT’
3. Construction of Roads/Infrastructure
4. Public Delivery Services
The increased allocation of funds for  Agricultural Development and Irrigation, is a welcome move, though there is no ‘special incentive’ for companies like BPSL which is producing Power Tillers and fuel efficient Pumps for the marginal farmers in less developed states in the East and Northeast.
The budget mentions about the Power Reform Program. However, it is unclear about the incentives available for private sector to join the PPP for investment in power generation and expansion of the distribution system in the rural areas. The budget is not encouraging for the manufacturing sector. No new initiatives are visible and there is hardly any incentive in terms of tax and duty benefits for the organized sector in the engineering industry. Overall, the budget is an average one and does not fulfill the expectation of a key driver for industrial development.

Som Mittal, President, NASSCOM

The Finance Minister’s decision to extend fiscal benefits available to the industry under Section 10A/10B for one year will help the industry mitigate the impact of the current economic environment and help India retain its competitiveness.

Pramod Bhasin, Chairman, NASSCOM

Many of the initiatives in this year’s budget recognize the role the IT BPO industry can play in promoting inclusive growth and creating substantial employment opportunities in the country. The industry will be keen to partner with the Government in expanding e-governance initiatives including modernization of employment exchanges, the UIAD project, and smart cards for healthcare services so as to achieve enhanced governance.  Increased capital outlays on the education and infrastructure sector will also address growth challenges that the country has faced.

Agreed his father Rajiv became the prime minister at 40 and he could at 38, but Rahul Gandhi should not only stay away from becoming the PM, but he should also avoid the pitfalls of being a Cabinet minister. Here is why…

1. Becoming a Cabinet minister would mean managing a portfolio solely and largely ignoring the party’s growth prospects. This would take away from his very aim of strengthening the party’s grassroots.

2. As a Congressman, he can do what he wants and also exert pressure on the government from the outside. He could be the Third Eye and ensure that the national party doesn’t falter on crucial issues. What’s more, he can plan for the long term and learn the intricacies of being within the government and still outside. This would give him a balance of opinion that he will immensely benefit from.

3. India resides in its villages, and Rahul’s love for rural India is well-known. So he would do well to do many more padh yatras even though the elections are over to gauge people’s opinion (apparently, he travelled 87,000 kms during the run up to this year’s general elections that secured the party crucial votes in UP, Bihar and even MP, say insiders).

4. Rahul would do well to build a youth think tank that mirrors the aspirations of a growing class of people who are in touch with their political sensibilities.

5. Rahul would do well to stay away from issues that concern caste, creed and colour and do anything that could jeopardise his very existence by learning from the mistakes made by his grand mother Indira Gandhi (who sent the army to flush out terrorists from inside Amritsar’s Golden Temple of the Sikhs) and father Rajiv Gandhi (his three year campaign against the LTTE in Sri Lanka through the Indian Peace Keeping Force led to his death four years later).

6. The India of tomorrow needs a party and a leader who is aiming at a peaceful and prosperous nation that could give China a run for money. It’s looking at a central government that meets the aspirations of the poor and the middle class (the rich don’t need any consideration because they have the means to look after themselves).

Best of luck, Rahul! India rides on hope! Don’t let them down after this mammoth verdict for stability and prosperity.

Jai ho!

Shyam Benagal’s first commercial Bollywood comedy, Welcome To Sajjanpur, might well go on to do good business at the Box Office. Released only yesterday, the film has already received many positive reports and could beat the other comedy films released at the same time: the low-budgeted Hulla (Rs 1.25 cr) and the Warner Bros first Hindi film, Saas Bahu Aus Sensex that has received mixed reactions.

I am all for Welcome to Sajjanpur, because it’s a film set in a small town populated with interesting characters that make up the whole film. In fact, the film is nothing but a character study and it is this that will work for you and everyone who watches the film.

It’s a throw back to the times of Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s films in which Amitabh Bachchan played the protagonist. Over here, the superstar is the young and remarkably talented Shreyas Talpade. It is his film all the way. Watch this film for him and the wonderful string of characters that breath life into Welcome To Sajjanpur.

