Author Archives: amardeep

Mahindra SUVs, Coming to the U.S.

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Via Venkig (on our spiffy new News Tab), I see that the Indian car company Mahindra & Mahindra will soon be selling a line of SUVs and pickup trucks in the U.S. Though Mahindra is already well-established in the U.S. as a seller of tractors, there’s a fair amount of skepticism as to whether the company can break into what is already a pretty crowded market:

Mahindra & Mahindra, a conglomerate based in Mumbai, intends to find out. In spring, 2009, the company plans to launch two- and four-door pickups and a sport-utility vehicle in the U.S. This trio of diesel-powered trucks will compete against a big pack of aggressively promoted offerings from General Motors, Ford, Dodge, Nissan, and Toyota. All of these manufacturers have been warring over a domestic pickup market that is shrinking and a SUV market that’s overcrowded.

Skepticism abounds. Trucks in the U.S. are sold with imagery of waving flags, macho companionship, and brawny workers showing off feats of towing strength to the sound of John Mellencamp anthems. Buyers tend to be loyal, practical traditionalists. (link)

The reasons Mahindra trucks might have a chance are 1) they’re aiming pretty low initially, and will come in with a small number of trucks and a modest marketing budget; and 2) gas mileage:

But at a time of soaring gas prices, Mahindra’s vehicles are going to have one big thing in their favor: superior fuel economy. Despite diesel’s historic brown image, it is emerging as a green technology. New low-sulfur fuel, federally mandated in 2006, can produce mileage figures that nearly equal those of more fashionable hybrids. Mahindra estimates that its compact SUV, the Scorpio, and pickups, one of which will be called the Appalachian, will get about 30 miles per gallon in the city and as much as 37 on the highway. That compares with 30 city/34 highway for the $27,000 Ford Escape SUV hybrid and 21 city/27 highway for the gas-powered $23,000 Toyota RAV4. (link)

A cheap SUV that gets 30 miles per gallon city? Sign me up! That appeals to me economically as well as environmentally. (I’m now an official member of the rather absurd class of people who want an SUV for practical reasons — try stuffing a jogger stroller into the trunk of a mid-size sedan — but is ambivalent about actually buying one because of the low gas mileage.)

What do you think, does Mahindra have a shot at selling pickup trucks and SUVs in the American market? Would you consider buying a “Mahindra Appalachian”?

(For readers in India, does anyone have a Mahindra Scorpio? How is it?) Continue reading →

News Channel Blackout in Gujarat

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After yesterday’s heavy post featuring the video footage from the masterminds of the Gujarat riots openly confessing their deeds, I thought today I would keep it light — only to find (thanks, Vishal) that the state government of Gujarat isn’t going to make it easy to do so.

Indeed, the state government has summarily blocked all three news channels that were going to show footage from Tehelka’s report. The affected channels are Aaj Tak, CNN-IBN, and IBN-7. The logic is a bit twisted, but somehow predictable:

Subsequently, all these channels went off air in most parts of Gujarat from 1930 hours (IST) on Thursday. The administration claimed it’s a violation of Clause 5 of Cable TV Network Regulation, which deals with broadcasting programmes which could create communal tension.

The state authorities accused the TV channels of spreading ‘more communal discord’ in the state than the people who actually featured on the Tehelka tapes.

For instance, the language used by leaders like Babu Bajrangi, Haresh Bhatt, Dhabal Patel and Madan Dhanraj in the tapes could easily turn the situation far more dangerous than what was being shown, they say. (link)

Obviously, the next step is to block channels that report that channels are being blocked, because that could also create seeds of dissent that could lead to communal tension. Right?

One point of confusion is who exactly is responsible for the order to black out the channels in question. The CNN-IBN article I linked to names the author of the order as “Ahmedabad District Magistrate and District Election Officer Dhananjay Dwivedi,” but also states that the Central Election Commission has “washed its hands,” saying it never issued any such order. I’m not really clear who has the real authority here — is Dhananjay Dwivedi’s action even legal?

