Preet Bharara Replies

US Attorney Preet Bharara defends action against Devayani Khobragade IFS (Full Text)

I had blogged on this issue and append this piece to my blog for the benefit of those who haven’t heard of US Attorney of India origin Mr.Preer Bharara’s views on the subject while Indian media and many who watch/read them hate him as anti-Indian. (T M Menon - 25^th December 2013)

There has been much misinformation and factual inaccuracy in the reporting on the charges against Devyani Khobragade. It is important to correct these inaccuracies because they are misleading people and creating an inflammatory atmosphere on an unfounded basis. Although I am quite limited in my role as a prosecutor in what I can say, which in many ways constrains my ability here to explain the case to the extent I would like, I can nevertheless make sure the public record is clearer than it has been thus far.

First, Ms. Khobragade was charged based on conduct, as is alleged in the Complaint, that shows she clearly tried to evade U.S. law designed to protect from exploitation the domestic employees of diplomats and consular officers. Not only did she try to evade the law, but as further alleged, she caused the victim and her spouse to attest to false documents and be a part of her scheme to lie to U.S. government officials. So it is alleged not merely that she sought to evade the law, but that she affirmatively created false documents and went ahead with lying to the U.S. government about what she was doing. One wonders whether any government would not take action regarding false documents being submitted to it in order to bring immigrants into the country. One wonders even more pointedly whether any government would not take action regarding that alleged conduct where the purpose of the scheme was to unfairly treat a domestic worker in ways that violate the law. And one wonders why there is so much outrage about the alleged treatment of the Indian national accused of perpetrating these acts, but precious little outrage about the alleged treatment of the Indian victim and her spouse?

Second, as the alleged conduct of Ms. Khobragade makes clear, there can be no plausible claim that this case was somehow unexpected or an injustice. Indeed, the law is clearly set forth on the State Department website. Further, there have been other public cases in the United States involving other countries, and some involving India, where the mistreatment of domestic workers by diplomats or consular officers was charged criminally, and there have been civil suits as well. In fact, the Indian government itself has been aware of this legal issue, and that its diplomats and consular officers were at risk of violating the law. The question then may be asked: Is it for U.S. prosecutors to look the other way, ignore the law and the civil rights of victims (again, here an Indian national), or is it the responsibility of the diplomats and consular officers and their government to make sure the law is observed?

Third, Ms. Khobragade, the Deputy General Consul for Political, Economic, Commercial and Women’s Affairs, is alleged to have treated this victim illegally in numerous ways by paying her far below minimum wage, despite her child care responsibilities and many household duties, such that it was not a legal wage. The victim is also alleged to have worked far more than the 40 hours per week she was contracted to work, and which exceeded the maximum hour limit set forth in the visa application. Ms. Khobragade, as the Complaint charges, created a second contract that was not to be revealed to the U.S. government, that changed the amount to be paid to far below minimum wage, deleted the required language protecting the victim from other forms of exploitation and abuse, and also deleted language that stated that Ms. Khobragade agreed to “abide by all Federal, state, and local laws in the U.S.” As the Complaint states, these are only “in part” the facts, and there are other facts regarding the treatment of the victim – that were not consistent with the law or the representations made by Ms. Khobragade -- that caused this Office and the State Department, to take legal action.

Fourth, as to Ms. Khobragade’s arrest by State Department agents, this is a prosecutor’s office in charge of prosecution, not the arrest or custody, of the defendant, and therefore those questions may be better referred to other agencies. I will address these issues based on the facts as I understand them. Ms. Khobragade was accorded courtesies well beyond what other defendants, most of whom are American citizens, are accorded. She was not, as has been incorrectly reported, arrested in front of her children. The agents arrested her in the most discreet way possible, and unlike most defendants, she was not then handcuffed or restrained. In fact, the arresting officers did not even seize her phone as they normally would have. Instead, they offered her the opportunity to make numerous calls to arrange personal matters and contact whomever she needed, including allowing her to arrange for child care. This lasted approximately two hours. Because it was cold outside, the agents let her make those calls from their car and even brought her coffee and offered to get her food. It is true that she was fully searched by a female Deputy Marshal -- in a private setting -- when she was brought into the U.S. Marshals’ custody, but this is standard practice for every defendant, rich or poor, American or not, in order to make sure that no prisoner keeps anything on his person that could harm anyone, including himself. This is in the interests of everyone’s safety.

