Ms. Clinton Envies Indian Politicians

On the night of Sept 11, 2012 the American consulate in Bengazi, Libya was attacked by a horde of armed assailants. A second attack in the early morning the next day resulted into the death of 4 Americans, including the American Ambassador Chris Stevens. There was a predictable reaction in America with Republicans demanding the head of whoever was responsible. The Senate and the House called hearings and Madam Secretary Ms. Hillary Clinton testified before the Senate and the House. She was grilled thoroughly and there is talk that this incident may become a huge if not fatal impediment to Ms. Clinton’s Presidential ambitions, which, incidentally, she has neither confirmed nor denied (the ambitions, I mean).

Prior to the dreaded Senate hearing, Ms. Clinton invited me, an obscure Indian American blogger of American political matters, for an informal chat. American politicians do this all the time. They often call on me to discuss various political issues because I am so insignificant that they can say pretty much anything to me without having to worry about the consequences. They, in turn, get an invaluable insight into an Indian-centric view of the American politics. After all, there must be something that the greatest democracy on earth can learn from the biggest democracy on earth. I met Ms. Clinton in an undisclosed secure location. After exchanging pleasantries we began the conversation.

HC: You have lived in India for 30 years and now you have been here for the past decade or so. You understand Indian politics and you have some faint idea about American politics (faint idea is right. I am just learning the basics of the greatest democracy on earth). I want to ask you some questions. I want to know how your Indian politicians manage to do what they do. 

Me: Madam Secretary, it is a great honor for me and all that, but surely you can just pick up the phone and call on any Indian politician and he/she will be more than happy to answer any of your questions. In fact, most of them will be giddy that you called, the way American teenage girls might be giddy if Justin Bieber calls them. What could you possibly learn from me about Indian politicians that the Indian politicians themselves wouldn’t teach you while falling over themselves in earnest delight?

HC: You really have a very faint idea about American politics, haven’t you? If American media comes to know that I called some Indian politician to take political lessons, I will be crucified at the altar of American exceptionalism and American greatness. We are a country that doesn’t learn from anybody or anything. Heck, we don’t even learn from ourselves. Anyway, suffice it to say that it is not practical for me to do that. So, without wasting any more time in idle banter, tell me the secret of Indian politicians.

Me: ?

HC: (exasperated, and speaking like a teacher would speak to a particularly slow-witted child) A few days ago Pakistani troops killed two Indian soldiers and beheaded one of them. Then they took the head of the slain Indian soldier as a trophy where Hafeez Saeed, the head of a Pakistani terrorist organization that doesn’t exist, declared a prize for the severed head. And Indian Minister of External Affairs, Mr. Salman Khurshid didn’t even bat an eyelid. Indian Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh mumbled something like ‘It can’t be business as usual with Pakistan’ and promptly ignored the whole incident. Indian Home Minister Mr. Sushilkumar Shinde went one beyond and blamed the Hindus for terror. And still there is no outcry against this in India. Indian media people are rallying to defend these completely idiotic and horrendous comments. Imagine what would happen if I declare that the Evangelical Christians and the Republican Party is responsible for the terrorist attacks against America. I will be lynched in public and Democrats will cease to exist as a party for the next hundred years. So what is the secret? What secret magic wand do Indian politicians possess that makes the majority of Indians meekly accept such anti-national behavior from them?

Me:

HC: Compare this to the wholly jingoistic brouhaha in the American media. Poor Susan Rice did not describe the Bengazi incident as a terrorist attack and she was hounded out of her future job. When a legitimate peace-mongering Chuck Hagel, a former war hero, was considered for the job of Defense Secretary, his own party revolted against him for being a peacenik. And in India, the media is training its guns against the General of your army who simply threatened to respond in kind. Why can’t our American media be like Indian media?