You will want to overstay at this village.

Okay, the suspense is over. So it’s the Al Qaida who executed Benazir Bhutto! Looks like Osama’s deputies have taken over from him as this operation points out (his deputy ordered her killing according to Al Qaida’s spokesperson). Killing one Osama isn’t going to do any good. But killing one Benazir does (for the terror outfits). There are many Osamas around, but very few dare-devil Benazirs who could risk their family and themselves in the service of the nation.

Who will chop the hand of Al Qaida and many such fundamentalist outfits? Musharaff? Manmohan Singh? George Bush? Or will there be infighting within these terror outfits like it happens in underworld wars, and they will extinguish themselves? Even if this scenario doesn’t shape up, our spies could infiltrate these terror outfits and cause bad blood within the ranks. The best way to take the enemy by surprise is to shoot them from under their nose.

Assassination of any prominent political leader chills me to the bone. Not because I fear for my life. But because it’s such a chilling scenario. The moment my friend called to inform that former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, I was shocked. Not because I sympathise with her or I am a big fan of hers, it’s just the news by itself. There is so much anarchy in Pakistan.

Despite warnings, Bhutto decided to come back to Pakistan after so many years of spending her time outside the country, and this is the reception she gets. The issue is not so much about her assassination. It’s more about the lawlessness taking control of Pakistan. When president Musharraf justified the imposition of emergency because fundamentalism (and thereby terrorism) couldn’t have been curtailed any other way, no one really believed him, including yours truly. But now, I could give that thought the benefit of doubt. Don’t know who killed Bhutto, but one thing is clear. There is an urgent need for order. But is anybody really interested? What say, George Bush?

If you’ve read Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole series of books, you will know where I am coming from. Her works are a series of diary jottings maintained by a boy who is aged 13 3/4th years… her later books talk about his notings in his adult years and so on. Here is my interpretation of the Indian version of Adrian Mole on a variety of topics that are making headlines these days… have a laugh and keep coming back to this post as I will be adding to this diary as and when Indian Mole is inspired enough!

Feb 6, 7am

Tata flying fighter planes: Don’t understand why Ratan Tata chose to be the brand ambassador for F 16 and F 18 for free. He should learn a thing or two from Shah Rukh Khan. Atleast he charges an exorbitant rate and even has perfumes and watches named after him. And they call Tata a businessman. Beats me. Even a lowly pilot will charge a bomb for one sortie.

April 2, 3pm

Amitabh-Shah Rukh face off: I don’t understand how a lanky, 64-year-old can be a competition to a 41-year-old relatively shorter actor. Is there a comparison to begin with? Talking of competition, I see more promos of Amitabh’s movies on TV than of Shah Rukh’s. This could mean two things. Either Shah Rukh is lazy or he has fewer films. Did you ask, whom I prefer? No one. Shah Rukh is trying too hard on KBC. His humour is spontaneous sometimes, but most times, he comes across as a shameless fellow. If that is what he is in real life, it’s better if he sticks to acting rather than being himself on TV.

July 4, 8pm

Shilpa’s Big Brother win: Don’t understand how a failed Bollywood actress was even chosen in the first place. My friend chided me for that. He said shows like Big Brother are known for choosing B grade celebrities because they come cheap and are more game to such shows. Ignorant me. But I have one question? Her win doesn’t change her grade from B to A, does it? Isn’t it the public who decides that?

July 8, 11am

India’s world cup squad: The other day, I watched a panel of experts debate whether we have the right cricket team to win the world cup. After an hour, the experts concluded that the team wasn’t good enough. Such a waste of time. If they had only asked me, I would have told them. For corroboration, they could have asked any man on the street.

July 9, 10pm

Union budget: There seems to be an air of secrecy around the finance minister and his close-knit team that’s working on the Indian budget. Don’t understand the secrecy. My friend thinks the finance ministry is not shrewd enough. He suggests that the ministry leak debatable sections of the budget, gauge people’s reaction and then modify it before presenting the actual budget. I don’t understand him.

