Blowin' In The Wind

Singapore, Malaysia cheaper than India?

I can't believe this. Small Indian IT companies say it is cheaper to operate in Singapore and Malaysia than in India! The BBC has the full story.

Bye-bye Ford, hello Tata

Isn't it funny that an Indian company is saving British jobs and pensions just when Britain is making it harder for Indians to enter Britain?

The Press Association reports:

Thousands of UK motoring jobs and pensions have been safeguarded after ownership of Jaguar and Land Rover passed from Ford of America to Tata Motors of India.

Jaguar Land Rover has about 13,500 employees.

So desperate was Ford to dump the business it even agreed to contribute $600 million to the workers' pension plans just to get the deal done even though it meant selling at a loss. The $1.7 billion it nets from the $2.3 billion deal is roughly a third of the price it paid for the two luxury brands -- $2.5 billion for Jaguar in 1989 and $2.7 billion for Land Rover in 2000 -- says the Associated Press.

The Indian business daily Business Standard sniffs Tata Motors is paying a hefty price for cars that don't make a lot of money:

The premier automotive group which includes Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo and the Aston Martin—posted pre-tax results of a negative $1.9 billion in 2007 on revenues of approximately $33 billion.

But not every unionist is welcoming the saviour with open arms. Harrumphs Tony Woodley, Unite's joint general secretary: "We would have much preferred Ford to keep the companies in the family, so to speak, especially with Land Rover being so profitable".

Isn't that pathetic, yearning for someone who longer wants you? Only lovers are allowed that -- and the very thick-skinned.

As BusinessWeek says:

For some Brits the deal marks a surprising twist in a long road for two storied corporate names. Could Winston Churchill, or even the current Queen of England, have imagined a half-century ago that a pair of Britain's proudest industrial icons would one day be owned by an Indian company?

They shouldn't be surprised if they took a close look at the British economy.

India is the second biggest investor in the UK after the US.

The fact is not advertised in Britain. Dear old Blighty still keeps a stiff upper lip.

Indian mandarins

Even the elite Indian Administrative Service officers must be surprised to see three whole pages devoted to them in the latest issue of The Economist magazine. Others will be gobsmacked. Not even the Indian media gives them as much publicity.

It was different in my youth when senior officials like DP Dhar formed part of Indira Gandhi's kitchen cabinet and were more powerful than government ministers. Now ministers shunt them at will. "During a riotous eight-month rule over Madhya Pradesh in 2003-04, a politician called Uma Bharati transferred 240 of the state's 296 IAS officers," says the Economist. But politcians can't sack them, it adds, quoting a former head of the civil service who recalled seeing only three officers dismissed in his 40 years of service.
 

The IAS still gets excellent recruits despite half the posts being reserved for outcaste and low-caste Hindus and higher pay in the private sector, says the Economist.

One reason must be the prestige and social status. Male IAS recruits are among India's most marriagable, more suitable than even the highly paid computer geeks, says the Economist.

Rare breed

They have rarity value. Although India's federal government employs about three million civil servants and the states another seven million, there are only 5,600 IAS officers. They run almost all the 604 districts in the country as well as government ministries and public sector enterprises.

"India's recent run of 8 percent economic growth has if anything increased their prestige, by creating more senior positions for which IAS officers are required. This year 140 people will be recruited into the IAS from around 200,000 applicants, one of the biggest intakes ever," says the Economist."Civil service pay, currently $500 a month for a district collector, might also be increased," it adds.

India has some of the hardest-working bureaucrats in the world, but its administration has an abysmal record of serving the public, says the Economist. It blames work overload among other reasons and profiles a district collector who works 16-hour days and heads 65 departments. 

There are officials who find time for other activities as well. I recall one IAS officer recording Bengali songs and the former police commissioner of Calcutta (Kolkata) -- not an IAS but an Indian Police Service officer -- who was also president of the Cricket Association of Bengal.

Overworked or Renaissance Men, India's mandarins almost never quit. Over the past year, fewer than 20 IAS officers have left to join the private sector, says the Economist.

But this is not the Indian Civil Service which ran the country during the British Raj. IAS officers rise and fall with their political masters. Navin Chawla, who was found "unfit to hold public office" by the Shah Commission inquiry into the misrule during Indira Gandhi's emergency rule (June 1975- March 1977), is now deputy chief of India's election commission, says the Economist. He was appointed by the Congress government, where the real power lies with Sonia Gandhi, Indira Gandhi's daughter-in-law.      

Indian billionaires

There are 53 Indian billionaires on the Forbes list. Only three countries have more billionaires: there are 469 American billionaires, 87 Russian and 59 German billionaires.

As for the other countries I checked, here are the figures:

China 42, Britain 35, Turkey 35, Hong Kong 26, Canada 25, Japan 24, Brazil 18, Australia 14, France 14, Italy 13, Saudi Arabia 13, South Korea 12, Switzerland 11, Mexico 10, Israel nine, Malaysia eight, Taiwan seven, Lebanon seven, United Arab Emirates six, Ireland six, Netherlands five, Indonesia five, Kuwait four, New Zealand four, Norway four, South Africa four, Thailand three, Philippines two.  See this page on Forbes.

Here the Indian billionaires are listed according to their global rankings on the Forbes list with their age in brackets and their  net worth in billions of dollars. All of them are Indian citizens and live in India unless otherwise mentioned.

Rank Name            Age (in brackets)   Net worth

4      Lakshmi Mittal (57) $45.0 billion Lives in UK

5     Mukesh Ambani  (50) $43.0 billion

6     Anil Ambani  (48) $42.0 billion   

8     KP Singh (76) $30.0 billion    
43     Shashi & Ravi Ruia  (NA)  $15.0 billion   

60     Azim Premji  (62) $12.7 billion    
64     Sunil Mittal  (50)  $11.8billion    
76     Kumar Birla  (40)  $10.2 billion      

86     Ramesh Chandra (68) $9.6 billion    
91     Gautam Adani (45) $9.3 billion         
110     Savitri Jindal (58)  $8.2 billion      
164     Anil Agarwal (54)   $6.0 billion Lives in UK
178     Adi Godrej (65) $5.5 billion      
198     G M Rao  (57)  $5.2 billion   
236     Indu Jain  (71) $$4.4 billion      
260     Dilip Shanghvi  (52) $4.0 billion      
277     Jaiprakash Gaur (77) $3.9 billion      
277     Shiv Nadar (62) $3.9 billion      
288     Uday Kotak (49)    $3.7 billion      
307     Cyrus Poonawalla (66)  $3.5 billion       
327     Anand Jain (51) $3.4 billion       
368     Chandru Raheja (67) $3.0  billion       
368     Tulsi Tanti  (50)  $3.0 billion      
428     Rakesh Wadhawan (56) $2.7 billion    