Fifth, as has been reported, the victim’s family has been brought to the United States. As also has been reported, legal process was started in India against the victim, attempting to silence her, and attempts were made to compel her to return to India. Further, the Victim’s family reportedly was confronted in numerous ways regarding this case. Speculation about why the family was brought here has been rampant and incorrect. Some focus should perhaps be put on why it was necessary to evacuate the family and what actions were taken in India vis-à-vis them. This Office and the Justice Department are compelled to make sure that victims, witnesses and their families are safe and secure while cases are pending.

Finally, this Office’s sole motivation in this case, as in all cases, is to uphold the rule of law, protect victims, and hold accountable anyone who breaks the law – no matter what their societal status and no matter how powerful, rich or connected they are.

India-US Diplomatic spat

India-US Diplomatic spat

This morning’s newspapers too carried articles tom-toming the case of Devayani Khobragade arrested in the US on two counts – falsely declaring almost 3 times the wages she had actually contracted a poor Indian maid from Delhi to work for her, and also meting out inhuman treatment to the living-in domestic making her work for up to 19hours per day! The maid sought legal help from US leading to the arrest of the diplomat. One article with a headline screaming the demand for dropping charges against the Indian diplomat as well as seeking unconditional apology from the US government had this photograph of women holding placards inscribed “USA Govt. Be Sensitive to Women” as they protested in New Delhi. WOMEN?

The main reasons for round-the clock media reports on the case, the non-stop panel discussions on TV and the government and politicians of all hues being on the side of the 39-year old Devayani Khobragade were that she was a ‘young’ woman, belonging to the prestigious IFS, and a Dalit to boot! There are geniuses who argue that Khobragade cannot afford the minimum wages prescribed for similar work in the US, i.e. $9.75 which sort of justifies fixing a private deal with poor Mrs. Sangeeta Richard which according to  US Attorney Preet Bharara, went like this: Devayani Khobragade, an IFS officer of the rank of Dy. Consul General of India while claiming in US visa documents that the worker would be paid $4,500 a month, had the maid sign a second contract, not revealed to the U.S. government, which settled the monthly salary at Rs 30,000 (approx $500 - $600). In plain language this is Visa fraud. When the poor maid files a complaint that she was forced to work for up to 19 hours per day, the offense compounds to an even greater violation of human rights! Here in India the rich and influential do much worse, sometimes unbilled sexual exploitation thrown in to the one-sided bargain. You may blame the Capitalist Satan for all the dirty deeds in the world and organise morchas carrying placards with worse things inscribed on them. But there, in this case, I think all right-thinking wo/men should spare a thought for the poor made who has no wires to pull in India, and her employer could file a quick “counter-case” in India, and move a High Court to issue an order prohibiting her from seeking legal remedy abroad! God, we are indeed a banana republic! Pigs can be slaughtered, but they can’t even squeal.

From published records one could easily be suspicious about the behaviour of Devayani Khobragade if not arrive at a conclusion that this brilliant woman of high pedigree could be economical with truth when she chose to... She had filed a statement with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), admitting to own as of 31 March 2012, 11 properties, including flats and land in Maharashtra, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh, some of them as 'inherited' from her father(Uttam Khobragade, a controversial former IAS officer), and others purchased by her. Her declared salary was Rs.50350 (including grade pay) per month, and generated a monthly revenue of Rs.2.26 lakh per annum from her immovable properties. The total value of her assets as per this statement filed with her employer MEA is Rs1.78 crore besides three tracts of land inherited from or gifted to her by her father. But according to the present market value, her properties may be worth more than Rs.6 crore as her 1,000 sq ft in the controversial Adarsh Coop Housing Society (Adarsh CHS) in Mumbai alone is estimated to be worth about Rs.4 crore. Devayaniji claims she bought the flat in Adarsh CHS for Rs.90 lakh from the proceeds of the sale of a flat in Meera Coop Housing Society at Oshiwara in Mumbai which is a plain cock-and-bull story.  A Colaba flat would any day cost about three times as much as one located at Oshiwara.

