Make America Go Away

 

This time, I’m venturing way above my pay grade, or domain expertise. International affairs. However, there’s no way to ignore the current cataclysmic events. One unhinged, narcissistic megalomaniac, in between his tweets, decided to attack Iran ("for a little excursion," as he put it) and look at what havoc has been wrought across the world. Far away in India which has no part in the war and its theatre, despite Police contacts, I managed an LPG refill with great difficulty, after a long delay. When this one runs out, I don’t know whether and when another refill will happen. Induction cookers have disappeared from the market. 

So many people have died, including a large number of schoolchildren. The fuel prices are shooting up all the time. International travel has almost come to a standstill. The entire world GDP growth has taken a nosedive. Major stock indices have fallen steeply. One lesser-known fact is, around 25% of global fertilizer production passes through the Strait of Hormuz - the war is causing worldwide spikes in agricultural costs and threatening global food security. The world is staring at a prolonged period of stagflation. 

In a way, I’m kinda happy that the Iran war happened. Hopefully, Bicycle Pump, that overgrown, entitled child would learn that there’re limits to his filthy, autocratic ways and language. However, things will get much worse before he realises that. 

He knows that he has bitten off way more than he can chew. He had obviously no clue as to how things might unfold. He has surrounded himself with bootlickers whose only priority is to anticipate what he wants to hear and then gleefully feed him the same in that echo chamber. Even an 8^th standard kid with a decent Atlas could’ve seen that in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran had an ace up its sleeve. A 9^th standard History book could have told him the resilience and the ingenuity of the Iranians. A 10^th standard knowledge of Economics could’ve shown him the havoc the war, and even before that the entire tariff madness, would have caused the world and America too. TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) has now been replaced by TAMU – Trump Always Messes Up. 

However, despite knowing this, Trump will not be bothered. You know why? Even though 60 % of the Americans are against the war, his approval ratings amongst the MAGA Republicans have shot up to 100 %. As long as that holds, Trump will blithely carry on doing whatever he thinks he is doing for which the acronym is FAFO. There can only be two ways this abomination will stop. 

One, if he makes the cardinal mistake of putting American boots on the ground. Once the body bags start coming back from the trenches, that 100 % will start dipping. He was asked by reporters whether he was putting boots on the ground. His reply: “If I was, I won’t tell you but I’m not putting boots on the ground.” Brilliant – make of it what you will. 

The second way is if somehow, either through adverse mid-term election results or through being fed up with an attrition war, the MAGA public and through them the MAGA Republicans turn away from their rock-solid loyalty to Trump and the approval rating starts dipping – even a 10 % dip would make Orange-man panic. 

The whole world is against America now. It’s about time America stood up against that one man, Trump. And, save the world. MAGA now stands for Make America Go Away.

Keralam yum yum

 

These name-changes have broken out on our body politic like a body rash. Thus, Calcutta became Kolkata. Madras became Chennai. Bombay became Mumbai. Theatre Road became Shakespeare Sarani. Harrington Street became Ho Chi Minh Sarani. The latest is Keralam. 

Some of the changes are bizarre and do not have any logic. There actually never was a city called Kolkata. The Britishers purchased three villages (Sutanati, Kalikata and Gobindapur –and built up a city from scratch so the only name of the city ever was Calcutta. Gobindapur was the biggest and most prosperous of the three villages, where the Fort William and Maidan, etc., practically the heart of the city is situated. So, if there was a harking back to the past, it should have been Gobindapur. If one went even further back, it may not have been anything but an unnamed jungle or a water body. When Calcutta became Kolkata, an MLA from Darjeeling raised the demand to rename Darjeeling as Darling because apparently that was the original name of Darjeeling. 

What’s the point of it all? For the masses it’s just a declaration by a politician, a rose-by-another name kind of a thing. Not so. There are serious costs involved – the administrative costs of assembly/ parliament debates, updating signages, railway station records, airport records, bus records, official stationery, all official records including digital records, websites, business address changes, changes in the legal documents and so on. The estimable cost for changing the name of a large city alone is around Rs. 1,000 crores. Then there are the imponderables of the cost of rebuilding brand equity, goodwill etc. of things associated with the name. These have been built over such a long period of time and the costs are so much that the IITs and IIMs haven’t changed their names. So, they continue to be IIT, Madras, IIM, Calcutta and so on. There’re now high-decibel balloons floating to have the name of the country as “Bharat” only and obliterate “India” from all records. THAT is estimated to cost at least Rs. 14,000 cr in calculable costs alone. 