446      Kalanithi Maran (42) $2.6 billion         
462     Malvinder & Shivinder Singh (35/33) $2.5 billion   
462     Micky Jagtiani  (56)  $2.5 billion   Lives in United Arab Emirates
524     Venugopal Dhoot (56) $2.3 billion   
524     Subhash Chandra (57) $2.3 billion   
573     Niranjan Hiranandani (58) $2.1 billion
573     Rajan Raheja (53) $2.1 billion   
605     Reji Abraham (41) $2.0 billion 
677     Baba Kalyani  (59)  $1.8  billion   
707     Vikas Oberoi (37)   $1.7 billion    
743     Anurag Dikshit  (36) $1.6 billion Lives in Gibraltar
785     GV Krishna Reddy (71) $1.5 billion   
785     Gracias Saldanha  (71) $1.5 billion   
843     Naresh Goyal  (58) $1.4  billion Lives in UK
843     Gautam Thapar (47)  $1.4 billion    
843     NR Narayana Murthy (61) $1.4 billion    
897     Girish Tanti (38) $1.3 billion   
897     Nimesh Kampani (61) $1.3 billion    
897     Jitendra Tanti (43) $1.3 billion 
962     Vijay Mallya (52) $1.2 billion   
962     Sameer Gehlaut (34) $1.2 billion    
962     Vinod Tanti (45) $1.2 billion 
1014     Habil Khorakiwala (65) $1.1 billion   
1014     Nandan Nilekani (52) $1.1 billion 
1014     Anu Aga (65) $1.1 billion
1014    Jignesh Shah  (41) $1.1 billion    
1062     Senapathy Gopalakrishnan (52) $1.0 billion      
1062     Rakesh Jhunjhunwala (47) $1.0 billion 
1062     Rahul Bajaj (69)    $1.0 billion 

Republic Day

My son was watching the cricket match between India and Australia on his computer  when I called him at his college in America at noon today (here in Singapore; it was close to midnight for him). Then, about an hour ago, I spoke to my wife in Calcutta (Kolkata). She said she had to go to her college for the flag hoisting ceremony.

India is celebrating Republic Day today. For the first time, they could not hold the ceremony outdoors but had to hoist the flag in the college auditorium because of heavy rain, she said.

How awful, I thought, having to go in the rain for a college function when you could be watching the cricket match on television instead. I am likely to feel more patriotic watching India play than singing the national anthem at a flag hoisting ceremony.

I remember a long time ago the national anthem used to be played at the end of film shows in Calcutta and we had to stand and wait till the end of the song before leaving the auditorium. I just found out that the official version of the Indian national anthem is only 52 seconds long, but it used to seem much longer then.

We never had to sing the national anthem in school, so on the few occasions I did have to sing it, I would stumble over the words and try to lip synch my way out. The flowery language made the words difficult to remember.

The irony is I am a Bengali and the Indian national anthem is written in Bengali -- and not in Hindi, the official language. But it is written in a chaste, Sanskritised Bengali we don't use in everyday language.

It was written by Rabindranath Tagore, whose poems are perhaps more consistently beautiful than those of any poet in the English language. Wordsworth can be boring, but not Tagore. He is the master of euphony. His prose has the grace of Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater and George Santayana while his poetry has to be read aloud to be fully enjoyed like the poems of Dylan Thomas. Unlike Dylan Thomas, however, he can be easily understood -- if one knows the words he uses. His Bengali runs the gamut from the simple to the baroque.

Unlike most Bengalis, I am not fond of Rabindra sangeet, the music of Tagore. Give me rock 'n' roll and the blues any day. And Jana Gana Mana, written in 1911, has that Victorian pomp and grandeur which can be uplifting but also windy.

Why can't we have something more contemporary, I asked myself -- and then I listened to Jana Gana Mana, both the official version, and this video. And I was strangely moved.

(Republic Day marks the adoption of India's republican constitution in 1950 -- three years after independence from Britain. -- BBC. So this video must have been recorded in 2000.)

India's communist problem

Newsweek's international edition's cover this week articulates my own feelings. "Why India is blowing its chance", says the headline above a picture of a dejected Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. And the subhead adds,"The architect of the boom has a plan to vault India into the great-power club, only the communists stand in the way".

What it doesn't say is, the communists also maintain relations with the communist party of China, which has a border dispute with India and helps Pakistan in various ways.

Anyone who follows the news knows how China feels about India's growing closeness to the US. But the Chinese needn't worry; they can count on their Indian communist friends to stall the Indo-US nuclear energy agreement.

Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), is fiercely opposed to the deal, calling it a bid to "encircle" China. He cuts an almost Stalinist figure in the Newsweek article, which begins:

From his fortress-like red sandstone headquarters near New Delhi's Connaught Place — a bustling commercial hub lined with McDonald's, foreign banks and boutiques — Prakash Karat, India's reigning communist ideologue, is fighting to kill his country's economic- and political-reform process...

That Karat — the feisty, British-educated 59-year-old general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI-M — has come to dominate New Delhi's agenda is remarkable, given that he has little national following, has never held elected public office and holds ideas that were already out of date 15 years ago, when most communist systems came crashing down... That's because the Congress Party-led coalition has just a razor-thin majority in Parliament, which has forced it to lean on Karat for support, turning him into a kingmaker...

Karat even threatened to bring down the government over the nuclear issue. But he was advised to cool it by party leaders from the communist-ruled state of West Bengal who have their own problems. After three decades in power, they are meeting armed resistance from peasants in Nandigram where they want to acquire land and build chemical plants. They don't want the Congress party to step into the conflict. So Karat has not been able to carry out his threat, but he could still wreck any nuclear deal, says Newsweek.

Newsweek simplifies the issue by casting the communists as the only opponents to the deal. The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and Indian scientists have also raised objections. But they have cited national interests, not a plot to "encircle" China.

A Newsweek online article which calls it a "sweetheart deal" glosses over the constraints it places on India, which became a nuclear power on its own. But could India get a better deal?

The Economist says:

To most neutrals, this looks like a steal for India. It has an urgent need of imported uranium to cope with a worsening energy shortfall. The special treatment that the deal would afford India would confirm its rising status, and cement a growing friendship with America. Yet that is what the communists object to.

That doesn't make the communists sound very friendly or patriotic, does it?