Me:

HC: Pakistan has attacked India several times. Pakistani terrorists have launched innumerable terror attacks in India. Just a few years ago a bunch of Pakistani terrorists launched a war in Bombay and killed hundreds of people. And as a response to this heinous attack, all that the Indian Government is doing, is launching peace process after peace process with the same people who keep killing Indians. And Indian opposition party is busy fighting within themselves instead of fighting the ruling coalition or standing up for the common Indians. Why can’t the American opposition party behave like the Indian opposition?

Me:

HC: In 1979 Iran held the American Embassy hostage and kept them hostage for a year. Ever since then we, America, have terminated all official and diplomatic relations with Iran. Our president of that time, Jimmy Carter, lost his reelection massively and the Republicans ruled America on the slogan of the pusillanimity of Democrats for 12 years. We goaded our lackey Saddam Hussein to launch an 8 year war against Iran. We have laws that will levy heavy fines on any American company that does business with Iran. Compare that with India. Half the people in Bollywood are falling over themselves to declare how they are best friends with Pakistan. India recently renewed its cricketing ties with Pakistan. That is like American Baseball team playing against Al Qaida in a friendly match. Hell, we don’t even play Cuba even though Cuba is insignificant and has never killed any Americans. Can you imagine such a thing ever happening in America?

Me:

HC: And look at me! I have been the First Lady of America for 8 years. I have been a Senator for several years. I topped my class in a very prestigious university. But that wasn’t enough for the people of America to anoint me as the Democratic nominee 5 years ago. And look at India. An imbecile gets anointed the future king of India’s ruling party just because of his last name. Why can’t I get anointed the Democratic nominee just because I share the last name of the most popular President in American history?

Me:

HC: I really wish to know how the Indian politicians keep winning the elections despite this behavior. I want to know how Indian media continues to smoke the peace pipe while Pakistan continues its bestial, barbaric behavior. Why can’t the American politicians and media behave like Indian politicians and media? 

Me: Madam Secretary, I have only two points to make. First is, beware what you wish for, lest it come true. And the second is, the real question is, why don’t the Indian politicians and media behave like American politicians and media, rather than the other way around. And unfortunately I don’t have answer to that.

NRA Solves the Unemployment Problem

[National Rifle Association (NRA) is an enormously powerful organization in America and it has always presented a dilemma for me, as an Indian American blogger of American political matters. You see, there is absolutely nothing in India that can be compared to NRA. I can always compare the Republicans and Democrats to the UPA and NDA; I can compare the various factions of the Democrats or Republicans to the regional satraps (such as DMK, Shiv Sena, Mullahyam, Lallu and so on). But there is nothing that comes even close to the nature and clout of the NRA. Indian democracy has a lot more decades to grow and mature (!) before anything like NRA comes up.]

In the wake of the heinous school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, Mr. Wayne Lapierre, the CEO of National Rifle Association (NRA), claimed that he would advocate putting armed guards in schools as a preventive measure against gun-violence (oops, my bad. It is not gun-violence, it is people-violence. As the NRA and the gun-enthusiasts constantly remind us, “Guns don’t kill people; People kill people”). Since then, I was eager to meet with him. Here was a man who had an absolutely brilliant way of solving problems. I was dying to meet him and enlist his help in solving really vexing issues facing the world, such as poverty, hunger, AIDS, global economic slowdown, Indian cricket team’s pathetic performance and so on. And it wasn’t long before I had the opportunity to meet him in person. You see, as an Indian American blogger of American political matters, nobody refuses me when I want to interview them. I called my Republican contact (the one who had welcomed me into GOP’s Post-Mortem session) and he happily set up a meeting with the brilliant Mr. LaPierre. He agreed to meet me on a large shooting range somewhere in the Midwest.

