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this blog - ends here

From today this blog shall no longer be updated. Within / Without has moved.

Blogger has served me TOO well. I tried moving to other blogging platforms - but despite being completely smitten Wordpress, I couldn't really move unless I registered a domain name and got a place of my own.

Well, my wait is over.

Since I just got there - my new home feels like a big bunch of cardboard boxes. Still to be opened, with the labels all mixed up. Sudden evidence of the paint peeling and all the melancholy of having shifted houses. It'll take some time and a lot of effort before I actually manage to transport all the good stuff (especially from the sidebar there).

And - This is the new feed link. :)

I'll keep this blog as is for a little while. But I won't really be checking in on comments or responding to them here. After perhaps a month, I might set up an auto-forward.

Driving away the Feed Blues

Much as I read a lot, it is hard to digest all of the goodies at Global Voices on any day. On an average there appear to be 85 plus posts and perhaps more than 150 outgoing links on any given day. (Rough guess.)

So much to my relief now they've got a page with segregated feeds Region/ Country/ Topic wise. The feed that is going to be fed with content from and on South Asia is this one. There - that's one less excuse.

Wearing the Burqa in European Lands

On some days, the world makes getting pissed off so easy.

The West vilified the Taliban in Afghanistan for forcing women to wear the burqa, now government spokesmen seek to vilify those in the West choosing to wear the burqa.

In which Rachel buys me lunch

Truth is that most of my friends are the ones who transcend the virtual world of blogs and become frequent features in routine and conversation. Rachel was found recently when she joined Global Voices as the Managing Editor. I finally heard her yesterday on a podcast with Kamla.

Rachel blogs at Frizzy Logic. So today lunch was had with her and Maizy. Among other things we discussed the habits (quite literally clothes) as worn by early Brits who made it to India, Rice Cultivation, Big Dogs, Small Dogs, Snappy Dogs, Chocolate, Food, Chocolate, Democracy, Tribes, Africa, India, White Mughals, Global Voices, Brats, Men Who Hate Dogs, Grandmothers, British Imperialism and other Very Important Things. We obviously tickled each other's funny bone well because we laughed a lot louder than any of the bawling babies in the room. Munching food, and dusting off crumbs - I couldn't help but wonder how in any situation we'd have been deathly polite to each other, but having read each other's blogs the conversation jumps to a different level from the very beginning. So one is not as wary of stomping one's feet when one burts into fits of laughter as one might be otherwise.

Note: Frizzy is the word. Maizy is snappy, but she means well. Or she means "Give me Food!"

To Dover went three pigs

So yesterday, three London based headless chickens went to Dover. Among other things, locals reported that half the grass in the Dover castle lost their lives under their combined weight. Dover in the first few hours was a bit of a disappointment. They don't make good coffee down there and our breakfast came deep fried. We sulked for a while, unable to find vegetarian food for Inky and self.

Dover castle was brilliant. All fried food and bad coffee was forgiven. Dover is a small town. The white cliffs aren't really white. However the one place where we expected a little less inspiration - the castle was the redeeming factor. Overcoats were flung, and we decided to ROLL down the grass field. I think we scared away many of the legendary ghosts from the castle with our high pitched desi laughter. History lessons came alive in the World War II tunnels. An underground hospital, casemates which were dormitories for soldiers, Churchill-touched-phone (our guide gushed - I am honoured to be in the room that Churchill was. Oh, well!) and a telephone exchange!



The seaside by Dover is exactly as one would imagine it. White cliffs to one side, and the other pebbled bit embraced the harbour. Pebbles, pebbles everywhere.



I am very alert to all war memorials that mention the subcontinent. So it was that I saw a memorial that read "In memory of comrades who fell during the Indian Campaigns of 1857, 1858 and 1859. Erected by the 1st Battalion 60th Royal Rifles August 1861." One side of the memorial had Delhi inscribed on it and the other Rohilcund. In tense little black letters it declares "Celer et Audax" (Swift and Bold?). That is the motto of the 60th Royal Rifles. For some reason I remembered Charles Griffiths's book. Much as Wendigo points out - one senses a strange disconnect in Dover.