The Economist likes Buddha

West Bengal's Marxist Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee (picture from cpim.org) has received a glowing encomium from the Economist magazine. Check the Business section of the latest issue. He may not like the headline, "The capitalist communist",  but he will certainly love the subhead, "How a poetic Marxist has transformed business prospects in West Bengal". And it's absolutely right.  I enjoyed the article so much I must quote it:

Until a few years ago foreign capitalists were unlikely to look for investment opportunities in the Indian state of West Bengal, seat of the world's longest-serving democratically elected communist government. They were about as likely to ask for the novels of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Bengali, the local language. That both are now readily available is largely down to one man. He is Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the state's chief minister, a poet and playwright, the translator of the great Colombian-born novelist—and a life-long communist.

Since taking charge of West Bengal in 2000, Mr Bhattacharjee has embraced business with apostate zeal. The results have been little short of revolutionary. Under a coalition of leftists led by his own Communist Party of India (Marxist), which has won seven consecutive elections, West Bengal was previously best known for industrial action, capital flight and the immiseration of its capital, Calcutta, recently renamed Kolkata. Things improved slightly in the mid-1990s, after investors were officially invited to the state. But only in recent years, after Mr Bhattacharjee began travelling the world and wooing foreign companies, have many actually come. They have joined an influx of Indian firms in computer services, manufacturing and steelmaking. Tata Motors says that next year it will start producing a new low-cost car—expected to sell for less than $3,000—at a factory it is building at Singur, near Kolkata.

Mr Bhattacharjee, who has a reputation for probity unusual in an Indian politician, has been credited with this success. In person, he is modest and engaging. With shining eyes and a breathy chain-smoker's voice, he enthuses on topics from agri-business to consumerism and Indian poetry, which he often quotes. In private life his tastes are Gandhian in their austerity: he has lived with his librarian wife and environmentalist daughter in the same two-bedroom flat for two decades. Azim Premji, the chairman of Wipro, a big computer-services company, has called Mr Bhattacharjee India's best chief minister. The prime minister, Manmohan Singh, agrees.

Some Indian commentators have likened Mr Bhattacharjee to China's great moderniser, Deng Xiaoping. He laughs off this suggestion, and notes that communist ideology is practically extinct in China. Yet his own “Marxist principles”, which he says he has discussed at length with Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela, do not sound terribly radical. They are, he says, to “protect the poorest of the poor, protect un-organised workers, protect womenfolk who have no income.”

The Economist does not give him a perfect score, however.

Peasants are being uprooted by his land acquisition policy to help develop industries and the fallout has been "disastrous", it says, referring to the violence in Nandigram: People have been killed in clashes between the ruling Marxists and their opponents protesting against the land being given to the Salim Group of Indonesia to set up petrochemical plants.

The Economist adds:

The dispossessed are not alone in their protests. India's urban classes retain a sentimental fondness for village life, poor and squalid as it may be. This is especially true in West Bengal, where peasants are officially considered the vanguard of a proletarian revolution.

The chief minister is certainly to blame, in part, for the crisis. And with a general election expected next year, in which the Communists are expected to do badly, there is talk that party bosses, wedded to the outworn ideology that he has so sensibly forsaken, might force Mr Bhattacharjee to quit. That would be a pity. India needs more leaders like Mr Bhattacharjee, who is a talented administrator, even if his political views remain enigmatic.

It's remarkable for the Economist to show such a soft soft for a Marxist. But that may be because in its view he isn't a typical Marxist but a "capitalist communist". Unconsciously, the cultured, literary chief minister, who graduated from prestigious Presidency College in Calcutta (Kolkata), betrays a certain elitism. It's there in the last sentence of the Economist article:

Quoting Vladimir Mayakovsky—a Russian poet whose verse he has also translated into Bengali—he says: “Proletarians arrive at communism from below, but I from poetry's sky plunge into communism, because without it, I feel no love.”

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee may love communism, but this incorruptible, cultured, literary, middle-class Bengali gentleman is no prole.

Give Taslima Indian citizenship

Let the Bangladeshi writer, Taslima Nasrin (picture from taslimanasrin.com), become an Indian citizen if that's what she wants. Muslim fundamentalists in the country are demanding her expulsion, claiming she has "insulted" Islam. She faces death threats in Bangladesh for the same reason.

But India is a secular state where Hindus and Christians can mock their own religions without fear for their lives. The Marxists in power in the Indian state of West Bengal are officially atheists. So why shouldn't Taslima be allowed to become an Indian simply because Muslim fundamentalists want her to leave the country?

Official decisions should not be guided by religious considerations in a secular state. Yet that's what's happening.

Taslima had to leave West Bengal after a Muslim fundamentalist agitation against her turned violent in the state capital, Calcutta (Kolkata), on Wednesay. Biman Bose, secretary of the ruling Marxist party in the state, suggested she should leave.

The Indian government headed by the Congress party in Delhi has shown more guts than the Marxists. It extended her visa recently. Taslima can stay in India till March next year. But she was turned down when she applied for Indian citizenship, reported Rediff News. Why?

Taslima should be granted Indian citizenship, says the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. I agree though I don't support the Hindu nationalists on every issue.

There's no reason to give in to Muslim fundamentalist demands anyway after yesterday's bomb blasts.  Bombs exploded almost simultaneously near or outside law courts in Lucknow, Varanasi and Faizabad, three cities in northern Uttar Pradesh state, killing at least 13 people, reported the BBC quoting the state government. The near-simultaneous blasts suggest careful planning and coordination, which can only be the work of a terrorist group.

The All-India Minority Forum, which agitated against Taslima in Calcutta on Wednesday, may have no links with the terrorists behind yesterday's bomb blasts. But it was challenging the secular foundations of the Indian state by demanding Taslima's expulsion on religious grounds just as the terrorists attacked the state by setting off bombs outside law courts. India should not tolerate that.

It was a "total capitulation" to communal forces that Taslima was forced to leave West Bengal, said the Hindu nationalists. For once, they were right.

The Marxists in West Bengal may have been trying to restore peace and order by suggesting Taslima leave the state after the riot in Calcutta. But that can only encourage the fundamentalists. Now they know they only have to start a riot to get what they want.

The plight of Taslima Nasrin

The Marxists in power in the Indian state of West Bengal may rant and rave against Hindu nationalists, but they are powerless against Muslim militants. The militants just had to take to the streets of the state capital, Calcutta (Kolkata), and agitate for a day. And, lo and behold, they got what they wanted. The Bangladeshi writer, Taslima Nasrina, who faced death threats back home for allegedly blaspheming Islam, has left Calcutta.

Actually, the All-India Minority Forum, whose agitation sparked a riot in Calcutta on Wednesday, wanted more. It called for her expulsion from India.

But as the Marxists correctly pointed out, that's beyond their power. I am not joking.

The Marxist leader, Biman Bose, said it was for the Indian government, in Delhi, to decide whether to cancel her visa. But he made his wishes pretty clear. He suggested she leave West Bengal, reported the Bengali newspaper, Ananda Bazar Patrika, published from Calcutta.