I’m also a little puzzled as to why more news channels aren’t showing any of the footage. I checked Star News and NDTV (the two Indian news channels I get at home), and haven’t seen anything. I wonder: does Tehelka have an exclusive arrangement with these three channels, or have India’s other cable news channels made an editorial decision not to cover this? Continue reading →

Desi Hipster Olympics — Blegging for Ideas

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Blogger Zen Denizen has a post with the following idea:

My next project will be creating and hosting the Desi Hipster Olympics. I’ll post a tip on our favorite kill whitey group blog and let the games begin (or not). Categories to include: Kitschiest classic Bollywood references, best misappropriation of afrocentric or other suitable third world imagery for supposed desi struggles and most ironic use of a kurta. (link)

First of all, I want to say that if Zen is talking about SM I am truly honored we are her favorite “kill whitey” group blog. There is a lot of competition out there, and I’m glad to finally get some recognition. That said, I think it’s a great idea, though I suspect we could add to and/or adjust Zen’s proposed categories before proceeding to actually initiate some kind of meta-desi, pseudo-secular, indo-ironic competition. (I have never done anything very ironic with a kurta, for instance, other than perhaps actually ironing it.)

Readers, what would be good categories for a desi hipster olympics? Secondly, if you wish to prove your own hipness you are now welcome to begin doing so, though you should be warned that it’s always possible that an even hipper desi will come along and point out how passé your knowledge of retro-Bollywood cultural trivia, present-day underground desi musicians and writers, and quasi-desi fusion fashion actually is.

Obviously I’m at a huge disadvantage here in terms of my own personal hipness, being over 30 (bo-ring!), and living in suburban Philadelphia (so, so far from Brooklyn). The best I can offer this morning is the following short video, which does in fact feature a kurta and may also possibly be interpreted ironically. (I have to admit I grabbed it from Manish’s news tab):

And I mean it from the bottom of my heart. Continue reading →

Cut, Kill, Burn: Tehelka Gujarat Exposé

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The news-magazine Tehelka has done another spycam exposé, this time with conspirators involved in the Gujarat riots of 2002. The Tehelka website is full of very bold claims regarding the importance of the statements made in the video footage they’ve captured, and thus far they’ve put up three YouTube videos to back up the hype. One spycam interview, with Babu Bajrangi of the Bajrang Dal, is here:

It’s in Hindi (sorry, no subtitles; UPDATE: a close English transcript of the video is here). Much of what he says about his own role is fairly chilling. At the very least this particular guy should probably go to prison for a very long time (as of the present moment I do not know whether any charges have been filed against him … UPDATE: Babu Bajrangi has in fact done eight months in prison, and is now out on bail, according to Himal Southasian).

There are also interviews with Arvind Pandya here and Ramesh Dave here; I haven’t watched them yet, but I thought I would give the links for readers who may be interested. If anyone wants to translate telling lines or sections of the videos for the benefit of our non-Hindi speaking readers, I would be grateful.

Tehelka claims that its spycam videos prove definitively that Narendra Modi gave direct approval for the killings in 2002, but I’m not sure, yet, that they do that (my views may change as I dive further into this). The video I saw does seem to add to the argument, which has been made consistently by Modi critics since 2002, that the killings weren’t a random upwelling of popular rage, but rather akin to an organized pogrom.