Devayani’s father Uttam Singh Khobragade was the Chief Executive and vice president of Maharashtra Housing Area Development Authority between 2000-02 and 2004-05. In 2006, she purchases a non-agriculture plot measuring 5,000 sq ft at Alibag from the MHADA which is listed in her affidavit to MEA as worth Rs10 lakh - an understatement  to the tune of 80% at its current market price.

Indian deputy consul general Devyani Khobragade obviously has a record filing false statements back home before being accused and arrested in the US for filing false documents to obtain a visa for her housekeeper, and of paying her $3.13 an hour, about one-third the federal minimum wage.

The Indian MEA has demanded an official apology from the US for shameful treatment of a senior Indian diplomat and the Home Ministry went to the extent of removing security barriers around the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, also withdrawing airport access passes for U.S. diplomats and demanded return of their IDs. Knowing perhaps they are on slippery ground legally, The MEA has not only promoted Devayani to a higher rank enjoying the diplomatic immunity she lacks currently, and moving also to the UN! (The Hindu editorially condemned this move: "That the government chose instead to transfer Ms. Khobragade to India’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York, with a view to enhancing her immunity, is questionable and casts India’s claim of a nation ruled by law in poor light." Yes indeed! The most stupid move from the MEA is checking on the salaries the US Missions pay in India! In the anxiety to do something to save face, they forgot that the US Missions cannot be expected to pay US rates here; we can blame them if they pay less than the market rates/minimum-wages here!

With regard to the allegation of ill-treatment going round in the media the US Marshals Service clarified in a press release that Khobragade was handled according to “standard arrestee intake procedures” for the Southern District of New York. A strip search, examination of body cavities and the possible use of restraints other than handcuffs such as waist chains and shackles, are automatic, non-discriminatory and legal post-arrest procedures in the US, So also,detaining her with other female prisoners while she awaited handling of her case.

Interestingly, the case is handled by Preetinder Singh (Preet) Bharara an Indian American attorney and the current U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. We might recollect that the Time magazine named him in 2012 as one of "The 100 Most Influential People in the World," He is also known for “Busting Wall Street" for prosecuting and convicting famous Indians like Rajat Gupta and  Raj Rajaratnam. Interestingly, there are people in India who argue now that Barara is anti-Indian! I would assume that he is a great lawyer. From what we understand from his current behaviour, Salman Khurshid, who had taught law for a few years at the Trinity College, Oxford, and is now India’s Minister for External Affairs, has neither the legal skill to beat Barara nor the Diplomatic finesse to move matters smoothly. On top of it his party is trying to get some glory fighting the most powerful country on earth. But others don’t seem to allow the GoP to walk away with it all, the BJP and even the pathetic political rumps like the CI and the CPM are chipping in with anti-American vitriol. Misplaced outrage over an inconsequential diplomatic spat and responding with an escalating and strangely petty series of reprisals is pushing India to ridiculous brinkmanship close to persuading US to mumble "go to hell" and proceed with the normal legal actions against the Indian diplomat. The Only thing on Devayani’s side and India’s at this stage, is the Obama Administration’s reluctance to push matters back to the days of “estranged democracies”  thanks to Indian’s largeness and of course, our democracy.

THE LANGUAGE ISSUE

THE LANGUAGE ISSUE

“Knowledge acquired out of English is not harmful but the Anglicization penetrated into the youth is dangerous”, said BJP chief Rajnath Singh as he bemoaned the system of education introduced by the British in India eroding our cultural values and stymieing the growth of Sanskrit in the Country. The ToI report of this news on July 20^th, 2013 averred that it was not in keeping with the commitment to “modern social order and dynamic growth” BJP projected. Rational prejudice – the kind of hostility towards certain ideas rooted in a well-defined ideology is very much in display in the newspaper report.

“All that was good and living within us was made, shaped and quickened by…British rule” Nirad C Chaudhuri, the brilliant though controversial writer had opined. Nradbabu, however, found that the anglicised upper-middle class leadership of the ruling Congress party “weak in character, mediocre in intellectual ability, and totally lacking idealism and public spirit”. I am sure those who run the ToI News Network do not want to share that view!