So, Taslima Nasrin flew off to Jaipur in Rajasthan yesterday, reported the Telegraph, the Ananda Bazar Patrika's English counterpart. (Both are published by the same group.)

Rajasthan is ruled by the Hindu nationalists -- the Bharatiya Janata Party.

It's sad that the Bangladeshi writer hounded by Muslim militants had to seek refuge with Hindu nationalists.

But Taslima hardly had any choice.

Biman Bose is the voice of West Bengal's ruling party. He is the secretary of the West Bengal unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). When he suggested she leave, she couldn't turn a deaf ear. After all, he has more authority and influence than most ministers as the ruling party's top official.

Indeed, the police offered to move her out of West Bengal. The police would have hardly done so on their own. They have to take orders from the ruling party.

Anyone who wants to know just how Taslima Nasrin fell foul of the Islamists could check Wikipedia or visit her own website.

Whatever she did, it's sad when a writer faces death threats and is hounded from pillar to post. And that 's exactly what the Marxists in West Bengal did, chasing her out of Calcutta after Muslim militants wanted her out. The Marxists may say they did it to restore peace after the militant violence. But I suspect that was not the only reason. They also do not want to lose the Muslim vote in the next elections.

The Hindu nationalists are not concerned about the Muslim vote. So Taslima could go to them. It's so sad, the politics and callousness all around. 

Why in the name of Islam?

Picture from Ananda Bazar Patrika

A family I know had their car wrecked by a mob in Calcutta (Kolkata) yesterday. Fortunately, no one was in the car at the time. It just happened to be parked at a spot where vandals went on the rampage in the name of Islam.

I got the first inkling of trouble while listening to the BBC World Service in Singapore last night. The news reader said the army had been called out after rioting by mobs protesting against attacks on Muslims and demanding the expulsion of a Bangladeshi  writer for “insulting” Islam.

Immediately, I called my wife in Calcutta, who told me about the car. Several cars had been damaged and many policemen injured but the army had brought the situation under control, I learnt.

But what happened was unthinkable. We are talking of Calcutta, which has been remarkably free of communal violence.

The attacks on Muslims the mobs were so worked up about occurred in the village of Nandigram and its surrounding areas, but both Hindus and Muslims have suffered, the Muslims were not the only victims. Indeed, some of the thugs arrested in connection with the violence there happen to be Muslims.

It’s a political crisis: the Marxists ruling the state of West Bengal – of which Calcutta is the capital – wanted to move the villagers out of Nandigram and hand it to the Salim business group from Indonesia for industrialisation. The villagers protested. Opposition parties rallied round them, including the Maoists. But the Marxists stuck to their guns, and all hell broke loose. Several people have been killed in Nandigram.

It’s a shameful story and the Marxists have been castigated by everyone including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi, who is a grandson of Gandhi, and artists and intellectuals in Calcutta.

But it’s wrong to turn Nandigram into a communal issue.  The predominantly Muslim All-India Minority Forum had no business calling protests in Calcutta yesterday about “attacks on Muslims” in Nandigram.

It was equally egregious to demand the expulsion of the Bangladeshi writer, Taslima Nasrin. She faced death threats in Bangladesh after being accused of blasphemy, went into exile and spent several years in Europe. She has spent the last three years in India and though she has failed to get  Indian citizenship, she had her visa renewed recently and has been staying in Calcutta. But the All-India Minority Forum wants her expelled from the country for “insulting” Islam. There’s more on her and Nandigram in Wikipedia.

I sympathise with the people of Nandigram. But their cause suffers when it is taken up by Muslim zealots who also want Taslima Nasrin expelled from India for “insulting” Islam. India is a secular state. It did not expel the artist MF Husain for “insulting” Hinduism, as alleged by Hindu militants. He moved abroad on his own.

But the Muslim zealots pose such a threat that the West Bengal police offered to move Taslima Nasrin out of the state for her own safety. She is believed to have turned down the offer, reported the Hindu newspaper.

Further proof of the communal threat is the restraint shown by the police and the military. According to news reports, police used only teargas and did not fire on the mobs to avoid further violence. In other words, the violence reached a level where the police could have opened fire.  But that would have been playing into the communalists’ hands.

I wonder how sincere the All-India Minority Forum is about protecting the Muslims. The rioters did not discriminate between Hindus and Muslims when they attacked the police. Among the policemen injured was a top official, Deputy Commissioner (South), Javed Shamim.

The All-India Minority Forum says it had nothing to do with the violence and even has the cheek to claim the rioters were goons hired by the Marxists to discredit it. A Muslim organisation, the Jamiat ul Ulema e Hind, has even called for the Marxist West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s resignation.

That Calcutta is peaceful today in the face of all this provocation is really admirable –- but hardly surprising. We have Muslim friends. My wife has visited Muslim shrines. We know a Bengali Muslim gentleman who knows more about Hinduism than I do. We are proud that Calcutta is not another Gujarat or Ayoddha torn apart by religion.

But something must be done about these rabid communalists who stir up trouble in the name of religion. Unfortunately, the opposite is more likely. All the political parties are likely to bend over backwards to win the Muslim vote in the next elections. They should realise there’s no such thing as a Hindu or a Muslim vote; both Hindus and Muslims may vote for the Marxists or their opponents. Indeed, that’s how it should be.

Indira Gandhi

Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi by Katherine Graham

I just finished reliving my school and college days, reading Katherine Frank’s biography of Indira Gandhi, who was India’s prime minister almost throughout that era.  Any nostalgia I feel for those days evaporates when I recall the Indian newspaper front page headlines of that time, extolling Moscow and the non-aligned movement and warning against the “foreign hand” (that is, America ). Indira Gandhi was undoubtedly popular for a long time. Spirited, courageous, cultured, artistic, she had many admirable qualities. But I wouldn’t want her back as a leader. Nor her father, Jawaharlal Nehru.

He might not have been authoritarian like his daughter. But they were both British-educated leftist patricians who smothered India in a protectionist cocoon in the name of nationalism and achieving self-sufficiency while they themselves travelled far and wide in pursuit of their own agendas. It is no surprise that they were drawn to the Soviet Union and the non-aligned movement whose leaders tended to dominate their countries.

Indira Gandhi had genuine grievances against America. She had to devalue the Indian rupee by more than 50 percent under American pressure when she visited President Johnson seeking aid after drought and famine ravaged the Indian economy. Later, she failed to persuade President Nixon to stop the Pakistani genocide in Bangladesh. Instead, he sent the US Seventh Fleet into the Bay of Bengal to intimidate her when she intervened in Bangladesh in 1971. Never mind that Pakistan struck first, bombing Indian air bases. Never mind that millions of Bangladeshi refugees were pouring into India to escape the genocide. Nixon remained hostile to India. It was only then that India sealed a military alliance with the Soviet Union. The US was already committed to Pakistan.