It’s also worth noting that the timing of this exposé can fairly be said to be a bit questionable — state elections are coming up in Gujarat in the next few weeks. There Modi may be in trouble not with Congress or Left parties, but because of dissatisfaction within the Sangh Parivar; both the RSS and the VHP have expressed dissatisfaction with him, stating that they aren’t supporting him in these elections. In the end Modi may finally be defeated, not by Tehelka, but by the Hindu right itself. Continue reading →

Displaced People, Especially Women (Guha Chapter 5)

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(Part four in an ongoing series dedicated to Ramachandra Guha’s India After Gandhi. Last week’s post can be found here. Next week we will look at chapter six, on the Constituent Assembly and the writing of India’s constitution. )

There are lots of interesting bits in Guha’s fifth chapter, on the resettlement of refugees scattered across India after Partition. The part I will focus on in particular is the status of women who were abducted, forcibly married, and then forcibly returned to their families. But to begin with, here are some general facts on the displaced people who ended up in India:

  • Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of refugees in Punjab were temporarily housed in camps. The largest of these was at Kurukshetra, where there were some 300,000 refugees. Over time, a major land redistribution effort was initiated, so that farmers who had been displaced from land in Pakistan were granted land in India. More than 500,000 claims were processed through this effort. (According to Guha, the effort worked, by and large; withing a few years, many displaced Punjabis from farming villages were back at work on new lands.)
  • Nearly 500,000 refugees ended up in Delhi, fundamentally changing the character of the city. Some settled in outer districts like Faridabad, while others were given land immediately to the south and west of New Delhi. Many of Delhi’s new residents thrived in trade, and came to hold a “commanding influence” over the economic life of the city.
  • About 500,000 refugees also ended up in Bombay, including a large number of Sindhis. Here resettlement did not go as well, and Guha states that 1 million people were sleeping in the streets (even in the early 1950s).
  • 400,000 refugees came into West Bengal during and immediately after the Partition, but another 1.7 million Hindus left East Pakistan (later Bangladesh) following communal riots there in 1949-50. At least 200,000 ended up in desperate straits in “squatter colonies” in Calcutta, where the refugees effectively overwhelmed the city. Conditions here were much worse than they were in Delhi or in the resettlement camps in the Punjab. The government may have been slow to respond because it presumed that many of the refugees would be returning — and that communal feelings in Bengal were not quite as bad as they were in Punjab. (A mistaken presumption, Guha suggests.)

Those are some of the general facts Guha gives us. What stands out to me is how effective the new Indian government was, on the whole, in responding to the mass influx of people. There were failures — and again, Guha singles out West Bengal as the worst — but if you think about the numbers involved, it’s astonishing that the process was as orderly as it was. Hundreds of thousands of displaced families were allotted land through a rationalized, transparent process oriented to ensuring their survival. And food relief and temporary shelter was provided to thousands more (not without international help).

However, one area where the state really did fail — astoundingly — is with women who had been abducted, converted, and forcibly married in the Partition. Guha’s account here is quite thin, so I’m supplementing what he says with material from Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin’s book, Borders and Boundaries: Women in India’s Partition. Continue reading →

Basement Bhangra CD: a review

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People in New York tonight might want to stop by the release party for the Basement Bhangra CD, which is officially coming out today. It’s been 10 years of Basement Bhangra nights at S.O.B.’s — and for all that time DJ Rekha has held it down on the ones and twos. (It’s also, coincidentally, been 10 years since the first ‘Mutiny’ party, and the old gang are coming out of hiatus in a couple of weeks for their own celebration — with guests Talvin Singh, and Shaair and Func.)

Rekha’s approach here is to take some familiar Bhangra anthems (like Lehmber Hussainpuri’s “Tin Cheejha”) and mix them up with solid Bhangra tracks most people probably won’t know (Sunil Sehgal’s “Fakir”). The “Basement Bhangra anthem” that opens the CD is really cool — respect to Wyclef Jean (“Mr. International”) for contributing an original rap, and Queens-based Bikram Singh is as usual great (he was also responsible for the absurdly catchy “American Jugni” song a couple of years ago). Incidentally, you can listen to the “Basement Bhangra Anthem” here.

Many well-known remix masters are represented here, including Panjabi MC, DJ Sanj, Dr. Zeus, and Tigerstyle. There are also a couple of tracks from Hard Kaur, a British Punjabi pop star who has been kind of omnipresent for the past couple of years (see “Glassy”). But alongside some staples there are also some surprises, including a track by the drum ‘n bass influenced Dhol Foundation, as well tracks from producers I hadn’t heard of (Ominous DJs).