But then there was nothing contrarian in the BJP chef’s opinion. In fact it was something which every second politician, social scientist, educationist and economist in this country has been airing since Independence. Mulayam Singh Yadav had always vowed to work against the use of English in education and even computers and hopes that abolition of "expensive education in English" would create a level playing field for all and less use of computers would generate jobs. The Samajwadi Party is a supporter of the UPA Government, the harbinger of “dynamic growth” in India. The Communists had opposed computers for 25 years!

During the Freedom struggle, most stalwarts of the Independence movement had asserted that free India that is Bharat will have a National Language of its own, and experiment with the educational system Gandhiji envisioned (Nai Talim - Basic Education) and not Macaulay’s system prevalent in the British India. In an interview Gandhiji had said: “To give millions knowledge of English is to enslave them. The foundation that Macaulay laid of education has enslaved us.” In his view, the schools and colleges were only factories for turning out clerks for British Government. He foresaw that in such an educational system Indian children would be alienated from their cultural template and 'career-based thinking' would become dominant. That is what eventually happened! The products of the high-voltage English-medium Convent education come out as arrogant, self-seeking, and self-serving brats who visibly lacked the proverbial Indian tolerance of oddities and broadness of sympathy. I remember somebody writing that English is less of a language than an operating system like Windows. S/He also pointed out that speaking and writing good English ensures 300% higher employment outcomes for entry-level jobs! S/He was not indeed arguing against mother tongues, but presenting a case for being multilingual. Point taken.

It may be relevant to add here that while the Gandhian Basic system was running, it was reported that compared to the English Medium Schools, the children in Basic Schools were more active, cheerful, self-reliant, with well-developed power of self-expression. They were found to be acquiring habits of co-operative work and social prejudices were breaking down.

 An honest review of the statements of even the ruling elite of the Nehruvian era and thereafter too will reveal that this was a kind of collective anxiety of the nation – that the uncontrolled invasion by the Western civilization would engulf our cherished values.

The Father of our Nation said once: “I am and I have been a determined opponent of modern civilization. I want you to turn your eyes today upon what is going on in Europe and if you have come to the conclusion that Europe is today groaning under the heels of modern civilization, then you and your elders will have to think twice before you can emulate that civilization in our Motherland. But I have been told: "How can we help it, seeing that our rulers bring that culture to our Motherland?" Do not make any mistake about it at all. I do not for one moment believe that it is for any rulers to bring that culture to you unless you are prepared to accept it, and if it be that the rulers bring that culture before us, I think that we have forces within ourselves to enable us to reject that culture.”(Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, pp. 312, 313; 27-4-15) He continues elsewhere: “Of all the superstitions that affect India, none is so great as that a knowledge of the English language is necessary for imbibing ideas of liberty, and developing accuracy of thought.”

Gandhiji’s warnings against the British Education system were prophetic. The educational system his “truant and errant” political disciple allowed to run in India was a continuation of the British one. The results are for everyone to see: It made them see western education as superior and destroyed the pride they in their own languages and culture. Perhaps that is what makes the English language and the British sysstem of education dear to so-called liberal-Left combine who have largely abandoned connections with the nation’s deeper meaning system. Macaulay had openly claimed that the major goal of his system of education was disintegration of the coherent Hindu social ethos…Eventually English education, particularly imparted by the Convents, taught Indians self-contempt. The syllabi and the teaching persuaded native Indians the ideals of Western civilization, and made them despise every other, particularly their own. Particularly, the political left has by and large abandoned Indian history, tradition, and culture, perhaps in pursuit of their lopsided agenda for “fundamentally transforming Indian society”.

Reporting the discovery of several Urdu Gazals Veer Savarkar wrote during his 11-year incarceration in the Andaman Jail, the ToI reporter couldn’t withhold her ‘view’: ….”there is much surprise that Savarkar has written in fluent Urdu, a language considered unlikely for the champion of political Hindutva.” Urdu, was indeed the socio-administrative requirement of Muslim conquerors who plundered, pillaged and looted before deciding to settle down around Delhi. Urdu drew its vocabulary mostly from Turkish, Persian and Arabic. While Persian was the official language of Mughals, it was the British who made Urdu the lingua franca in northern India since 1837. Naturally, the Hindu elite too chose to learn and speak Urdu along with the Muslims then. It is said however, that linguistic supremacy of Urdu, a rootless wonder, imposed over regional languages became a permanent source of irritant for the Hindus. The founder of Aligarh Muslim University, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, was so obsessed with Urdu, that he projected it as a symbol of Muslim domination over the cultural and linguistic identity of India. Savarkar was not against Urdu as a language, but as a symbol of this kind. After the establishment of Pakistan, Urdu was declared as the language of “100 million Muslims”. In hostile symbiosis with this attitude Hindu nationalist began to move towards Sanskritised Hindi which the South Indians happen to grasp easily too. When the Indian Muslim League and all the Communal Muslims speak against our National Language and support Urdu, and Communists and the so-called liberal-Left politicians back them, it becomes difficult for the “Hindu nationalists” to applaud.