But the problem started with her father. Jawaharlal Nehru’s foreign policy was quixotic, to say the least. He preached solidarity with China, for which he was duly rewarded when China attacked India in the 1962 border war. He preached non-alignment but was friendly to China, Ho Chi Minh and the Soviet Union. It was President Roosevelt who urged the British to give up India. Yet, Nehru never built up a close relationship with any US president.

Both Nehru and Indira Gandhi felt more comfortable in London than in Washington. Blame it on their British education. Though Nehru had been beaten and jailed by the British during the Indian independence movement, yet he shared their prejudices. The Americans apparently were brash, crass, materialistic. Nehru was not even impressed by President Kennedy. Indira Gandhi later made fun of President Reagan. But she enjoyed a warm relationship with the British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. It is telling that in her early days she sometimes thought of leaving politics and moving to England.

Katherine Frank relates all this in intimate detail in her biography of Indira Gandhi. It is balanced and well-written. The book gives a marvellous picture of the entire Nehru family starting from her grandfather’s time. We see her as a girl, a young woman in love, her conflicting feelings for her father and her husband, her fierce maternal instinct which would tarnish her final years.

I wouldn’t want her back as a leader, but there is so much to admire about her. Beautiful and spirited, she was certainly not lacking in courage. Consider the manner of her death. She was shot dead by two of her Sikh bodyguards in 1984. They said they wanted revenge because she had desecrated their holiest shrine. (She had ordered the army into the Golden Temple in Amritsar to deal with Sikh extremists fighting for an independent homeland.) Commentators wondered why she still employed Sikh bodyguards when their loyalty might be suspect. But that was Indira Gandhi. She couldn’t be seen discriminating against Sikhs. “I am India’s leader,” she said.

The Economist's anti-Indian outburst

The Economist has an anti-Indian article this week. It is urging other nations not to sell nuclear material and technology to India.

The US-India civilian nuclear energy agreement is only the first step to ending India’s isolation in nuclear technology.The 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which includes the US, still has to ease restrictions on exports to India. India also has to meet International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. The Economist urges them to block nuclear cooperation with India:

Governments at the NSG and the IAEA that are unhappy with (the US-India deal ) need to find the courage of their convictions, and block it.

It trots out the old argument that nuclear cooperation with India, which has not signed the non-proliferation treaty, will encourage other countries like Iran to develop their own nuclear weapons. It points out:

China, unhappy at America's coddling of India, is exploring more nuclear co-operation with Pakistan — which in turn threatens to match India, should it step up weapons production or test again.

But that’s why India has not signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty -– for its own security. China, with which it fought a border war in 1962, was already a nuclear power when India conducted its first nuclear test in 1974, and Pakistan is also now a nuclear power.

The Economist frets about the dangers of nuclear proliferation. But so far the opposite has been true. There have been no wars between nuclear powers.

Of course, there is the danger of nuclear material falling into the hands of terrorists. But that could happen anywhere.

So why rail against India?

The Economist may say it’s not alone in raising objections. But compare its article with another which appeared in the International Herald Tribune recently. The latter doesn't t urge other nations to continue nuclear sanctions against India.

English prejudices

The fact is, the Economist is deeply prejudiced. It almost invariably finds some reason to criticise countries in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America.

But I wouldn’t call it racist. It’s simply English. It even whinged about the Scottish Gordon Brown for not having the same gift of the gab as Tony Blair, who of course is English.

The Economist prides itself on its “intelligence”. But it has been patently wrong on major issues. It supported the Iraq war. It wanted Clinton impeached. It even declared Blair a better politician than Clinton. How English can you get?

Chinese agents?

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) is virtually acting as China’s agent, promoting China’s –- not India’s –- interests, writes B Raman, a former Indian official, on the Rediffusion website. It’s a serious allegation, but the party does send delegations to China and maintains relations with the Chinese communist party. Now it is protesting against India’s nuclear energy deal with the US. It is openly against closer Indo-US relations which, as it happens, are also opposed by China. As Raman writes:

For the last two months, the Chinese authorities have been expressing their concern over reports that India has joined hands with the US, Japan and Australia to counter the growing Chinese naval power in the region.

The Indian communists have traditionally drawn inspiration from foreign leaders. The Communist Party of India (CPI) split up in 1962. The CPI continued to follow the Soviet line and received Soviet funds while the breakaway CPI(M) supported the Chinese communist party and its leader, Mao Zedong. Now both the CPI and the CPI (M) are opposing the nuclear deal, united in their anti-Americanism.

I remember when US military aircraft arrived for a joint exercise at an Indian air base in the communist-ruled state of West Bengal in November 2005, the state’s CPI (M) chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, protested vehemently. India could cooperate militarily with Russia or any other country in the world but not with the US, he said.

Now I can’t imagine the scholarly, cultured, incorruptible chief minister of West Bengal as a Chinese agent. But some of his party members have been busy helping the Chinese.

Raman recalls one incident last year:

A Chinese company had won a contract for the construction of a gas pipeline from the Godavari area in Andhra Pradesh. It wanted to bring about 1,000 Chinese engineers to work in the project. The ministry of home affairs was not issuing visas to the Chinese engineers. It asked why it was necessary for the Chinese company to bring in so many engineers when unemployed Indian engineers were available.

There was also a paper prepared by the National Security Council Secretariat of the Prime Minister's Office suggesting that proposals for foreign investments in sensitive sectors such as telecommunications from China, Pakistan and Bangladesh should be subjected to a special security vetting.

Sitaram Yechury of the CPI-M, allegedly at the instance of the Chinese embassy in New Delhi, raised a big hue and cry about it and literally forced the Government of India to order the issue of visas to the Chinese engineers and to drop the proposal for a special security vetting for Chinese investment proposals in sensitive sectors.

The communists could pressure the government because the ruling coalition depends on communist support. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Congress party won only 145 seats in the last general election in 2004. The communists have about 60 seats, the opposition nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 138 seats while independents and regional parties have the rest in a House of 542.

But Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has finally stood up to the communists. He has challenged them to withdraw support to the government if they are opposed to the nuclear energy deal.

Yes, the government could fall if the communists withdraw their support. But a country should be not be held to ransom by a political party whose views echo those of a foreign power.