I should note that this CD isn’t by itself a “definitive” statement of where Bhangra music is today — but that probably wouldn’t be possible to do in a single hour of music anyway. In the liner notes, Rekha describes it instead as a “cross-section of a living musical culture that connects New York City to the Punjab,” and that sounds about right to me. Some people, including commenters on Cicatrix’s earlier post on this, have criticized the selection of songs here, but I actually think the choices are quite good. Some hard core bhangra downloaders listeners may be tired of “Tin Cheejha,” but I suspect most people — including readers of Sepia Mutiny — haven’t even heard of Lehmber Hussainpuri (though they may have heard his hit song). For them, the Basement Bhangra CD is going to be like a one-hour living room Bhangra party to go.

And doesn’t everybody need one of those every once in a while?

More reviews: here and here. The Basement Bhangra CD is available from Amazon. Continue reading →

Torn About Bobby Jindal

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I have a slightly different take on Bobby Jindal from some of my co-bloggers here at the Mutiny: I know, if I lived in Louisiana, that I wouldn’t vote for him. I just disagree with him too strongly on the social issues — intelligent design and abortion rights, for starters — to let my sense of ethnic loyalty get the better of me.

But I can’t help but be somewhat torn when I see photos like this:

bobby-jindal-shaking-hands.jpg

The rest of the very interesting New York Times profile explains what this represents: Jindal is slowly winning over the rural white voters in northern Louisiana, staunch Republicans (can anyone say David Duke?) who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for him when he ran for governor four years ago. He’s also learning how to avoid giving the impression that he is an overachieving policy wonk (which he undoubtedly is), so as to better connect with ordinary Louisianans.

Continue reading →

Benazir Comes Home [updated]

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Benazir Bhutto returned to Karachi today, flying in from Dubai to greet large crowds of supporters.

benazir-karachi.jpg
One is often cynical about Pakistani politics, but it seems to me this is a hopeful event. A lot of things have changed since Bhutto left eight years ago, and I suspect if she ever does return to power she will do things differently than she did earlier. In the short run, of course, she will be an opposition leader, and will have to contend with both President Musharraf and a not-always-sympathetic Supreme Court.

There are, of course, people who doubt this is going anywhere. One such is Adrian Levy, who has a scathing account of the evolution of Bhutto’s power-sharing agreement at Comment is Free (at the Guardian): Continue reading →

Sheikh Abdullah and Kashmir 1947-1948 (Guha Chapter 4)

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(Part 3 in an ongoing series dedicated to Ramachandra Guha’s India After Gandhi; see last week’s post here. This week’s post is dedicated to Chapter 4, “A Valley Bloody and Beautiful”; next week we will look at Chapter 5, “Refugees and the Republic,” which looks at the problem of integrating millions of refugees into the new Indian republic.)

Guha’s first chapter (of three) dealing with Kashmir, I must admit, left me with more questions than answers, but it may be that the subject of Kashmir — even restricted to two years at a time — is simply too complex to deal with in a thirty page overview chapter. Guha’s goal is to provide a balanced account of what happened in 1947-8 with the Accession of Kashmir to the Indian union (October 26, 1947), and the war between India and Pakistan that followed (which is actually well-summarized at Wikipedia). Guha goes with the line that the Pathans who marched on Srinagar in the autumn of 1947 were surely armed by Pakistan, and were not exactly a “liberation” army (they were only too happy to loot Kashmiri Muslims as well as Hindus and Sikhs in the towns they entered). He also stresses the close ties between Sheikh Abdullah and Nehru, and derides Hari Singh as just another useless Maharaja. He also acknowledges that the role of the UN in 1948 was not particularly helpful, and that effectively the whole issue was going to be punted (1965), and then punted yet again (1999).