Everywhere you go in the UK - India stares down at you. In the buildings the motifs come from subcontinent. Some term that you remember staring at in a History book. War Memorials that erupt with desi names. Like when I met Albert on the bus from Hounslow to Central London one day. He was 80 years old and had been in India in the 1940s. He looked at me with all the gravity the situation always brings and said "I was never in the Army my love. Now, I just was doing business. Never the Army. " More on that story another time.

For now, we look back at Dover with a somewhat-sigh. :)

Cricket and the Caribbean

Georgia Popplewell does a fab job at hinting at the swell of cricket voices in the Caribbean. I love the photograph. Blue sky. Green foliage. A strip in between.

Many memories of evening cricket in summers, and afternoon winter spins come to mind. Till the age of about 12, the girls were allowed to play with the boys. Then the older ones came and corrupted our playmates into chauvinism. :)

The Chinese Dream, Hao Wu and India

Rebecca MacKinnon writes in the Washington Post about Hao Wu. One aspect that really hit me was

Problem is, the Chinese Dream can be shattered quickly if you step over a line that is not clearly drawn -- a line that is kept deliberately vague and that shifts frequently with the political tides. Those who were told by the Chinese media that they have constitutional and legal rights are painfully disabused of such fantasies when they seek to shed light on social and religious issues the state prefers to keep in the dark.

While till the mid-80s, there seemed to be more media fascination with China given the frail Indo-China relationship, of late the focus has been a comparative one in terms of economy and infrastructure. I frequently come across the opinion that states that if we are promised China's infrastructure and growth, the democracy bit is immaterial. It is worrying if people see a disconnect between the nature of the economy and the political environment. Democracy isn't perfect. The politics of majority isn't a comforting thought. However, it is better than a State that doesn't appear accountable.

Where the fundamental premise for a free market is that it is a natural extension of a person's rights. An economy that is more open about the way in which resources are used. That isn't possible in an autocratic environment.

Rights are not privileges. Yup.

Sum of all memories, or how Kavya remembers herself

[In continuation]
If Anant and Kavya had met each other in the age when the universe revolves around the back pages of a notebook, they might have considered briefly playing noughts and crosses. Or perhaps not. Ink can be put to better uses.

Looking at shadows Kavya realizes that the on some days shadows are far clearer than objects. The details that Anant remembers from when she was 17 are shocking. For their clarity. Things about herself that she has already forgotten. The sum total of the memory of "the other" seems greater than the memory of the self. She writes on a yellow post-it that keeps slumping downwards.

"You remember more of me than I remember of myself".

Kafka Index, Redtape and the endless Trial

I love this. A Kafka Index.

France has created a "Kafka index" that measures the complexity of a project or law against its usefulness to cut red tape.

The index - referring to Franz Kafka's The Trial, which describes one man's fight against a nightmarish bureaucracy - is a scale of one to 100 measuring how many hurdles, from forms to letters or phone calls, are needed to win state permits or aid for a project. (via the wonderful SM)

Well, if it does have to have a literary reference, India probably would need many such indices (indexes?). Every language in India must be pouring with literature on red-tapism and the government. No?

Hao Wu still held by state and Press Freedom in India

An update on Hao Wu.

An online petition has been started. From Global Voices

Rebecca launched the letter writing campaign earlier today, and we’re encouraging readers to write to their national governments, to the Chinese ambassadors in their nation, to their local newspapers, and to Chinese President Hu Jintao. Her post offers key pieces of information to include in letters or op-eds as well some useful addresses.

We’ve also launched an online petition, demanding that President Hu Jintao release Hao immediately.

Of course it would appear that this doesn't affect those in India. The Reporters Without Borders report for 2005 indicates otherwise. The Worldwide Press Freedom Index for 2005 places India at 106 out of a total 167 countries ranked. Press freedom cannot be guaranteed in a country where the Freedom of Expression is routinely kicked out of perspective.