It was obviously Rajnath Singh’s reference to the richness of Sanskrit language and about the poor state of affairs of the “Mother of all our languages” in India that is Bharat, which irritated the “secular” ToI News Network. Let me remind them, Sir Monier-Williams (1819-1899) an Orientalist, professor of Sanskrit at Oxford in his book Hinduism, and no pro-Hindu nationalist described Sanskrit as “the only vehicle of Hindu mythology, philosophy, law, the mirror in which all the creeds, opinions, and customs and usages of the Hindus are faithfully reflected and the only quarry whence the requisite materials may be obtained for improving the vernaculars or for expressing important religious and scientific ideas."

Jawaharlal Nehru wrote "The Sanskrit language… is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either: yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs, and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all without believing them to have sprung from some common source which perhaps no longer exists..."(source: Discovery of India - p 165). Prime Minister Nehru said many times that the soul of India resided in this ancient language and its literature. I suppose every Indian could feel proud of this language, and feel sorry that we are unable to do to it what Israel did to a defunct language like Hebrew. Do they not use Hebrew at all levels of teaching and learning? Don’t Russians, Germans, the French, Japanese and Chinese have their own languages as medium of instruction in all educational institutions and still have dynamism in every sphere?

It does not escape the attention of readers of Time of India that this paper for quite some time it has been on BJP-bashing job; almost every day devoting one or two of the 3-piece editorial, and in every news report the paper’s official views interpolated into the text. In the past, BJP’s promise if elected to rule the country, to ensure “progressive and equitable ingredients of all personal laws”  to be picked while drawing up a Uniform Civil Code for all Indians was misrepresented an effort to impose the will of Hindus on the Muslims in India. Ridiculous comparative survey reports are released day by day to belittle Gujarat’s economic progress. ToI economist had the gumption to write about the Naroda-Patiya judgement as delivered by Gujarat High Court and get away with it! Unfortunately, such news-views mix are “mainstreamed”; and the perceived effect of such “mainstreaming” is a convergence of political attitudes into a core position that is either anti-nationalist or skewed to Left or anti-national!

I have always thought that The Times Of India was in the “business” of printing news and making money. When did they begin to adopt “Colonel” McCormick’s maxim “its our job to print news and raise hell”? Is it “proprietorial pique” that is reason for the obvious and constant bias?

Choppergate and beyond…

More often than not, lesser pain appears to vanish when you experience more excruciating new suffering. In the current political context the Union Government is benefitted from the terrible cycle of terror unleashed by Islamic terrorists wreaking vengeance for their brother hung on the gallows for the heinous attack on Indian parliament. News hawks tearing the government for yet another corruption in the purchase of a squadron of VVIP helicopters from Italy have shifted their attention to the horrendous story of Bomb blasts in Hyderabad. The news media has done this before: they had almost abandoned the humongous 2G and Coalgate scams involving corruption sucking billions of rupees from the nation’s coffers to go after a newer scam which involved only $556 million. While I regret the expression, the Hyderabad blasts are a Godsend to the UPA government in the sense the human calamity will be less one-sided as a target of attack on it. For all you know, the news media will not even do the follow-up stories on the corruption issues  as long as they have a surfeit of morbid stories on the human calamities following the serial blasts over two days, and God forbid, yet to come.