Communists, cool it

The Indian communists –- the Marxists in parliament, not the Maoist insurgents -- are all sound and fury. When it comes to the crunch, they are likely to chicken out. Kudos to Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh for calling their bluff. He challenged them to withdraw their support if they were dead set against his nuclear agreement with the US. That could bring down the Congress government. But it seems they are not prepared to go so far. Veteran Communist Party of India (Marxist) –- CPI(M) –- leader and former West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu said:

We do not want to topple the government as it would pave the way for the communal BJP to come to power.

Trust an old man -– Basu is 93 –- to show some sense. It would not help the communists at all to bring down the government and pave the way for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to come to power. There’s no love lost between them. The BJP wants the communists to make common cause with them and oppose the deal. But that would be like the Stalin-Hitler pact and as short-lived. They would be at each other’s throats in no time.

The communists are better off supporting the Congress government which is secular and left-of-centre and therefore closer to them. The prime minister knows that; that’s why he dared them to withdraw their support.

It’s time Manmohan Singh put the communists in their place. There are only about 60 communist members of parliament in a House of 542. But they wield disproportionate influence because the ruling Congress party needs all the support it can get: it won only 145 seats in the last election, in 2004. The BJP won 135. Independents and regional parties won the rest.

The communists and the BJP should really stuff their opposition to the nuclear deal. They are claiming it’s a sellout to the US. But don’t they realise it gives India acceptance as a nuclear power? Isn’t India better off getting closer to the US? The IT boom India is enjoying now wouldn’t have been possible without outsourcing and US investments. Even the communist-ruled state of West Bengal is wooing US firms.

The communists are making a big deal about an independent foreign policy and friendship with countries like Iran. Yes, antagonising a fuel-rich country like Iran could hurt India which needs all the energy it can get. But India needs the US far more. Just imagine if the US companies took their business elsewhere. Indian prosperity would vanish in a puff of smoke. We would be back to Indira Gandhi’s time. Look at all the flourishing Asian economies: Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong. All of them owe their prosperity to the US.

How many Indians work in or do business with Cuba, Venezuela or all those other countries dear to the communists? Even their own family members are more likely to go to the US. As for what Iran has to offer, it might be worth reading this article in the Washington Post. But, of course, it’s an American newspaper.

Take the Economist quiz on India

Twelve million people were uprooted  by the Partition riots when India and Pakistan became independent in August 1947. Not the entire Bengal Army rebelled against British rule in the 1857 Indian war of independence -- 7,800 soldiers fought for the British while 131,2000 joined the rebels. In 1901, India had a population of 300 million, of whom 154,000 were British. Now complete the rest of the Indian Independence Quiz in the Economist magazine. I saw it only today, two days after the 6oth anniversary of independence. Get at least 10 out of 12 right and the Economist will acknowledge: "You have the blessings of Saraswati and the memory of an elephant." I got only nine correct and received this consolation: "Pukka. You have not missed your tryst with destiny. And you know what we mean." Ha ha, the Economist is never short of wit and substance.

Singapore, India and Pakistan

Who says one can't run with the hares and hunt with the hounds? Look at Singapore landing plum deals in both India and Pakistan.

Gwadar port in Pakistan's troubled Balochistan province is expected to become fully operational next month, Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reported today. The port will be run by the Singapore Government-linked port operator, PSA International, which used to be known as the Port of Singapore Authority. It won the contract in December last year after Dubai Ports World (DP World) dropped out of the race.

DP World decided not to bid for Gwadar after India's National Security Council expressed security concerns. DP World operates two major terminals in India -- Cochin and Visakhapatnam. But so does PSA International. It operates terminals in Chennai and Tuticorin and is building another terminal at Hazira in Surat, Gujarat, which is expected to be operational in 2009. And yet it has been free to go ahead and operate Gwadar port unlike DP World.

Ports involve national security. The US Congress last year blocked a deal under which DP World would have taken over the ports of New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans and Miami.

Gwadar has strategic importance. It will be the second deep-water port in Pakistan, at the entrance of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Sea and about 460 km west of the other port, Karachi. It is vital for both Pakistan and China, which provided $198 million for the $248 million port project and another $200 million towards building a highway connecting the port with Karachi.

China benefits in two ways. Gwadar provides a transit terminal for crude-oil imports from Iran and Africa to China's Xinjiang region. And, from Gwadar, China can also monitor US naval activity in the Persian Gulf and Indian activity in the Arabian Sea. It was the arrival of US forces in Afghanistan -- at China's doorstep -- in late 2001 that nudged Beijing to step up its involvement in the Gwadar project, reported Asia Times. In March 2002, Chinese vice premier Wu Bangguo laid the foundation for Gwadar port.

Pakistan also gains economically and militarily. India's blockade of Karachi hit Pakistan hard during the 1971 Bangladesh war. Gwadar is much farther away from India than Karachi.

China's involvement in Gwadar set off alarm bells in India and the US, reported the Asia Times in 2005. A Pentagon report described it as part of a Chinese strategy to project its power overseas, the website said and added: 

For India, China-Pakistan collaboration at Gwadar and China's presence in the Arabian Sea heightens its feeling of encirclement by China from all sides.

God grant peace to the world. May there be no tension between India and China and Pakistan. Relations seem all right now. But what if there is another war? Will the Singapore port operator then be allowed to continue operating terminals in India and Pakistan?

India and Singapore enjoy strong ties, Singapore Minister of State for Trade and Industry S Iswaran said yesterday. Indian companies now form the fourth largest foreign contingent in Singapore, with more than 2,500 registered companies spanning diverse industries from IT services, education to logistics and manufacturing. Singapore Government-linked Temasek Holdings and its subsidiaries have been buying stakes in Indian companies such as ICICI Bank, Bharti Group and Mahindra and Mahindra. It's the inevitable result of globalisation bringing economies closer together.

I am not against the Singapore port operator controlling terminals in both India and Pakistan. Political tensions have not prevented Taiwanese and American companies from investing in China. Such economic ties may be a deterrent against war.

Let the people pray

I visited a church and a temple in Singapore today. It's no longer safe to do so in India. Terrorists have started killing people in houses of worship. At least 11 people were killed in a bomb blast at a mosque in Hyderabad yesterday; two months ago at least 28 people were killed when bombs exploded in a temple and a railway station in the Hindu holy city of Varanasi.

It's terrible when people can't even pray safely. The killers seem to be telling the worshippers they can't be protected by God.

No wonder Muslims erupted in anger after the bomb blast in Hyderabad. But the police made matters worse when they opened fire. At least five people were killed.

The news reports which I have read so far have not explained why the police fired on the people. Normally they teargas rioters like the stone-throwing mob they faced yesterday. And if the teargas proves ineffective, they fire into the air.

The  situation  must  have gone  completely out of control for the police to start shooting people. It shows a total breakdown of law and order. No doubt that's what the perpetrators wanted when they set off the bombs.