Disability, abortion and someone's right

Inkyji asks a very tough question. The fundamental problem is this - what when one senses a conflict of two persons' rights. A woman has complete choice over her body. If she doesn't desire to have a child with a disability she should and does have the right to abort the foetus.

Truth is - you can extend this argument to say that a woman should be allowed to abort a female foetus. (Horrible, unfortunate, unfair - but true.)

The foetus does not have human rights. Its Right to Life is entirely dependent on whether or not the woman who is pregnant desires it. However, the dilemma experienced by the woman when she contemplates aborting a foetus with a disability is reflective of the fact that people with disabilities are denied most of their rights. The pregnant woman in this case is caught in the dilemma of bringing to the world a child who is more vulnerable than another child. This might call for more effort to raise the child than a woman is physically, emotionally or financially capable of or is prepared for. This could be largely due to the fact that the system itself has not addressed the rights of the vulnerable or the disabled.

The Right to Life, irrespective of disability comes into the picture only after you are born. A woman's decision to abort a foetus with a disability is not reflective of the Rights of the disabled who are born. It isn't a matter of ethics. But a recognition of the fact that only one of the two parties has rights. The foetus is only as much of an emotional entity as the woman wills it to be. Legally, I am not sure if it is an entity at all. As long as it is inside a woman - it is a part of her that she may choose to remove. It might seem like a cold or hard stand to take - but in the mess of vulnerabilities and should-have-beens - it's the only stand that makes sense.

While illuminating is a corny word

Two weeks ago, I saw Everything Is Illuminated. The movie is directed by Liev Schreiber and is based on a book by Jonathan Safran Foer. I was amazed by the movie. It's been very long since any movie had me so mushed up inside, with frequent giggles escaping. There is a level of intimacy that you feel with each character - it could be the camera or the universality of the levels of annoyance as experienced by them. Either way, it's not a movie you should miss.

Constitution to the rescue of dance bars

The Bombay High Court agrees with the bar girls. The court was to deliver its verdit today. The central argument that the ones opposing the ban used was along two lines. One, allowing performances in five star and three star joints - and not allowing them in bars seems discriminatory. Second, it's an obstacle to people's right to their livelihood. Article 14 and 19 of the Constitution to the rescue.

I am guessing the Moral Brigade in Maharashtra (the government) will run to the Supreme Court and appeal there.

Finally, sense apparently prevails.

I don't use moral grounds to argue an issue. Mostly because morality cannot be codified, and is an abstract aggregation of what is comfortable and not comfortable. But even if I do think in terms of morals - I am far more concerned with the morality of taking away people's jobs as opposed to the issue of moral turpitude.

Reservations, OBCs, women, and my right

At the outset, let me state this - by birth (and to a great extent by upbringing) I am a Brahmin. I was born with the privilege of being born into a family with considerable socio-intellectual capital. So it would be easy to read anything that I write on the OBC reservations issue, as something that comes without the insight of belonging to a certain community.

However, let's say we put aside this issue of reservations for OBCs and the already existing quota for SC / STs. Suppose I pick up the issue reservations in higher education for women. As a woman and a practicing feminist - who is very passionate about getting women into the best of institutes and opening up more opportunities for them - I should support reservations for them right?

Wrong. Some reasons why.

1. The Usual Suspect: Given stereotyping and traditional barriers, if I am a woman in a particular setting, it is often suspected that I got there through favours. This favour by the government is no less. Regardless of what merit I may possess, the suspect factor remains that I got there through other means. Even if it is a legitimate way to enter - it is sends signals about my merit. Whatever social capital I may appear to gain, it is overshadowed by the constant doubt over my merit. It also makes ALL women appear suspect. Irrespective of how they got there. Merit or Reservation (partial merit?).