We could go back and forth on Kashmir forever. The two major, historically grounded positions in the debate, I think, are the following:

  • (1) The Maharajah of Kashmir, Hari Singh, legally joined the Indian union in 1947, and therefore the territory belongs to the Indian union, irrespective of whether Hari Singh’s action represented the desires of the majority of Kashmiris. A popularly elected Constituent Assembly, led by Sheikh Abdullah, did unanimously ratify the Accession in 1951.
  • (1a) At this point, we should just formalize the Line of Control (LOC), and end the whole thing.
  • (2) The people of Kashmir have the right to self-determination. When it signed the ceasefire in 1948, India promised to offer Kashmiris a plebiscite, where they could decide whether to join India or Pakistan, or remain independent. This it has never done. Moreover,
  • (2a) Sheikh Abdullah always asked for more autonomy for Kashmir, and was eventually imprisoned for it (correction: he was imprisoned when he started to demand independence). Even if a plebiscite is not granted, the demand for autonomy should be taken seriously.

(Is that a fair characterization of the two major positions, and the ancillary points that follow from them?)

My goal here — and I hope you’ll go along with me — is not to reaffirm my own position, but rather to find out something I didn’t know before, and explore new ways of thinking about a very old subject. From Guha’s account, the figure I’ve become most interested in is Sheikh Abdullah, a secular Muslim who saw himself as the natural leader of all Kashmiris. He sided with India in the conflict with Pakistan, but was later imprisoned by the Indian government for continuing to demand autonomy for the region. His complexities are perhaps emblematic of the extraordinarily complex political problem that is Kashmir. Continue reading →

Keep the Gold, I Want a New Nokia for Diwali

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I had a relatively traditional Punjabi wedding 4+ years ago; gold was involved. Not a lot, mind you (we’re no Chatwals). But my wife did get some heavy-looking gold necklace-and-earring ‘sets’ from both her own family and my extended family at the time of the wedding. Later, I came to wonder about the point of it all, since the majority of that jewelry simply can’t be worn ever again. (You’d look silly wearing such heavy jewelry at anything but your own wedding.)

Amongst urban Indians, gold is going out of fashion in general:

“My daughters keep saying, ‘Nothing yellow, nothing yellow.’ For them, gold is old,” Bhardwaj said in her living room while sporting three gold rings, bangles, a chain and earrings. A painting of a 16th-century Mughal empress embellished with 24-karat gold decorated the wall.

Her 21-year-old daughter, Sonam Bhardwaj, has had it up to here with gold. “I think it is too gaudy and chunky,” she said with a look of disgust. “Look at my mother.”

In India, where an economic boom has taken hold and tastes are noticeably shifting, Sonam represents one of the newest consumers on the block — a young urban woman who has distanced herself from India’s deep-rooted gold tradition.

Today there are legions of young Indians whose eyes twinkle not at the sight of gold but at the sight of luxury goods. Sonam, for example, is hoping for a new Nokia Nseries phone next month for Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. She already has a pair of Versace sunglasses and a Guess bag in her collection of fineries. (link)

For me, this transition seems to be an interesting case of a changing economic structure leading to unconscious changes in cultural values and practices. Insofar as most Indians used to be suspicious of banks and credit, gold was the central denomination in life’s most important rituals. New brides were given jewelry in gold partly because the gold itself was a rock-solid economic asset, and I gather the jewelry was usually considered a part of the dowry ‘trousseau’ as well. In a more “liquified” consumer driven system, on the other hand, gold seems dull — static and dusty, like the Gold Standard itself.

Am I speculating too much here, or is there really some sort of unconscious connection between the psychology of the change in fashion and the changing macroeconomic paradigm?

Secondly, does anyone want to defend gold wedding jewelry, and the traditionalism it represents? (Would you rather have gold, diamonds, or something entirely different — say, a Blackberry ‘Pearl’ — as a wedding present?) Continue reading →