The recent name changes have been justified on the grounds of removing the vestiges of colonialism. Really? During colonial rule, there were the lords and masters and there were subjects. Has that changed? The lords and masters had saat khoon maaf; the subjects had only limited rights, as long as they were subservient and didn’t transgress the lords and masters and their divine right to rule. Different rules applied to the two classes and the rules kept getting made up for the colonised at the whims and mercies of the colonisers. 

Has that changed? No, Siree, not by a country mile. In fact, things have got worse. Police continue to slap cases on people left, right and centre, on mere suspicion, without enough evidence which will stand up in a court of law. Even when a case has no merit prima facie, the arrested persons stay behind bars for years, only to be discharged because even charges cannot be framed. Ministers lie in legislative bodies – even colonisers didn’t stoop to this. Thus a Minister proclaimed that they have done away with sedition laws while in actual fact, the replacement laws had become far more draconian and arbitrary. There has been severe centralisation of power and economic resources and suppression of inconvenient data and dissent which again are colonial characteristics. So, obviously, evisceration of colonialism is not the purpose behind the name changes. The only and only purpose for the name changes is to whip up false, jingoistic hyper-nationalism to fool the masses so that power can be perpetuated. 

Meanwhile, despite all this nonsense of not shaking hands on the Cricket field and laser-eye wala photoshoots, we are looking increasingly like a servile nation. The things that Trump has been doing to us since starting his second term and the language he and his coterie have been using about us smirks of a rabid colonial mindset. The fact that we are not able to push back or respond entrenches the image of a helpless, servile nation. We parole murder convicts and Trump paroles us for 30 days to “allow” us to buy Russian oil. 

We cannot really wish away our past by dropping chapters from school text books and changing names. The past existed; we need to accept it and not bury our heads in the sand. Many decisions taken by many people – both colonisers and colonised – were products of those times. Maturity lies in cherishing the good things that were done while critiquing the “bad” things with allowances for the milieu and thinking of those times. Constantly harking back to the past and trying to repaint it in polarising colours would keep us forever in the past. Let’s get a move on. 

In truth, these name-changes do not serve any substantive purpose. Their currency shows our under-confidence as a nation and our immaturity. We have done well and much better than other countries in similar circumstances. It would be a whole lot more creditable if we now accept our past and look upon it with detachment. Rather than spending so much money on silly things like name-changes, let’s use that money to ensure that not a single Indian goes hungry, every Indian lives with basic dignity and every single child gets a decent education. Only then shall we have “arrived” as a nation.

Whose file is it anyway?

 

Kashmir files, Kerala files, Bengal files, and now, Epstein files. I’m deeply dismayed by this intrusion of filmmakers and others into what is strictly a bureaucrat’s domain. 

A file is a sacrosanct thing, built carefully and nurtured assiduously with a bureaucrat’s blood, sweat and tears. You take the files away from a bureaucrat, you’re committing “sar tan se juda” (segregating the head from the torso). 

I didn’t know the layers of meanings attached to things around files. For me, a file merely meant a folder with papers inside. I joined my first posting in the IPS after my predecessor and the SP had a falling out. Shortly after, an Inspector asked me to recommend a reward for him for some good work. When I told him that this was already done by my predecessor, he said that ALL my predecessor’s recommendations, good, bad or indifferent, had been “filed.” I couldn’t understand then but later learnt that something “being filed” meant that it was buried six feet under, never to be found again. 

A file is not exactly an immaculate conception, i.e., a Babu doesn’t just produce it out of thin air. It starts with an FR, i.e., a Fresh Receipt, a fresh paper received by the Babu. He labels it a PUC, i.e., a Paper Under Consideration for the first time and on later occasions on the same matter as FRs. There is then a mysterious entity called a DA (Dealing Assistant) who puts the PUC to file and pen to paper to “initiate” the file. This is a critical thing. In 90 % of the cases, the final fate of the PUC depends on that first “noting.” After the noting, the DA puts his signature below and the file starts its laborious trudge upwards. 

