Grist to the Mill!

A few days ago, in discussion with a visitor to the Alliance University, the topic of training for Cross Cultural Management came up. The visitor a man from the corporate world said that many of these training sessions are a hoax because the trainer has rarely if at all travelled to the countries he/she talks about and the end result is that when the trainee really travels overseas they find themselves shortchanged and wanting to strangle the trainer!
Following this, I said, that we are probably the only nation in the world whose history has been written by foreigners and in that context we as a nation have been shortchanged.Our discussion was short and a little vague, but this is what was in my mind........................
John Mills produced his magnum opus 'The History of British India', in 1801, which propelled him to stardom, post a very ordinary career. Mills made his name by severely attacking Indian's in general and talking about their general lack of culture and 'backwardness'.

This is what Mills had to say, on the subject:

A duly qualified man can obtain more knowledge of India in one year in his closet in England than he could obtain during the course of the longest life, by the use of his eyes and ears in India.

If you are wondering what a 'closet' is, Mills, is talking about his toilet in England. The further question is why did Mills, make this statement? Was it to cover up the fact that he did not visit, India, once, or the fact that he knew no Indian language, unlike say the German 'Max Mueller'. The greater tragedy is that, the tome he produced was embraced by the British East India Company and used as a training manual for their India postings, causing their officers to set foot in India with a jaundiced eye.

Mills, for some reason, concludes that Indian history began in 4000 BC, so everything pertaining to Indian history has to be accommodated in this time frame. If archeo-astronomical data seems to indicate, that the Ramayana dates to 7000 BC, Mills will not accept it and it is labelled a 'myth' because it does not fit his straight jacketed model of India and Indians. The myth story, has perpetuated to our times because Mills, said, in 1801, that Indian's are a backward lot and the British were here to civilize Indian's.

A nation's self esteem comes from its history and achievement and it is interesting to see that Mills had not a single nice thing to say about India? Was he the head of a 'propaganda' machine working for the East India Company? If so, he did a great job, but if he was masquerading as a historian, his tome should have been consigned to the waste paper basket a couple of centuries ago, beacuse as far as I'm concerned you should have been there and done that, before talking!

Loose Cannons!

A week ago the Indian Navy, struck a body blow for shipping, world wide, by sinking a pirate vessel in the Gulf of Aden and capturing the fleeing pirates.With this amazing operation the Indian Navy has clearly established its reach & prowess.
For me it was a redemption of sorts seeing the INS Khukhri being part of the operation, because in 1971, the INS Khukhri was a ship the Indian Navy lost to the Pakistan Navy, in a sea battle.
In a move to take on piracy, our Defense minister is toying with the idea of having 'Sea Marshals' or armed security men on board, merchant ships to protect them.The issue is, ships unlike organizations cannot have 'matrix organizations', where the reporting structure is loose and not clearly established. The point is, will the 'sea marshal' work under the command of the ships captain or will he/she operate as an independent entity answering only to his/her call? On board an Indian ship the authority of the captain is supreme and is established by the Constitution of India ( Merchant Shipping Act 1958 ). This debate has been raging in western Europe and the USA for a while now and no answer has been found.No ships captain would like to see a loose cannon running around his ship.
Another idea is to have a 'fortified' area on board, where crew can secure themselves under attack from pirates and wait to be rescued by a rescue force. Assume this scenario played out on a crude oil carrier with 100000 Tons of crude oil? What would prevent the pirates from blowing up this floating bomb, before the rescue force arrived?
While the Defense Minister's zest is commendable, his lack of domain knowledge is painfully evident and eventually like all conflicts the solution to this vexed problem as well, will have to be found by diplomats on land rather than by guns at sea!

Choices we make...............................

Every time I watch Fredrick Forsyths classic 'The Day of the Jackal' there is a nuance of life that I see, afresh.
To fill you in, the story is about, France in the 1960's, having about lost its last colony in Africa ( Algeria ). The architect of this surrender is their president and WW 2 hero General Charles De Gaulle. A miffed group of army personnel feeling betrayed decide to bump off the president and so hire the 'Jackal' a shadowy Englishman to do the job. Now begins the cat & mouse game, between the French police & Jackal.
The defining moment for me in this superb thriller, is the point where the Jackal gets to hear that the police are on his trail and as per the terms of his contract can ditch the assignment. As he waits, in his 'Alfa Romeo', at a fork in the road one taking him to Paris and the other on to Italy, he you can see his mind ruminating over the choice that he is to make. Flee to safety in Italy or press on to Paris? Take up the challenge and kill De Gaulle or choose safety and admit failure?
The Jackal, chooses the challenge, drives on to Paris, fails to kill De Gaulle and is shot, to be buried in an unmarked grave by the wayside..............Had he fled? Did his arrogance get in the way of his judgement?
He made a choice and paid the price. Fleeing to Italy would have been a different price to pay, maybe being caught at the border and jailed, for life.
Choices in life are killers, you pay a price, for every choice you make, one way or the other and ergo there are no absolutely rights or wrong choices. There is that element of grey in an inelegant world, which creates success and failure, opportunity and threat.

Like Charles De Gaulle would have said:

Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back on himself. He imposes his own stamp of action, takes responsibility for it, makes it his own.

What he did not say, was the price that you pay!

Mad Monkeys and Dictators!

The freshly minted Indian parliament saw a strange language being spoken. Hitherto the only other tongues heard there were Hindi, English & Hindustani.Curious parliamentarians were told that this language was Kannada and spoken in what was called Mysore. The gentleman who spoke this language further made a strange request, he said that the President of India should alter between the north & south!
The same year, a north Indian city saw a strange problem. A rabid monkey was at war with mankind and had bitten about a hundred people. The monkey could not be put down, because in this land, for Hindus, the monkey embodies the God 'Hanuman'. The Prime Minister of India shot off a furious letter to the Chief Minister, asking if he planned to hand over the city and eventually the state to monkeys? Sanity was restored and the mad monkey met its end, whatever its standing might have been.
The year I'm alluding to is 1950! One can see the attempt at inclusiveness and rationality, since which we ( India ) have bungled along, from one crisis to another, even while saying that we are growing to be an economic power.The inclusiveness that the gent from Mysore proposed has all but disappeared even as the disparity between the rich & poor widens and rationality went out of the window with the Babri Masjid & the burning of passengers at Godhra, in Gujarat.
Greater wealth has brought about a strange myopia and lassitude in handling issues which require urgent attention. The politician in India as well as the general well heeled population feel that we will not have an Egypt like uprising here because we go to the polls every five years and elect a motley crew of politicians, to run our ship. Absolute hogwash! The Indian poor is a patient animal but one can feel that patience running thin and when it eventually wears, it is going to be a day of reckoning for many.Unfortunately these kind of revolutions are rarely directed and have tragic consequences for the innocent as well.
Has the Libyan dictator Col.Gaddafi met his end? Amidst increasing chaos the dictator says his people love him? Do they, after 200 or more protesters have been killed and exapts of all hues flee Libya? Shades of a mad monkey?