I am on the choppergate now and wish to do some probing, even as the Prime Minister, his cabinet colleagues and Congress party spokespersons take pains to explain that the Agusta Westland investigation as a time-consuming and almost hopeless pursuit. Some have already blamed for Defence Minister AK Antony for moving to scrap the copter deal, without consulting the Cabinet Committee on Security, and the PMO. News is leaking that Italy has refused to cooperate because their “judicial process is going on”. I was just wondering whether it is not in the interest of this Union government that Italy refuses to cooperate for ever on this issue. Was anybody like Madhav Singh Solanki was sent with a note to the Italian authorities not to cooperate with the CBI as was done in the case of the Bofors scam? Why this sudden offer for a JPC? Who does not know what happens when a JPC with a majority of members from the UPA and their allies sit in judgement when the Government machinery is the accused?

This is particularly relevant when we know that the CBI probe into the Coalgate scam involving Rs.1.86lakh crores is stalled Coal Ministry, (still under the PM?) is not delivering files asked for by the investigative agency. This is what Ranjit Sinha tells the Parliament’s Accounts Committee (PAC). Meanwhile the CBI’s Senior Public Prosecutor was caught on tape helping the key accused, CEO Sanjay Chandra of Unitech, boasting about “muddling the matters” wherever possible, coaching him and guiding him how to counter CBI legal moves.

A newspaper close to the Government reported all of a sudden on 19^th February that the Union Government indeed had smelt a rat “months ago” and “petitioned Rome 6 times over the chopper deal, something which not even the Ministry of Defence press release a few days earlier had mentioned! Another newspaper had a front-page report of Minister for External Affairs Salman Khurshid opposing the scrapping of the Agusta Westland copter lead, for the purported reason of such a decision affecting the “defence preparedness of the country”! Who is he to worry about defence preparedness more than the Defence Minister himself?  There are indeed many others who spread the story that cancellation of the copter deal by Defence Minister will be a “big set back” to the IAF. They forget that the VVIP helicopters are not essential weaponry for the defence forces. There must be a lot of heartburn in New Delhi’s corruption circuit because the Finmeccanica and their agents have in the pipeline some $8 billion (Rs.44000Cr) worth Indian contracts which they might lose if AK Antony has his way!

It was in 2010 that Government of India decided to purchase 12 Agusta Westland AW101 helicopters for ferrying around the Prez, the PM and other dignitaries at the cost of Rs.3546Cr ($556 million). The helicopters are manufactured in the Yevil factory in UK.  Italian Prosecutors suspect payment of more than Rs.450Cr to middlemen as bribes and Finmeccanica CEO Giuseppe Orsi was arrested on corruption charges. Agusta Chief Bruno Spagnolini is under house arrest. Former Air Chief Marshal SP Tyagi’s relatives, Sandip, Julie and Dosca are named as beneficiaries by the Italian Prosecutor. The Italian middlemen under arrest assert that they met Tyagi 6/7 times, including at the Bangalore airshow, and at the offices of his cousins. Italian investigators suspect and investigative reporters allege that a kick back of 51 million euros (Rs.350Cr) was paid out directly and some 30 million euros was routed through Christian Michel, a UK-based middleman and confidant of Orsi, the Finmeccanica CEO.

Meanwhile, it is known that a Chandigarh-based Software firm, IDS Infotech routed Rs.140Cr bribes in Mother India through a fake-deal in IT services to Agusta Westland. IDS Infotech does not show up in Ministry of Corporate Affairs records. The Minister-in-charge may not want to have it on records, if I were him. The fact is that IDS hived off a subsidiary, Aeromatrix which had as directors, Guido Ralph Haschke and Carlos Gerosa, a Delhi-based advocate Gautam Khaitan and one Pravin Bakshi who was also an executive VP in IDS. Here enters the coal-scam tainted former Union Minister of State, and Congress leader Santosh Bagrodia’s brother Satish as another director of IDS Infotech. To create further confusion, there is talk of a lion’s share of the kick-back going to “the family”. Sounds like the ‘G’ in Bofors scam?

