Author Archives: Ennis Singh Mutinywale

British Backlash box scores

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Earlier, somebody asked if the incidence of hate crimes in the UK was worse now than in the past. The short answer is yes, immensely so:

In the three days after the bombing, police in London recorded 180 racial incidents. A total of 58 faith-related crimes were recorded, compared with one in the same period last year.

Attacks have also been reported on mosques in Tower Hamlets and Merton, both in London, Telford, Leeds, Bristol, Birkenhead and Gloucester, and on a Sikh temple in Kent. [Guardian]

Today’s BBC Worldservice radio broadcast indicated that there have been additional reports of backlash related violence, but gave no further details. Before some of you start frothing at the mouth and comparing this to the violence of the bombings, there is no comparison. I was livid when the bombings occurred. Since then, it has only become more personal – my cousin was one of those lucky enough to dodge the bullet, passing through only 10 minutes before the bombs went off. There is no reason to mix the two issues though. The bombing does not justify anti-brown violence afterwards.

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Catch and release

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The BBC reports that Pakistan is trying a new strategy to catch militants associated with Al-Qaeda. They’re using a classic technique from spy movies, so hoary it’s almost a staple Bollywood plot:

The game plan involves letting loose dozens of suspects known to have been affiliated with or at least sympathetic to al-Qaeda, in the hope that they would eventually lead the authorities to some top wanted figures in the terrorist organisation.

Top security experts admit that it is a dangerous game but argue that a similar approach in the past has reaped rich dividends. Security experts say former Guantanamo detainees – released by the Pakistan authorities on being returned – unwittingly led security agencies to many previously unknown hideouts used by local and foreign militants… Pakistani authorities have now clearly decided to extend this strategy on a scale that some feel could lead to unexpected results. [BBC]

The Pakistani government claims that this strategy has led to important arrests in Waziristan, Balochistan and Karachi.

I have no idea whether to believe the Pakistani government, because they have plenty of other incentives to want this strategy. From a political standpoint, this is convenient. The Pakistanis obtain the domestic benefits of getting their citizens out of gitmo without the headaches of locking them up in Pakistan:

In immediate terms, the strategy means easing some of the restrictions imposed earlier on top Pakistani militants. The visible part of the plan unfolding in recent weeks came in the shape of the release of about 150 Pakistanis who had returned from Guantanamo Bay. After extensive debriefing lasting between nine to 10 months, most of these men were allowed to go free.  [BBC]

More importantly, it also gives the Pakistani government an excuse for not cracking down harder on certain extremist groups at home. They can say that it is all part of their grand strategy.

Some security analysts in Pakistan have been critical of the government’s seemingly soft stance in relation to Harkat and Jaish – wondering why they have not been dealt with as severely as some of the other groups. [BBC]

We’re leaving these groups intact, not for any political benefit, but so we can catch Osama. Really. That upsurge of violence in Afghanistan? The attempt on the life of the US Ambassador there? It’s all part of our grand plan …

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Greatest Living Desi Athlete?

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As we mentioned earlier, this weekend 94 year old marathoner Fauja Singh decided to try his hand at some shorter distances, namely the 100m, 200m, 300m, 800m, 1500m, 1 mile, 3,000m and 5,000m. How’d he do?

In the senior category, he not only set a new 200m title, but halved it from 76.8 seconds to a mere 49.28 seconds. He has also set the UK record for the 400 meters, 800m, 1 mile, and 3000m.

“He is an inspiration because he has set five UK records. He has achieved more in one day than an athlete normally does in a lifetime,” said Bridget Cushen, Secretary, British Masters Athletic Federation. If that wasn’t enough, he attempted all the records in under 94 minutes. [cite]

Unfortunately, it looks like Haraguchi’s new 100m record will stand for another day. It’s a bit much to take a distance runner and expect him to set a world record in all the shorter distances over night.

Lest you think that Fauja Singh isn’t mutinous enough, the races had an explicitly political purpose. They were called the “Turban Records,” they aimed to raise the profile of Sikhs and wearing turbans and incidentally to stick it to the French:

Fauja has … [been] chosen as the Olympic torchbearer through London …. However, Sikhs in England warn that if Paris wins the 2012 Olympic bid, stories like Fauja’s may never be told.

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Punishing the Victim II: Hindus do it too

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We’ve had a string of posts (1, 2, 3) concerning Imrana, the poor woman in UP who has been ordered to marry the man she accused of being her rapist. Most of the discussion on this topic has blamed Islamic law and the lack of a uniform civil code in India for this horrifying outcome. Well, guess what – here’s a very similar case, except that the rapist and victim were Hindus:

The Chhattisgarh Government on Thursday ordered a probe into a village panchayat’s alleged directive to a rape victim, who was delivered of the child of the accused, to stay with his family until she reached marriageable age and then get married to him. [cite]

In this case, her parents demanded that the rapist be punished but the local council over-ruled them:

Though the victim’s family members were demanding action against the accused, the panchayat directed the boy’s family, also a Dalit, to keep the girl as his wife. It asked both sides to enter into an agreement, signed on a stamp paper, that the boy’s family would keep the girl and her child, villagers said. [cite]

Very twisted stuff here. I wonder how widespread this very messed up rural desi practice is?