July 10, 5pm

Cyrus Broacha: Think I should replace Cyrus in The Day That Wasn’t on TV. I always believed that a better view often doesn’t need binoculars. But Cyrus appears to be shortsighted and missing the bush for the tree. How else can you explain this joke he made recently on his show? “Abell, 25, of Blue Springs was rushed to a hospital, where doctors removed a mobile phone that she swallowed to prevent her boyfriend from finding out who she had been calling. When asked. The boyfriend said, “I have no idea what the big deal is. I’ve been trying to convince her to swallow ever since we first met.”

Nov 10, 10am

Nokia: Just read in the papers that mobile phones cause rashes around the ear among people who are allergic to the nickel used in the metallic gadgets. I also read that one Nokia handset exploded while it was being charged at a shop dealing in mobile phones in West Bengal on August 31. Apparently, the handset was Nokia 1100 which had a B1-5C battery that is being recalled by Matsuhita Corporation. Hmmm… I have nothing to worry about, though. I am allergic to mobile phones and keep away from them. So no rashes and explosions for me. Sometimes, it pays to be cell-phobic!

Nov 20, 5pm

Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt: Don’t understand the reasoning behind the release of Salman Khan and the imprisonment of Sanjay Dutt. For gawd’s sake, Salman killed an endangered deer species and he’s out on bail, but Sanjay, who merely possessed an AK 47 rifle for self defence has been asked to cool his heels in jail (he was released two months later). The criminal justice system really needs to be streamlined. The system just doesn’t understand the difference between confirmed death and perceived death!
PS: My condolences to the deer whose sacrifice went in vain!

Nov 25, 10.30pm

Ram Gopal Varma: My friend is happy-sad. He was happy that filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma has made a remake of the superhit 1975 Hindi film Sholay, but he is sad that the film has none of the fireworks showcased in the old classic. He must have just asked me instead of subjecting himself to a three-hour torture. How can the fire keep burning more than 30 years after it first came into being? Common sense is so hard to come by these days. Whew!

Nov 30, 11.30am

Sting operations: Don’t know what they mean by ’sting’ operations. I have only heard of scorpios having a deadly sting, but all the TV channels were harping about a teacher forcibly asking girl students to get into prostitution. What is prostitution? Should be another form of institution. So where is the sting in this?

Dec 1, 9am

Yoga: Don’t understand all the fuss being made in Europe about how yoga promotes Hinduism. Unlike religion which promotes more fanaticism and bloodshed, atleast yoga only promotes health. If they really want to preserve their religion, let them ban all cigarettes, liquor, burgers and pizzas… after all, they need their race to live for atleast a hundred years to stand up and be counted among other religions. When most of their followers are dying by the day, what are they really fighting for? Beats me.

The first of the opinion polls is upon us, this time initiated by the Malayala Manorama Group’s The Week magazine. ‘Modi wins, lotus wilts!’ reads the screaming headline that prides itself on bringing the results of an exclusive Gujarat election survey. The kicker headline goes on to say that the CM is popular, but BJP faces a resurgent Congress. Can there be a more balanced story than this one? Consider for a moment that this story is manufactured, then who would tend to benefit from this? The Congress and Narendra Modi, ofcourse. Now consider that the story is sponsored by the Congress, why couldn’t they have said, ‘Modi loses, lotus wilts!’? Because everyone knows that though the popularity of Modi is on the wane, he is yet to find a competitor. So in the interest of some credibility, it was important for the survey to be semi-credible. After all, Modi’s winning margin might come down from his last victory (there is no Godhra this time around), but his utterances are continuing to make national headlines. If there is one publicity machinery that is working overtime, it’s the Modi camp. For them, any kind of publicity is good publicity. In fact, the more extreme reactions that Modi elicits, the better it gets for him. That has been his way to polarise voter opinion.