ACM Tyagi distinctly remembers now that he met the middlemen after retirement! Tyagi also cleverly tried an escape route instigating Congress-led government to deflect the needle of suspicion to NDA government and spin a scam out of in the opposite direction saying that the technical parameters were tweaked to favour Westland by Vajpayee PMO in 2003, though the tenders were floated in 2006, finalised in 2007 and the deal was inked in 2010 when Pranab Mukherjee was the Defence Minister in the UPA government! Tyagi had almost succeeded in triggering a major political storm in Delhi, when unfortunately for him, a day after Tyagi’s above statement, the present Defence Minister being an honest person, a Defence Ministry press release on 14.2.2013 said that the tender requirements for the helicopters were “deliberated at length” between March 2005 and September 2006 before changer in the specifications made, which fits with the Italian investigator’s claim! A preliminary report of 64 pages filed in the tribunal of Busto Arsizio city after arresting Orsi and Spagnolini, the Italian investigators have named ACM SP Tyagi (who was IAF Chief from January 2005 to December 2007) as beneficiary of an undisclosed amount to be routed through his cousins. Middlemen claim that they met Tyagi in his office, influenced him to change terms, and the ACM went on briefing them thereafter on all developments. There seems to be perfect logic and a lot of circumstantial evidence to assume that ‘the Italians took money, kin route to air chief’ as a national newspaper’s banner headline said on the front page.

Finmeccanica the holding company of Agusta Westland bagged the Indian business in February 2010  beating rival US firm Sikorsky, the better-known manufacturer of military choppers on the ground that Sikorsky machines cannot reach the “operational ceiling” od 18000 feet; but for clearing Agusta Westland this was quietly tweaked to 15000 feet, just 500 feet higher than Sikorsky!

A national News TV Channel had broken the news on the kickbacks a year back following which BJP MP Prakash Javadedkar had written to the Defence Minister regarding the 51 million euros commission paid to one Guido Ralph Haschke to facilitate the deal in India. It is very similar to Ottavio Quattrocchi, a Country Manager of Snam Projetti based in Delhi getting 3% commission for Indian Army’s purchase of Howitzers made by Bofors of Sweden.

“When the bribe-giver has been caught, why can’t the bribe-taker be identified?” asks BJP’s Arun Jaitley. Don’t you remember, Mr.Jaitley, speaking to the CBI officers and anti-corruption establishment of the country recently, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh had told them that what was needed was to focus on the ‘Supply side of corruption”. And that side could be expected not to open up to us! I was astonished as the BJP escaped the allegation of wrong-doing imputed by former ACM Tyagi, thanks to the Defence Ministry’s own press release, former BJP Defence Minister Jaswant Singh, the man who speaks in capital letters, as they say, tried to support ACM (retd) Tyagi to the extent of holding the view that Brajesh Mishra had the specs changed! Jaswant Singh however, clarifies that former NSA had taken the decision to avoid a single-vendor situation. For Jaswant “guilt through association” doesn’t exist and Tyagi is likely to be innocent! That is not the impression we get from the investigations in Italy…Perhaps Jaswant Singh has forgotten the example of the Nandas, the Khannas, and the Choudhries of the past. Would Jaswant benefit of doubt to former coal minister Santosh Bagrodia too?

Perhaps the Indian defence system fails to plug the holes in the system despite the series of scandals over defence purchases during the last three or four decades. Defence Ministers like Jagjivan Ram, Sharad Pawar and Moolayam Sigh Yadav have been named in controversies over assets and incomes far exceeding their known sources of income. The “integrity pacts” and prohibition over engagement of agents and the tall talk of transparency have been only for the consumption of the gullible public, it appears. It may be noted that if they have no agents they may employ Managers connected with the potential customers. US copter firm Sikorsky has Air Vice-Marshal AJS Walia (retd) as their India and South Asia head. Former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi could helpfully defended the Indian system (now almost run by his compatriot) with a statement that “bribes are a phenomenon that exist. It’s useless to deny the existence of these situations. They are not crimes”. It must be heartening to the Congress party, and Prime Minister Singh. Had not Indiraji herself said that corruption was a worldwide phenomenon?

I am deeply worried because the Defence Minister AK Antony-led Defence Acquisition Council is already sitting on billions of dollars’ worth procurement of arms, ammunitions and planes and helicopters. It appears 197 light utility helicopters (Rs.3000Cr) proposal had a middleman (Brigadier Saini?) asking Agusta Westland $5 million bribe to swing the deal, this being a joint Army-IAF procurement plan. Agusta Westland is out of this deal now, but the Russian Kamov Ka-226T and EurocopterAS550C3 Fennec are in the race. Newsmen call Antony a “champion blacklister” for having many like the Singapore Technology Kinetics, Rheinmetall, the German conglomerate, Israel Military Industries, South African Denel, and altogether some 120 or so defence suppliers put under the blacklist. It is as if the difficult choice is between safeguarding the Minister’s personal integrity and the nation’s defence preparedness. St. Antony is very touchy about issues of corruption, and in the situation, it would be the Indian armed forces that stand deprived of essential supplies be front-line combat equipment from fighter aircraft, artillery guns or air defence radars.