Hyderabad is peaceful today, say news reports. Maybe it's due to the heightened security and increased police presence. But one should also be grateful to the Muslims. No doubt they realise they are not the only ones being attacked -- the Hindus are just as vulnerable.

Let the good man be

When I compared the communist chief minister of the Indian state of West Bengal to Macbeth five days ago, I didn't mean he was doomed like the Shakespearean hero.

All I meant was, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is a good man, too, who now has blood on his hands. That's no exaggeration. He himself admitted he was to blame for the 14 villagers killed when police fired on an angry crowd protesting against government takeover of their land to build a special economic zone in Nandigram, more than 100 km from Calcutta (Kolkata), six days ago.

But there have been calls for his resignation. Rediff News is asking, "Will Bengal CM resign?" It says that "the thinking heads of Bengal have taken to the streets demanding the chief minister's resignation". That looks like sensational reporting.

Calcutta is my old hometown and I know my fellow Bengalis and others who live there. We tend to be emotional and are easily roused. But do we really want Bhattacharjee to go? If he does step down -- and that's a big if -- who will take his place?

I don't support the communists, but Bhattacharjee has been a good chief minister. Calcutta has seen considerable progress since he succeeded the former chief minister, Jyoti Basu, six years ago. He is trying to bring new industries to the state and create more jobs. To do that, he has to acquire land from the farmers, who are unhappy about the compensation being offered and face an uncertain future. But it's vital to create more jobs and industries. As a West Bengal government spokesman said about the incentives given to build a car factory near Calcutta, if the state government didn't offer a sweet deal, the carmaker would have gone to another state and West Bengal would have been deprived of the jobs and revenues.

The chief minister was not wrong in pushing for development. But he was arrogant. The Statesman reported that he had sent in the police after warning that he wouldn't tolerate the agitation much longer. After the shootings, he didn't condemn the police. He merely said it was an "unfortunate" incident. That was inexcusable. It showed scant regard for human life.

It would have been better if he had offered his resignation when he accepted responsibility for the incident. Others could have asked him to stay on. And people would have been satisfied he genuinely regretted the incident. But he didn't do that; Indian politicians seldom do.

Not that I want him to quit. He and the other senior communist leaders in Calcutta are the best the party has to offer. Bhattacharjee is known for his honesty and integrity. He is an intellectual and a man of culture.

The communist party in the countryside is more rough and tough, often accused of violence and intimidation. Thank goodness the chief minister is a cultured, middle-class intellectual from Calcutta. It could have been much worse.

Sorry, Buddha's no Macbeth

I was wrong when I compared the communist chief minister of the Indian state of West Bengal to Macbeth three days ago. Unlike Macbeth, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee does not seem particularly upset by the deaths he has caused.

Fourteen people died when police fired on angry villagers protesting against government takeover of their land to build a special economic zone and a mega chemical factory hub in Nandigram, more than 100 km from Calcutta (Kolkata), four days ago.

But the chief minister did not condemn the police. He merely said it was an "unfortunate" incident.

It was he who ordered the police to crack down on the agitators. So he had to accept full responsibility for the incident. But his remarks were cursory and grudging. And they came only two days after the incident -- after a political storm during which he was chastised even by his communist predecessor, former chief minister Jyoti Basu.

The chief minister shows scant regard for human life if his only reaction to the death of 14 people is to call it "unfortunate".

But life has apparently become so cheap in West Bengal that any expression of sympathy for the victims earns a stern rebuke from the leading local English newspaper. One should read The Telegraph editorial.

West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi, a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, asked if the shootings couldn't have been avoided. The Telegraph hauled him over the coals. The governor's "emotional outburst" was wrong, it said, because he is expected to advise the government in private.

The Telegraph also criticised the Calcutta High Court for ordering an investigation into the police firing. The court should have waited for the government report, it added.

I was surprised by The Telegraph editorial, especially since the newspaper's own front-page report suggested the police shot to kill -- and not, as expected, to disperse -- the villagers. Those killed had been shot either in the chest or in the stomach, it said. Between 400 and 500 rounds were fired on a crowd of 2,000 villagers, it added. And yet the editorial was critical of those who condemned the killings.

I can imagine why The Telegraph took that line. The chief minister is keen on economic reforms. The special economic zones he wants to create will bring new industries and create more jobs. The state capital, Calcutta, already shows considerable improvement: he is building new facilities and promoting the IT industry. His plans meet the aims and aspirations of the middle class.

But I expect a newspaper to have a conscience too, maybe because I grew up in Calcutta reading The Statesman. There was no Telegraph then. I remember The Statesman boldly stood up to Indira Gandhi even during the Emergency when other newspapers were forced to fawn on her.

The Statesman is no longer Calcutta's leading English newspaper. Even I prefer The Telegraph's sleek look. But The Statesman still has the courage to speak up -- and came out in support of the governor and the high court. It shows a concern for human life that the chief minister and his defenders would do well to emulate.

A good man with blood on his hands

The communist chief minister of the Indian state of West Bengal now reminds me of Macbeth: A good man with blood on his hands, the blood of the people he was expected to serve. The difference is Macbeth killed his king; Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has to answer for the deaths of poor villagers who refused to give up their land for the special economic zones he wants to build. And there was no Lady Macbeth goading him on; only his grand vision of industrial development which alienated the peasants who had been the most faithful supporters of his party .

Personally, I agree West Bengal needs industrial development. Three decades of uninterrupted communist rule have left the state in an economic morass. The communists under the former chief minister Jyoti Basu did not promote industry like Bangalore or Hyderabad. They distributed land among the peasants and supported trade unionism with the result they won election after election. But jobs disappeared as industries moved elsewhere and young, educated middle-class Bengalis with professional qualifications went abroad and other parts of India to earn a living.

Bhattacharjee, who succeeded Basu, has been trying to bring back industries to West Bengal. Thanks to him, the state capital Calcutta (Kolkata) is thriving and has a growing IT industry. But he is facing the same problem as the communists in China: There is unrest in the villages where his government has been trying to acquire land for industrial development.

The problem is not confined to West Bengal. Other Indian states are also trying to build special economic zones. Historian Sumit Sarkar has called it the biggest land grab since Indian independence.

But the conflict is sharper in West Bengal because of the nature of the adversaries: Communists tend to be authoritarian, and the peasants are especially bitter because they feel betrayed by the party they had supported so long.

Reports now say at least 14 people were killed when police fired on villagers in Nandigram, more than 100 km from Calcutta. The police opened fire even though there were women and children in the crowd which pelted them with stones and home-made bombs. Bhattacharjee can't blame the police. He made his intentions quite clear before sending the police to Nandigram, where an agitation had been going on for more than two months against plans to build a special economic zone and a mega chemical hub. 