A similar story will emerge when any of our Kannada and English newspapers and TV channels undertake an opinion poll in Karnataka. Everyone who is in the know will tell you that these surveys tend to benefit the politicians more than citizens like us. In fact, they end up causing more angst and in some cases, utter confusion amongst voters. But what everyone knows is that most of these surveys are unscientific, sometimes manufactured and therefore never accurate. So how do they justify their ineptness? By saying that the voters changed their mind at the last minute. It could be true in some segments where liquor and money do turn around fortunes of many parties, but I would still blame the surveys for this. Noticing that their popularity has dipped, courtesy the opinion poll, a certain political party might pitch in with more money, resort to large-scale rigging and subvert the electoral process. This is particularly true in states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Which is why, it’s in the best interest to ban opinion polls. Is the Election Commission listening?

But until that happens, expect to be reading a lot many opinion polls in the days to come. In addition to Outlook and India Today, you might have Deccan Herald, The Times of India and even The Hindu coming out with divergent findings on which party would win the state elections this time round. With TV9’s propensity towards the Congress, don’t be surprised if their opinion poll favours the Congress. Don’t be surprised if Zee Kannada favours the BJP. Similarly, among print publications, Deccan Herald’s findings could favour the BJP while the Times of India could very well pitch for the Congress. That’s where their respective ideologies lie. But I could be wrong. Political equations can change at the last minute, and thereby their stands. Opportunism makes politics highly unpredictable. But what is clear is the need for a stable government, both at the centre and the state. Happiness doesn’t reside in a country that is forever under a cloud of political uncertainty. Are you ready to cast your vote?

(This piece has appeared in my Media Watch column that runs in Agni every week)

For films that should never have been made, there’s the Raspberry awards. For inventions that should never ever be attempted, there’s the Ig Nobel awards. To outsmart the ‘videsis’, our ‘desi’ bhai log at Filmfare decided to hand out awards to real life heroes and heroines of 2007. Here are the winners who shaked things up in the Year of the Pig.

Over to the winners.

Best singer: Goes to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for singing Sonia’s tunes ever since he assumed office and not getting tired of his nightingale act. Many speculated that his throaty marathon will not last long. But when victory is so-nia, should anyone give up hope? Atleast he never did and therefore the award.

Best dance director: Given jointly to the CPI and CPI (M) for getting the Congress to dance to its mellifluous leftist tunes on the US nuclear deal. In fact, the Manmohan Singh government came to power after they vouched to sign a paper that read something like this:  ‘Have Left, will dance’. Ofcourse, some Congress stalwarts said they were too old to be perpetually on left-hand drive, but they were outnumbered by the others who declared that dance was the pivot around which Indian politics does a tub-thumping rhumba.

Best action director: Goes to the MD of Delhi’s Blueline buses for his troupe’s deathly stunts that left more than 100 people dead and many more injured in 2007 and got the media baying for his blood. Nothing succeeds like excess, and only Blueline showed us how. 

Best film: To actor Amitabh Bachchan who turned writer, producer and director with this film. Titled ‘Do Bigha Zameen’, it chronicles the life and times of a superstar who gets embroiled in a real estate controversy in Uttar Pradesh. The problem? Only farmers are allowed to own land in a village called Daulatpur, but he wasn’t one. The rest of the film details his defences against all the accusations and how he finally had to hand over the illegally acquired land back to the government. The best part of the film is its ending, where the district attorney asks, “Before he ‘returns’ the land to us, he needs to first prove that he is indeed the rightful owner”. This clearly brings the story back to where it started, and the film ends abruptly with the line, ‘And the argument continues’. A cinematic victory no less.

Best producer: To Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi. The number of half-truths that he has manufactured far outnumbers those by the most compulsive of liars. And the best part? Five years after his government-sponsored genocide, he milked his 2002 production again this year to reinforce his image as a daring CM with Tehelka’s video expose that proves he indeed engineered the Gujarat riots. However, he’s still one unhappy producer despite the Filmfare award. He is cribbing that the media outburst after the Tehelka expose only lasted a month. He was hoping it would continue till the Gujarat elections in December that could have helped him at the hustings because he knows public memory is short.

Best villain: To Salman Khan for walking free after killing an endangered species – this doesn’t even happen in films these days. By this act, he beat his close competitor Sanjay Dutt who had to do jail time for merely possessing an AK 47. Khan wins the award hands down for getting away with murder. 