2. The Usual Beneficiary: Higher Education in India is not the preserve of those with money. Money is usually not a barrier. Suppose I was 16 and studying for the JEE. What I really need is good quality coaching. God knows that the CBSE and State Board seem inadequate. I would really appreciate if interest groups pushed for bridge classes to overcome the entry barrier, instead of institutionalizing mechanism that help override the entry point. I would already have to some of the economic capital if I have been able to study till the 12th grade. If loans are available at extremely low interest rates, and payable over long periods of time - I have a feeling a woman would benefit far more than her being plonked into an institute where she's unable to cope with the subject matter. Moreover, it's likely that a woman like me who comes from a privileged background who will end up using this quota.

3. The Gap: If Education at the same institute is such an equalizer, why have reservations at the Under Graduate level? If all these kids have cleared their Class 12 examinations and are at the same educational level - why the need to lower the cut-off for one section? Even more shocking - why would the women need reservations at the Post Graduate level? Wouldn't three to four years of the same education, additional bridge courses etc. have pushed the men and women to a level playing field based on merit?

4. Universalizing Primary Education: Education. Primary Education. The government makes feeble attempts at universalizing primary education and FAILS. It's been failing consistently since 1947. It's the worst report card a country can produce - that most of the country still can't read it. The issue with primary education is that it is so centralized, that it's difficult to hold an absentee or inefficient teacher responsible. The teacher in a school is simply not answerable to the community.

Suppose a teacher discriminates against girls in a government school - the parents have no choice! Now the government either needs to clear up its act and decentralize schooling and education, or it needs to give more impetus to private schools. Every state perhaps cannot do a Himachal Pradesh, or a Kerala and maybe condemned to a cycle of inefficiency that means poor education, high drop out rates with far more heavy consequences for historically weaker sections like women. (hint!)

If you tell me that private schools are expensive - think again. The market forces are not allowed to operate. If enough parents feel that the teacher discriminates against girls in a private school - chances are that another private player will recognize the gap - and start a school that is more gender sensitive. I understand that this school, in an ideal situation need not be gender-blind. The school will need to reach out to parents to convince them to continue in the school. (Which school wouldn't want fees the next year?) The school has further reasons to push parents to send their girls to college. Because earning women make a better case for the school to urge all parents to send their girls to school. If the fees do not appear to go down despite schools competing for children, well, in that case - let their be an open system where you apply to the government for scholarships. The government employees god-knows-how-many community workers, block resource centre workers etc in any case. Put them to some use! Either case, the government technically is supposed to monitor the progress of each child under the ICDS (Integrated Child Development Scheme) - let health workers report on a regular basis about who they can afford education.

A girl will never be able to well in an IIT or in DU, unless her fundamental knowledge is clear. That knowledge is built over the many years through primary and secondary education. The government must then identify situation where market forces do not see adequate incentives and provide the incentives. The private schooling sector at the primary level can be and is regulated. The schools can still be answerable to government institutions that set standards for examination and progress-reporting.

5. Services: The government charges for a million services for women. Make sure the women actually access these services. If women charge these services (which they indirectly pay for) they resolve many of the issues that solutions like reservation attempt to address.

6. Time Bound: At what point will we establish that women and men are capable of generating similar socio-economic capital? Or that, irrespective of that capital - they will be able to leverage opportunities? When do we make the transition from "positive discrimination" to "positive action"? How do you arrive at that figure? How will you ever calculate? How will you measure when the impact of patriarchy has weakened enough for women to not need the quota?

7. Stop Gap: Working on systemic inefficiencies is far more difficult. But any other solution is a stop gap arrangement. It will never resolve the problems of the next generation. The government is distracting you from far greater issues affecting women. Property rights, political, civil, economic and rights over the person to start with. Oh, and how about opening more colleges to begin with. Why do so many people have to compete for such a small number of seats even at the undergraduate level?

8. Rights: Yes. It's against the rights of a man to be discriminated against because of the fact that he is a man. It's precisely the way women have been discriminated against always. I have no wish to perpetuate the system that is built on letting the divide be intact. A system need not be gender blind to be gender sensitive. The needs are different but need not be satisfied at the cost of the rights of the other. While patriarchy has traditionally favoured men, reservation is essentially a patriarchal solution. Oppressing is not the way out of oppression. Rights are to protect the vulnerable not to pander to them.