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Kissinger apologizes for the wrong thing

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Everybody knows that being Secretary of State means you never have to say you’re sorry. Therefore, I was very surprised to hear an “apology” from Henry Kissinger:

Mr Kissinger, 82, has now told a the private Indian television channel NDTV that his comments did not reflect American policy during the 1970s.

“I regret that these words were used. I have extremely high regard for Mrs Gandhi as a statesman,” he said. “The fact that we were at cross purposes at that time was inherent in the situation but she was a great leader who did great things for her country.” [BBC]

I find this “apology” completely unsatisfying. I really don’t care what language Nixon and Kissinger used to discuss Indira Gandhi in private. The fact that they used similar language about virtually everybody else — American or Foreign, Democratic or Republican, member of the administration or outsider — makes me care even less.

I care far more about the 500,000 to 3 million who died, and the 6 million to 12 million who were made refugees. [National Geographic uses the 3 million dead and the 10 million refugees figures]. These were not accidental deaths. This was an intentional mass slaughter of civilians by the Pakistani government, coupled with a campaign of ethnic cleansing. In Bangladesh, they call this genocide:

On February 22, 1971 the generals in West Pakistan took a decision to crush the Awami League and its supporters. It was recognized from the first that a campaign of genocide would be necessary to eradicate the threat: “Kill three million of them,” said President Yahya Khan at the February conference, “and the rest will eat out of our hands.” (Robert Payne, Massacre [1972], p. 50.)

On March 25 the genocide was launched. The university in Dacca was attacked and students exterminated in their hundreds. Death squads roamed the streets of Dacca, killing some 7,000 people in a single night. It was only the beginning. “Within a week, half the population of Dacca had fled, and at least 30,000 people had been killed. Chittagong, too, had lost half its population. All over East Pakistan people were taking flight, and it was estimated that in April some thirty million people [!] were wandering helplessly across East Pakistan to escape the grasp of the military.” (Payne, Massacre, p. 48.) Ten million refugees fled to India, overwhelming that country’s resources and spurring the eventual Indian military intervention. (The population of Bangladesh/East Pakistan at the outbreak of the genocide was about 75 million.) [cite]

Half of Bangladesh’s population were refugees, either within the country or outside it!

As we blogged earlier, State Department cables reveal the US government knew full well what was going on. What was the American response? They asked the French to sell more arms to the Pakistanis and they asked the Chinese (one of the largest mass murderers in history) to threaten India:

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Selling dreams, door to door

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For many in India, their first movie wasn’t in an air-conditioned, terraced, multiplex, or on a TV screen hooked up to a VCR. It was shown to them by a travelling cinema, a truck with multiple aging film projectors bolted to its floor, and a team of projectionists who lived in it.

This was the opposite of a drive-in theater; instead of driving to the screen and watching from your car, the film came to you, but stayed in its vehicle.

Shashwati fondly remembers her experiences with this dying breed of entrepreneurs:

These companies were commercial ventures with ancient 35 mm projectors, they would go to where the audience was, set up a screen and show a movie. When I was in school, that is how films used to be shown to us. Mr. Movie Man (we actually called him that) would come with a projector and usually an ancient Tarzan movie. We would re-arrange our chairs, and take down the partition between the classrooms … 

Once, by mistake, Mr. Movie Man put in a French film, it was fading and probably from 1960. It wasn’t anything special. A woman in a long coat and sunglasses walked into a beach cabin. She sat there, and then a man came in. And he kissed her, on the mouth! After that first kiss, there was either deadly silence or a collective gasp, then the lady took off her clothes, not all of them, but enough for the film to be stopped and reel yanked out. Then we were back to seeing “savages” and a full grown man leaping through trees, something much more salubrious for our tender psyches. [Shashwati]

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Nixon, Kissinger and Indira

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Recently declassified documents reveal what Nixon and Kissinger thought about Indira Gandhi, with Nixon calling her a “witch” and a “bitch” and Kissinger referring to all Indians as “bastards.” Gandhi had come to the US in the period just before the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971. At that point, the US had a “special relationship” with Ayub Khan, the dictator of Pakistan, and India was flirting with the Soviets. The US did not want East Pakistan to form an independent Bangladesh.

Here are some snippets of the discussion between Nixon and Kissinger, just after Indira Gandhi left:

Nixon: This is just the point when she is a bitch.

Kissinger: Well, the Indians are bastards anyway. They are starting a war there. It’s–to them East Pakistan is no longer the issue. Now, I found it very interesting how she carried on to you yesterday about West Pakistan….