Each one on the food chain, the Section Officer (SO), the Asst Secretary (AS), Deputy Secretary (DS), Joint Secretary (JS) and so on puts in his “valuable” inputs and his signature until it reaches the Secretary or the Minister or whoever is the Competent Authority (CA) all of whom put in their deliberations and signatures. At each stage, a lot of very peculiar words get added in the “notings” – PUC (Paper Under Consideration), FR (Fresh Receipt), supra, FPP (From Previous Page), FN (Forenoon), AN (Afternoon), SFA (Submitted for Approval), SFKA (Submitted for Kind Approval), NFA (No Further Action), draft, redraft, re-re-draft of U.O. (Unofficial letter), Letter, Memo, Self-contained proposal and so on. The file can be Master file, Linked file, Single File System (SFS), Reference File and so on. During one of my assignments, the only contribution my boss used to make was to substitute my name in the draft letter by his – that was all. 

In a classic case, one such file landed up on the desk of Lord Curzon who went through the various outpourings by various officials along the chain. He wrote, "I agree with the gentleman whose signature resembles a squiggle." It is believed that that is how the Victoria Memorial got built in Calcutta. 

After the approval, again the file travels majestically down that food chain until the same DA takes the final action. 

When I became a boss, the subordinate staff realised that the easiest way to get me to “approve” anything inconvenient was to put up the notes in Hindi. The Hindi used in these files is a formidable language. Thus, I’m not a PhD but a Vidya Vachaspati; post-retirement, I became a Ghumakkad Pradhyapak (Visiting Professor). I’ve invested in Pradhan Mantri Vaya Vandana Yojana. The file notings in Hindi include terms like Apariharya (Unavoidable), Anveshan (Investigation), Adhisuchna (Notification), Vinirdisht (Specified), Anirneet (Pending), Aabantan (Allotment), Agrasaarit (Forwarded). When I caught on to this, I started writing “Please discuss” or “Please attach an English translation.” That put paid to that particular stratagem. 

The files themselves have certain labels, Immediate, Urgent and Priority, depending on whether the DA can sit over it for a week, a month or for eternity, respectively. Then the files and the outgoing letter, U.O., etc. have classifications like “Restricted,” “Confidential,” “Secret” and “Top Secret.” The rules of this classification itself are classified by the Ministry of Home Affairs so I’m not reproducing them here. However, Department of Defence Production (DDP) has given their version on their website: 

“TOP SECRET” shall be applied to information and equipment, the unauthorised disclosure of which could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the National Security or national Interest. 

“SECRET” shall be applied to information and equipment, the unauthorized disclosure of which could be expected to cause serious damage to the National Security or National Interests or cause serious embarrassment to the Government in its functioning. 

“CONFIDENTIAL” shall be applied to information and equipment, the unauthorised disclosure of which could be expected to cause damage to National Security or could be prejudicial to the National Interests or would embarrass the Government in its functioning. 

“RESTRICTED” shall be applied to information and equipment which is essentially meant for official use only and which should not be published or communicated, to anyone except for official purpose. 

BTW, as per rules, all notings in these files can only be in blue or black ink, except the final approval or refusal thereof, which can be in red. 

I once found a food recipe book marked “Restricted.” I wonder what devastation will be caused if it falls into wrong hands. Maybe, someone, somewhere will produce a more efficient babu to deal with PUCs. 

The replies to the PUCs have deeper meanings. “Under consideration” means, “We’ve lost the file/ paper.” “Under active consideration” means, “We’ve lost the file/ paper and are trying to find it.” “Filed” means it’s a dead letter/ issue. 

Now there are all these files without our being able to put in PUCs, FRs, FPPs, NFAs and our squiggles and we are really chagrined. One of us, Mr. Hardeep Singh Puri has made it into the Epstein Files and the rest of us are all filled (filed?) with envy.