9. It's insulting: Don't favour me because I am a woman. Favour me because I am smarter, more intelligent and more capable. If I am as smart as the man. Treat me as an equal. Give me the same opportunity. Give me a loan to set up my business, don't bloody walk into my shop and tell me that you are going to run it for me because I can't do it for myself.

This post is essentially a spontaneous one. I wanted to write about my opposition to the notion of extending the reservation quota. But my own context would make it seem that I am doing so to protect my interest. (Yes, I am. I am always very concerned about the snatching away of my rights.) But the context of a feminist building a case against reservations for women in educational institutions helps in articulating my concerns when it comes to reservations as a whole.

Evenstar is collating posts on the issue here.

A little self-esteem never hurts!

There is a part of me that is quintessentially cynical. This advert in its first 25 seconds gives me goosebumps. While it ends on a hopeful note, with Dove promoting its campaign for real beauty. (Which must have come from a million Focus Group Discussions telling Dove that women feel miserable about themselves thanks to the way Beauty Products are marketed.) Marketing wise - it's a brilliant ploy. Make a beauty product appealing to a woman who feels alienated by notion of perfection, or who may feel intellectually insulted by the market telling her to look and feel a certain way.

But even the cynic in me recognizes that a young girl seeing this could perhaps rethink her body image. (If only it was that easy. Sigh) Girls at the age of eight are starving themselves because they are afraid they'll get fat. At age nine they start waxing because they are told that the only way a woman can look beautiful is by looking like a baby. Soft, smooth and all that. The funny thing is most baby products these days appear to be marketed for women. Because the tagline often reads "Makes your skin as smooth as a baby's". Now, why would you tell a baby that it's skin is going to be as smooth as a baby's. Unless of course you are urging the woman to buy it for herself.

It's only fair if Dove is undertaking this campaign to sell more - after all that's how companies make money. But if they do it while they make young girls feel better about themselves. Great.

Mirror on cab roof

Every cab in Bombay has a personality. The cabs are more unique than individuals. (Sorry Kundera). Sometimes late at night, you call for a cab and what looks like a strobe light hangs from the roof. My personal favourites were cabs with purple lights fitted inside. Spooky, but really put you in the Bombay mood. Especially if you were with friends. The loud ones.

While the afternoon drowned into the evening, SD and I caught a cab to Churchgate. This one had almost-bright blue seatcovers, a bead like thing hanging right behind the driver's seat. But best of all, a huge mirror on the roof. So we looked upward and made faces for a while. This photograph was taken camera facing upward, giggling and in a cab that shook like crazy over the smoothest of roads. SD was trying to touch the mirror, and the light bounced off her hand. A Bombay Blue moment. (No, not the restaurant.)

While she is not related to me

More than a year back when this blog was yet to find any readership (as compared to the nine dedicated readers now), a lot of people would google for Kaavya Viswanathan and come here. Except they would get the spelling wrong and spell it as Kavya Viswanathan and come here.

The NY Times has a feature on Kaavya who has written a book "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life". Unfortunately, despite the shared second name - she's not related to me, or I could have helped myself to the nice figure she might have got for the book. Sigh.

The NY Times has a feature on Kaavya and her book. Very interesting. Chick lit really makes me happy.

Blogswana, AIDS and an African Country

Curt Hopkins of Morpheme Tales introduces Blogswana - a project on Botswana, AIDS and Blogging. From his post

The idea is to bring voices from the far side of the digital divide into the global conversation and to rehumanize AIDS in a time where the west has seen AIDS-related mortality decline. By blogging about a person first, the disease will be seen again, we hope, in terms of its human context. AIDS in Africa is, for many in the west, a combination of statistics and abstract tragedy.
...
Being confronted with a world in which you either have it or you don’t (or you don’t know) must feel overwhelming to some people. We would like to create a blog site in which the reader is informed, not bludgeoned. We would like the blogs to be about the ordinary men and women of Botswana with the same concerns, hopes and dreams as the viewer. Some of these concerns will undoubtedly have to do with HIV/AIDS, but such concerns will not make up the entirety of the blogs. Reading about a sympathetic individual who is wrestling with an AIDS related issue may help the reader to come to terms with a similar issue themselves.