Kissinger: While she was a bitch, we got what we wanted too. You very subtly–I mean, she will not be able to go home and say that the United States didn’t give her a warm reception and therefore, in despair, she’s got to go to war.

Nixon: We really slobbered over the old witch. [US State Department]

This wasn’t just about Indira Gandhi herself, they had a pretty low opinion of Indians in general:

Indians are “a slippery, treacherous people,” Nixon said.

“The Indians are bastards anyway,” Mr Kissinger replied. “They are the most aggressive goddamn people around.” [Guardian]

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HIV Pos, caste no bar

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Two satisfied clientsIndia’s first marriage bureau for the HIV + has opened up in Gujurat. This is hard work in India, a country where weddings are cancelled just because one party has an inauspicious birthdate. Nonetheless, Daksha Patel (who is HIV positive herself) has already helped seven couples get married.

Both Daksha and her clients approach marriage with a typical Indian matter-of-factness. They don’t hold wishy-washy “ishq conquers all” sentiments; they know very well that life is hard and money is important.

In one exchange, Daksha interrogates a client who earns 3,000 rupees (roughly US $70) a month:

“You will have to look after yourself and your wife – you are both HIV positive, maybe you will have to spend on medicines,” says a concerned Daksha.

“Will you be able to manage all this with your income?” [BBC]

Similarly, one satisfied client explains:

“I had read about this organization which worked with HIV positive people and ran a marriage bureau. I had come to find out more about the bureau – for the purpose of marriage only … I did not want a very handsome person, or a very rich person. I just wanted a husband who can understand me – and who can provide for three square meals a day.” [BBC]
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As American as Gatka

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For the first time, the DC Independence day parade will include a gatka display, featuring the Miri Piri Gatka Dal (Texas) and the  Sikh Gatka Akhara (DC).

Gatka is a (the?) “Sikh Martial Art.”  A fighter swings his or her weapon (usually a stick, sword, or chain) in a fast, fluid, circular, flowing motion, while following a set footwork routine called the Panthra.  The result is both visually captivating and quite effective. Stylistically, gatka is more like kendo than fencing. Fencing was developed to train men for one-on-one duels; it’s linear and episodic, concentrating on lunges designed to penetrate armor. Gatka is designed so that one fighter can hold off multiple opponents and it relies upon continuous motion. The two fighting styles are different in all the stereotypical but true ways that East differs from West.

If you can’t make it, you might be interested looking at some video clips. My favorites include this one of a man with two swords, one man fighting multiple opponents, and this video-game style clip of two guys fighting. And yes, women do gatka as well [Windows Media Required].

At first I was concerned that the athletes demonstrating gatka would get a rude reception. After all, they’re swarthy, mainly male, dressed in salvar kameez, wearing round turbans. The men have long flowing beards. And this is the Fourth of July, a time for both patriotism and bigotry.

But I thought about it some more, and relaxed. After all, who would be dumb enough to mouth off to a bunch of Texans swinging swords like airplane propellers? Now that would be un-American.

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Digging for hidden treasure: searching for the origins of Balti and Tikka Masala

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Did you ever daydream about starring in a movie as an archeologist who ferrets out exotic treasures, the origins of which have been lost in the mists of antiquity? Well, get over it. Hollywood still has no idea how to cast brown people as anything other than terrorists, doctors, and occasionally taxi drivers or eaters of monkey brains. They’re not yet ready to make an Indian ANNA Jones movie, “M.Night” notwithstanding.

Instead, I offer you a far geekier and more glorious pursuit! The BBC and OED have teamed up to find the earliest verifiable usage of words from the unimaginatively titled “BBC Wordhunt appeal list” for the next version of the OED. If you can beat their earliest recorded usage (you need some form of dated evidence) your contribution might be featured as part of a new BBC2 TV series. How’s that for 15 minutes of fame?

Two of the fifty words on their list (4%!) are words of BritAsian origin:

balti
Wanted: printed evidence before 1984; information on the word’s origin

Are you one of Britain’s original curry kings or queens? If so, did you cook or serve Britain or the world’s first balti — or do you know who did? Knocking around at the back of the kitchen drawer do you have an old takeaway menu with a balti on it from before 1984?

The winter issue of Curry Magazine (1984) contains the first printed evidence the OED has for ‘balti’. But where the term comes from (India, Pakistan — perhaps Baltistan) remains something of a mystery at present. They say it first appeared in the Birmingham area in the early 80s. But is there any printed evidence for the term earlier, and can the origin be confirmed?

See the OED entry for balti

tikka masala
Wanted: printed evidence before 1975

Restaurant menus and reviews start to show chicken tikka masala from 1975, according to the latest research from the OED. Despite the dish’s claim to be a great British national dish, the first recorded evidence comes from America. Something wrong here? Or not?

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