As I approached the shooting range for our meeting, I was feeling a sense of inadequacy and inferiority. As a kid growing up in India I had almost no familiarity with people (remember, guns don’t kill people; people kill people. Ergo, gun = people). When I was in NCC (National Cadet Corps) I was given a very old people, a bolt-action Enfield 303 and I had the privilege of shooting 20 rounds in an open shooting range with that old people. My people was rusty and heavy and had to be reloaded after every 5 rounds. We had to go and retrieve the fired rounds. With such a pathetic experience with people, I was legitimately apprehensive about meeting Mr. LaPierre. But the comely receptionist put me at ease and offered me her own people, a small handpeople with .22 caliber (As a policy, Mr. LaPierre meets people only when they are carrying at least one people with them, unloaded of course). Even though the inside of NRA maintains the policy of carrying only unloaded weapons (this is really nice of them. They want the rest of the America to be full of loaded weapons, but the inside of their building to be unloaded), she assured me that it was empty for my own protection. She was afraid that I might accidentally shoot myself or other people with that people. She ushered me into a large conference room that was adorned with portraits of various people. No, these were the real people, human beings. Not people, the instruments with which people kill people. Carl Walther, Bartolomeo Beretta, Richard Gatling, Mikhail Kalashnikov, Oliver Winchester and many other pioneers in the science of killing people efficiently, that either invented or popularized the various peoples such as Walther PPK, Beretta 0.25, AK-47, Winchester etc. I sat awkwardly, twirling the little people around my finger. 

Mr. LaPierre entered the room and extended his hand for a handshake. I scrambled to my feet and the little people fell from my hands. We began the interview.

WL: Shoot! 

Me: (Sheepishly) I wouldn’t know how to. (Then I saw a look of incomprehension on WL’s face and realized that the command ‘shoot’ was for me to begin the interview)

Me: Oh, sorry about the misunderstanding. Mr. LaPierre, I would like to congratulate you for the brilliant suggestion you made recently to solve the problem of school shootings. Can you please elaborate a little on that?

WL: Certainly. We, at NRA, believe that the only way to stop the shootings in the schools is to put armed guards in the school and also to teach the teachers how to shoot straight in case a madman barges into their school and starts shooting people. Better still, we should hire gun-enthusiasts as teachers and let them carry their arsenal when they go for teaching. The current teaching credentials program is highly inadequate. It doesn’t include a firearms-based self-defense training and what is the result? Any idiot can walk into a school and shoot up the place while the teachers try to hide behind desks or in the closets instead of shooting the bastard down. Tell me what is more important in a school? Teaching the kids or shooting the idiots trying to kill them? Think of the collateral benefits. We have millions of unemployed people in this country and many of them are great with firearms. We can solve the unemployment problem with a simple change in our education policy. We can hire a bunch of unemployed people and train them to use firearms if they don’t know them already. Then we hire them as teachers or school marshals just like the airlines do. It is simple really; the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. In fact we are also considering a recommendation to teach kids how to shoot so that they can defend themselves. Anyway most of the boys shoot Nerf guns and water guns at home. So why not the real guns? Shooting should be a mandatory subject along with math and science. 

Me: I believe this is absolutely a great idea. If school kids are dying of guns, what could be smarter than putting more guns in their vicinity? But let me play the devil’s advocate here for a moment. As some of my liberal friends have pointed out, what if the so-called armed guard goes crazy and starts shooting? What if he falls asleep on the job and some kids purloin the gun, purely as a prank, and accidently end up shooting other kids? What if the armed guard is trigger-happy and starts shooting at imaginary threats and ends up accidently shooting kids or teachers? What if teachers go bonkers in the middle of a school day due to the stress of dealing with pesky kids and start shooting up the place? These irritating liberals believe that the only thing that is preferable to a bad guy with a gun is a bad guy with no gun, or at least, “a bad guy with no gun is better than a bad guy with a pistol, who, in turn, is better than a bad guy with a semi-automatic assault rifle with large magazines”. I know, it is really stupid of them liberals to use logic in an issue that deals with guns, but you can’t cure them. But can you at least answer them?