I know of Lives in Focus in India (which has been featured here before) that does something similar. But definitely not on the same scale.

Janis Joplin and Chocolate

Being the chocaholic that I am, I sometimes haunt chocolate companies' websites to see if some chocolate might pounce off the screen. So far, none of the chocolate companies have come up with a Eat-Cast!

Turns out though that Cadbury has a podcast. I didn't quite get the Creme Egg connection and for a second thought may it had something to do with a talking Easter egg (creepy). The podcast however has to do with showbusiness and competitions. Well, the reason I really went there was because I am most intrigued by an advert that has a Janis Joplin (while in the Big Brother and the Holding Company) song track played to people sharing their chocolate. The song is Piece of my heart and the lyrics that they play to the advert are

I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it,
Take another little piece of my heart now, baby!
Break another little bit of my heart now, darling, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Have a, have another little piece of my heart now, daddy daddy daddy,
You know you got it if it makes you feel good,
Yes indeed, whoaa.

One of my all time favourites, and all the more reason to go eat some chocolate. Adverts, I tell you. Joplin would have never thought that her wild-swan song would be used to sell chocolate. R.I.P Joplin.

How do you think the South Asian Media handled Iraq?

Indian and South Asian Media's coverage of the war in Iraq may not appear to be important. But given that we live in a country where conflicts erupt everyday, and where the politics of identity and violence dominate the public discourse, the media coverage of this war indicated a lot of about its bias and inclinations.

From Global Voices -

In your country, how does the media’s Iraq coverage rate? Fair and balanced? Biased? Which way? How about bloggers’ reporting and discussion of the issue? Have blogs helped clarify things or added to the confusion? We want to bring the opinions of the world’s bloggers on this issue directly into the debate. Please join us for a live discussion on Wednesday at 22:00–24:00 GMT (6–8pm EDT).

Here’s the plan: Reuters will be hosting a panel discussion which will be videocast and audio cast via this link: http://reuters.com/IraqNewsmakers.

...We will have a live IRC chat which you can join (via the link above or on Freenode at #globalvoices. Read here for more instructions for getting on IRC, or you can use the client on the Reuters event site.).

This hopefully is one of the many ways to answer the all important question - how does the blogosphere impact Mainstream Media, and how can the two spaces enagage. While blogs can never replace Mainstream Media in reporting from the field, or even matching the kind of resources to bring news, the blogosphere allows more space for opinion, dissent, alternate stories and highlight stories that are kicked to page 8. The success of a particular house of Mainstream Media in the future will depend not only on the quality of their news reports but in how meaningfully they can engage with their readers and consumers. A space like this isn't just about feedback, but a classroom for the Mainstream Media. If anything, the transactions will be worth a watch. The post at GV links to some excellent sources -

Lara Logan of CBS recently did an interview on CNN in which she responded to critics who think she and her fellow journalists covering Iraq are biased against U.S. efforts there. Her response angered supporters of the U.S. Iraq policy. (Click here to watch the video clip on YouTube.) The experience of kidnapped journalist Jill Caroll also highlights the risks journalists face in covering Iraq.

In the U.S., the right-wing thinks the U.S. media is biased against the war, and the left-wing thinks the U.S. media was too unthinkingly supportive of the war. There is a real question about whether the war would have happened or unfolded differently if the press had reported different facts. In 2003 a study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes found that an American person’s support for the war had a strong correlation to what media organizations they relied on for their news. After the war started, analysts point out that depending on whether you were American, European, or Middle Eastern, you got a very different view of the war through your media.