The Statesman published from Calcutta reports: "Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee (at a rally in Calcutta three days ago) ...threatened that the state of affairs at Nandigram 'won’t be tolerated any longer'. "

A senior police officer said as many 3,000 policemen were mobilised. The chief minister clearly meant business. He now says he is shocked by the deaths but the police fired in self-defence.

That may be so, but the fact remains communists can be notoriously intolerant. Plenty of communists in the villages and small towns of West Bengal have been accused of violence and intimidation.

Bhattacharjee himself is admired for his honesty and integrity. But he likes to have his own way. We saw that when he wanted the police commissioner of Calcutta elected president of the Cricket Association of Bengal. It wasn't enough that he held power over the whole state, he wanted to decide who ran the cricket association too.

No wonder he couldn't tolerate the agitation any longer. He had to impose his authority. After all, he is the chief minister.

Communists vs peasants

I wonder if the communist chief minister of the Indian state of West Bengal could sleep last night after at least 11 people were killed when his police forces fired on the peasants his party claims to represent.

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is an intellectual well-versed in history. He must know  he faces the same problem as China: Agitation by peasants driven off their land for industrial development.

I respect Bhattacharjee though I don't share his ideology. He is an honest, upright, Bengali middle-class bhadralok, which is the Bengali word for a gentleman. I myself am a Bengali  from West Bengal and understand the need for industrial development.

But neither he nor I can understand how the peasants feel. We are thinking of industrial development. They, on the other hand, face loss of land and their entire way of life. The government is paying compensation. But will a retrenched middle-class professional work as a labourer even if he can't find any other job? Why should peasants then be expected to willingly give up their land?

Some are fighting tooth and nail. Police were sent to Nandigram, a rural area more than 100 km from the state capital, Calcutta (Kolkata), to restore law and order yesterday. There was a bloodbath instead.   

Could it have been avoided? Only if the government did not want to build special economic zones or if the peasants were prepared to give up their land.

Not everyone sees the conflict in such stark terms. Critics have been saying the compensation is inadequate. Historian Sumit Sarkar has called it the biggest land grab since Indian independence for it's happening not only in West Bengal but in other parts of India as well.

But such criticism doesn't answer the key question: Should development be halted when it hurts the peasants?

The BBC has some good analysis in its South Asia section though it doesn't answer the key question.

In India, until the shootings yesterday, the media were more interested in the cricket World Cup tournament being played in the Caribbean. They were catering to their readers.

Bhattacharjee himself is a cricket fan. He won't be enjoying the live telecasts, though, after what happened yesterday.

I must admit I thought the opposition leader Mamata Banerjee was acting in her own interests when she led the protest against a government takeover of farmland to build a car factory near Calcutta. Budget cars are expected to be built there by the Tatas, who became one of the world's biggest steelmakers after buying Corus, the Anglo-Dutch company, two months ago.

But, after the shootings, it's impossible to ignore the depth of resentment among the villagers. They may have to be appeased even if it means slower economic growth.

Ganguly's back, now Chappell get out!

Yoohoo, Sourav Ganguly has been recalled to the Indian cricket team! As The Telegraph reports, it's a "debacle" for India's cricket coach, Greg Chappell.

A year ago, I wrote the Chappie should be fired after he gave the finger to Indian cricket fans in Calcutta (Kolkata) who were protesting against the local hero, Ganguly, being dropped from the team after a spat with him.

I wonder how the abominable Aussie had the gall to insult the fans even after the Indian team lost that match.

Maybe the Chappie knew the Indian cricket control board would take no action against him. He was right. He continues to coach the Indian team despite its disgraceful performance under him.

Now the Indians have finally been hammered in South Africa, skittled out for 91 runs -- 91 runs in a one-day international! -- the Indian team selectors have finally caved in to public pressure and recalled Ganguly for the Test matches against South Africa starting this month.

It's true Ganguly was in poor form as a batsman when he was dropped from the team. But he has an excellent record as the team captain. He led India to the 2003 World Cup finals and holds the Indian record for the most number of Test victories as the team captain from 2000 to 2005. He has scored more than 5,000 runs in Tests and more than 10,000 in one-day internationals. And a man with a record like that was dropped on the insistence of a foreign coach who had just taken charge of the team!

Chappell and his brother, Ian, who was the Australian cricket captain, were infamous for their unsporting behaviour. He should have never been appointed India's cricket coach in the first place. He has merely sown dissension in the team, led it into a bad patch and nearly succeeded in wrecking Ganguly's career.

And he even insulted Indian members of parliament. When questions were raised in parliament about India's poor performance in South Africa, he remarked, "“I’m not surprised. They (MPs) are paid to do so in Parliament." At least, he had the good sense to avoid the B-word: bribed.

Actually, this abominable Aussie can be crafty too. 

He was infamously involved in an underarm bowling incident in a New Zealand-Australia one-day international in 1981. His brother, Ian, ordered him to bowl underarm, thus ensuring Australia would win the match and avoid a tie. Their unsporting behaviour caused an outcry. Both brothers later expressed regret and embarrassment. But maybe that was just for public consumption. Mean Greg, the abominable Aussie, continues to make mischief in India. And he gets away with it, even now.

Even after the debacle in South Africa -- and the recall of Ganguly -- India's chief selector, Dilip Vengsarkar, denied that Chappell's performance as coach was under scrutiny. ""He has been appointed till the World Cup (next year). The players have to perform. He can plan, strategies and coach. But can't go out and play," said Vengsarkar, absolving the coach of all responsibility for the team's poor performance. Why have a coach at all, then, if he can't improve the team?

The abominable Aussie will, no doubt, be happy to keep his job. After all, he shows no sign of leaving. Why should he walk away from a job that pays him about $175,000 a year? Not only is the Chappie getting paid good money; he can also insult the "natives", who seem to be turning the other cheek to the "sahib".

Yes, the Chappie was brought in last year on a two-year contract to coach the Indian team till the World Cup in West Indies next year. But surely, the contract can be terminated. The Indian cricket control board surely makes enough money from match receipts and television rights in cricket-crazy India to pay compensation to the Chappie.

Mike Selvey, writing in the Guardian, says: "Knowing Greg, I suspect he would welcome Ganguly if he demonstrates form, fitness and commitment."

Oh yes, he will certainly grin and bear it. The Chappie's got no choice if he wants to keep his job. If he doesn't quit now even after the return of Ganguly, whom he dropped from the team, we will know he can be not only rude and insulting but is quite thick-skinned too.

I, of course, write as a Bengali from Calcutta. Naturally, I am delighted that Ganguly, also a Bengali from Calcutta, has finally got the better of the abominable Aussie.