WL: Are you nuts? Who told you that the school kids are dying of guns? Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. In any case, we are America and we have the second amendment that gives us the right to bear AR-15, AK-47, Uzi and Galil and whatever else we feel like. You can’t take away that right.

Me: But my liberal friends say that the right to bear arms does not mean the right to bear any and all arms under the sun. Self-defense and hunting and gun collection can be achieved without resorting to firing 100 rounds in under a minute. If you extend the logic that all guns are covered under the second amendment, then why not the RPG’s or LMG’s or HMG’s? Heck, why not go all the way and include nuclear weapons under the rubric of the right to bear arms?

WL: Why not indeed? We have been lobbying the Congress for a long time to include all and any weapons under the definition of arms as covered by the second amendment. 

Me: But don’t you think that the American public has had enough of the whole ‘right to bear arms’ being taken to any extremes? There seems to be a groundswell of support for banning the military-style weapons and the large clips. I believe that a sensible gun policy and the 2^nd amendment can coexist. DO you think there will come a time when the electoral results will force the politicians to rethink their support to the extreme interpretations of the rights accorded by the Bill of Rights?

WL: Are you nuts? This country owns more firearms than the rest of the world combined. You think all those firearms are owned by banks? They are owned by the American people. Your paltry money can never fight against the deep pockets we have. If you challenge us in the courts, we have 7 of the nine judges on the Supreme court owning the guns and believing in the rights which our constitution has bestowed on us. You are talking election? Bring it on, I say. And a good day to you, you liberal, commie, gun-hating joker.

Mr. Lapierre stormed out of the room. 

When Abraham Lincoln described the democracy as a system of government that was by the people, of the people and for the people, he probably had a different country in mind. Today America is a government that is by the people, of the people and for the people.

Fiscal-viscal, Cliff-viff

The other day somebody asked me to explain the so-called “fiscal cliff” in a language that is easy to understand and doesn’t contain phrases like “budget deficit as a percentage of GDP” and “revenue generation offset by entitlements reforms (whatever that means)”. My dear readers, this fiscal-viscal, cliff-viff is nothing but a ‘nautanki’ (drama). The best way to understand it is to again watch the greatest Hindi movie ever made – “Sholey”. Let me explain.

Do you remember the scene in Sholey where Veeru (Dharmendra) climbs atop a tall tower housing a water tank, in a state of inebriation? For those who may have forgotten the immortal scene (such people do exist, inexplicably) of Veeru’s ‘suicide’ attempt, let me refresh their memory. Veeru is a roughneck with no prospects but he is in love with Basanti (Hema Malini), the beautiful rustic belle of Ramgarh, a village in Northern India. Veeru asks his friend Jai (Amitabh Bachchan) to go to Basanti’s Mausi (aunt) and plead his case, asking Basanti’s hand in marriage. Jai has no interest in this but due to Veeru’s coaxing and cajoling, agrees to plead his case with Mausi. Mausi, after hearing that Veeru is a roughneck with no prospects, no income and no family, promptly rejects Veeru’s proposal. 

Now, imagine Veeru (Dharmendra) to be Obama, Jai (Amitabh Bachchan) to be John Boehner and the villagers of Ramgarh to be the citizens of America. Mausi (Leela Mishra) is the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives. 

Veeru: Wants to marry Basanti

Obama: Wants to raise taxes on the rich people

Mausi: Doesn’t want to consent to Basanti’s marriage with Veeru unless Veeru shows that he is a responsible, earning member of society.

Repub Caucus: Doesn’t want to raise taxes on rich people unless there is an equal reduction in the Government expenditure.

When Mausi rejects Jai’s proposal on behalf of Veeru, Veeru gets drunk and climbs atop a tall water tower and threatens to commit suicide. 

When the Republican caucus rejects Obama’s proposal to raise taxes on the rich, Obama threatens to jump off the “fiscal-cliff” and commit financial suicide. 

The whole village is agog and a bit scared as Veeru, in a state of advanced inebriation, dangles precariously from the top of the tower, still threatening suicide. 