Best director:  To Ram Gopal Varma for re-casting a hero (Amitabh Bachchan) from the blockbuster film ‘Sholay’ as the villain in the remake of the same film. It was a director’s coup allright. That the film opened to empty houses is a moot point. That the film was successfully completed gets him major brownie points. Congrats, RGV.

Best actor: To Janata Dal supremo HD Deve Gowda for taking politics to a new low with his high octane act of deception. He threw out his son from the party because he formed a coup and threw out the Congress from power by aligning with a non-secular BJP. A few days into the regime, and Gowda takes back his son into the party and remote controlled his chief ministership for the next 19 months. When his son’s tenure ended, and it was time for a BJP candidate to assume office, Gowda gets his son to pull the rug from under the BJP’s lotus feet. Nobody understands opportunistic politics better than Gowda. Which is why this award.

Best actress: To the MD of Bombay stock exchange. Women are known for their unpredictable nature and nothing exemplifies this more than the sensex. Just when things started looking up, crores of money gets shaved off investor’s kitty. And just when things appeared to be hitting rock bottom, stock prices would shoot northwards with a speed never recorded in its history. It even came smelling distance of touching 20,000 points… but like the lady it is… screeched to a halt at 19198 and then nosedived more than a thousand points the next day. Sensex has this remarkable ability of making you happy and sad within a fraction of a second. Never seen a more accomplished actress in a long time.

While every secular-sounding newspaper and TV channel is crying itself hoarse on how Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi is the Hitler of India post the government-sponsored Gujarat riots of 2002, I have a simple question: who made him that? Is it LK Advani who rode drunk on his chariot to reclaim the ‘Ram Janmabhoomi’ and helped in demolishing the Babri Masjid? Is it Praveen Togadia of the Vishwa Hindu Parishat whose inciting speeches can light the fire beneath any normal human being least associated with fundamentalism? Or is it you and me for remaining silent over the issue and not reading too much into it?

In this murky scenario where everyone looks to the other for raising a voice, Tarun Tejpal’s Tehelka played a proxy war on behalf of the silent majority by exposing the misdoings of Modi on national television only recently. He had irrefutable visual proof of Modi’s henchmen boasting of how the Gujarat riots of 2002 were indeed genocide, a systematic ethnic mass murder pogrom to eliminate the Muslims from the Hindutva heartland. Some even argued that the looting, raping and murder seemed to be far better planned than Hitler’s. When Tehelka showed a visual proof of how the riots were actually a state-sponsored genocide, it opened the eyes of the staunchest of Hindus. What could be worse than a Modi henchman claiming to have slit open a pregnant Muslim woman’s womb? Or a daughter being raped in front of her father?

The TV channels played and re-played these visuals for greater TRPs the day they were made public. But no follow-up stories were carried thereafter either in print or visual media. There was no concerted campaign to indict the culprits who boasted of their nefarious sins on camera. Even the courts didn’t so much as take cognisance of the visual misdeeds. What’s worse, even the Congress government at the centre seemed impotent. Some say, this is for fear of the “Hindu vote” and others say, the Congress is as communal and therefore keeping silent. After all, weren’t they behind the Sikh riots of 1984 that left nearly 3000 Sikhs dead in just three days following Indira Gandhi’s assassination by her Sikh bodyguards. But what about the Gujarat genocide that lasted three months and left 2,500 Muslims dead and several thousands injured?

Whatever be the case, it’s the job of the media to create a furore a la Jessica Lal murder and keep airing the revelations, reactions and keep the momentum going until the guilty are brought to book. At a time when the fortunes of business houses, films and politicians are decided by what is shown in the media, it becomes even more important to follow-up a story that is in far greater national interest. But sadly, it is not to be.

Then again, who comprises the media? People like you and me. Therefore, if we are really looking to stop mass rapes and murders based on ethnic and religious lines, tolerance should begin at home. We should remove the biases we hold within us towards people of other castes, creeds and religions and imbibe the same set of values in our children. When this reaches a crescendo, politics based on caste and creed will disappear. That is when the real idea of India will take root. Until that happens, lets pray real hard that this happens.

Amen!