The whole of America is agog and a bit scared as Obama, in a state of mild intoxication borne of his recent electoral victory, threatens to go over the fiscal cliff where everybody’s taxes are slated to go up.

Some villagers hurriedly bring Mausi to watch the scene where Veeru is dangling over the railing and threatening suicide. Mausi is scared too but still stands her ground and questions how she could let her niece marry a no-good roughneck. But Veeru is unimpressed and makes dire prognostications that if he commits suicide, the whole village will have to face the wrath of God and there may be famine or earthquake or firestorm. 

Some Americans scream and yell at the Congress that if they can’t make a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff, there will be double-dip recession and the unemployment will go through the roof and dollar will fall again and everybody will be in a mess. The Republicans are unimpressed, how can they agree to a tax increase and risk the wrath of their God (Norquist) without asking for an equal reduction in expenditures?

Finally some villagers succeed in scaring Mausi enough, especially when they tell her about the possible consequences of Veeru’s suicide. There will be cops and Mausi may have to go to court and hire lawyers and whatnot. This scares Mausi enough and she reluctantly agrees to let Veeru marry Basanti.

Finally the shrill curses from Americans are able to convince the Republicans that if they let Obama fall into the fiscal cliff, the voters will hold them responsible and God help those who are on the wrong side of American voters. This finally convinces the Republicans to abandon their God (Norquist) and let Obama increase the taxes on the rich without an accompanying reduction in the expenditures.

When Mausi withdraws her objection to Veeru’s troth to Basanti, Veeru immediately sobers up and happily cancels the plan of suicide. All the while, Jai is watching this drama from a distance with a practiced cynicism and comments, “Ssaala, ghadi ghadi drama karta hai!” (the bugger is always making a scene !).

When the House finally approved the fiscal cliff deal on the new year, John Boehner heaved a sigh of relief but still made parting shots at the President for this cavalier attitude towards the debt and entitlements. 

Speaking of parallels with Hindi movies, there is an old Hindi movie, a well-known one to film aficionados, “Shree 420”, where there is an endearing scene between Raj Kapoor, playing an impoverished vagabond and Lalita Pawar (playing the role of Ganga Mai, a rustic hag selling bananas). Raj asks the price of bananas and Ganga Mai answers; 4 bananas for 2 annas (for the uninitiated, ‘anna’ is an old Indian coin, equal to 6 paise – the movie was made in 1955 so the prices sound like they were during the reign of Lord Ram when he ruled Ayodhya). Raj, the practical joker, starts haggling. “That is too expensive Mai, how about 2 bananas for 4 annas?” Mai, the veteran street vendor, instinctively refuses the counteroffer and curses Raj for trying to bankrupt a poor banana-seller. So Raj starts walking away. And then Mai realizes that Raj was actually offering much better price than she had offered initially. She does a double take and calls him back to conclude the deal.

The House Teapublicans are feeling much like the poor Ganga Mai these days. Their own leader, ‘Raj’ Boehner came to them with a much better offer, purely as a negotiating tactic (just like Raj Kapoor of “Shree 420”, John Boehner had no real intention of buying the fiscal Banana (Republic)). And in a fit of instinctive teapublicanism, they rejected the deal, undercutting John Boehner’s position at the grand poker table. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. The outcome was quite predictable. The Senate passed a fiscal deal that left the erstwhile kicking, screaming, tantrum-throwing kids gasping for breath. They continued their tantrums in the House but were unable to stop the bipartisan fiscal deal. This was a GOP proposal that was opposed by a majority of GOP Reps and had to rely on Democrats to pass the bill. That is like your own team scoring baskets against you. 

I am telling you, this fiscal-viscal, cliff-viff is just a ‘nautanki’. The same players will be on the stage once again, two months from now, enacting the same script. It is us, the spectators that are paying through the nose to watch this sordid drama every few months.