Antony’s penchant for black-listing manufacturers, and cancelling orders which materialised after years of prevarication can throw a spanner in the works of our much delayed defence purchases even as his ministry’s claims of an effective ban on middlemen and arms dealers. The Defence Minister’s preference to technical superiority based on specification sheets like in the case of the Rs.64500 order for the Rafale fighter aircraft from Dassault, is equally worrisome. The French fighter aircraft is not known to have participated in any major war!

Who’s cheating?

Last week my wife and daughter blew up a large amount of money in various Pune malls buying all sorts of things at what they describe as “heavily discounted” prices. Though I have never believed in these discounts, I give them the benefit of doubt and make them feel elated because I have never felt comfortable with the prices, discounted or otherwise in any of these shopping malls. My opinion that the traders are out to trick us into these bogus offers is “irrational”, says my wife. And believe me; I have given carte blanche to my wife for shopping for me anything from vests to foot-wear, because if I do the purchases, I do them always in haste, and regret (every time) at leisure!

I hate ‘troubling’ the shopkeepers with requests for showing all their stock and walking away without any qualms, as my wife does. My wife and daughter say that it is precisely what the shop assistants are paid for. As someone without unlimited supply of money I feel the prices are hardly affordable, but have no clear idea how to bring them down to levels that I can afford. So to get the best out of a tricky situation I sit somewhere in the mall/shop and wait for them to buy what we all want. My wife  says I enjoy ‘bird-watching’ as they do the difficult selection, inspection and bargaining tasks, and back home criticise the time taken, the choice of stuff and the money spent too. At times I admit that they save me the entire inconvenience involved, and give me the pleasure of showing who the ‘boss’ was in the sense I hand over the cash or credit card.

I have been ridiculed by friends for my sheer inability to strike a bargain with any shop keeper. I tend to believe sheepishly or rather foolishly when they say their goods cost a certain amount and that was not to be contested. If I try to act clever and suggest lower prices, they act tough and I withdraw with my wounded price never to visit that place again. My wife twists a knife in the wound at this precise moment asking me not to be a ‘bourgeoisie’ (I don’t know from where she picked up this old Commie expression) and also philosophically implore me to allow them to earn their livelihood. The same person admonishes me often for paying higher prices than what her brother does to get sundry goods, implying or insinuating that he is smarter than me. He later confides in me that he had deliberately cultivated this misunderstanding for just the fun of it while having paid exactly what amounts I had doled out in each case!

My friend Sebastian who lived in New Delhi once took me along to Colaba-Causeway for some shopping he wanted to do because I was an old Mumbai-hand. As we entered a shop he asked me casually, “Don’t they give discounts?” I pointed out the cards displayed on every rack: NO BARGAINING. He didn’t say a word. He found his stuff and bought a few of thousands worth clothes and moved to the cash-counter, asking “what discount do you give me”? The owner of the shop said: “no discounts sir!”. “Then I am not buying the stuff. You give me 25% discount, and I take them; do you get me?” said Sebastian. It was a war of nerves or something akin to that. Sebastian eventually settled for 20% discount, and as he walked out of the shop with his packets, threw this question at me, “TM, what is the use of being in Mumbai for almost ten years if you didn’t know these people could be persuaded to cut prices for what you wanted to buy from them?”

It is as if it is written on my forehead that I was gullible or incapable of striking the right bargain. Bargaining, I thought was a transaction/agreement in which each side did something favourable to the other. I have never found the other side giving me anything, however much I tried! Later I found a way of getting around this problem. I used to casually, almost stealthily walk behind other shoppers adept in this bargaining business if we have common interest in the goods on offer, and pick up at the price they had negotiated down to, before haggling for more and quit. I used to be happy about the outcome, knowing that on my own I would not have got the bargain; what if I overpaid fifteen or twenty rupees? Before I learnt this technique, I had paid a ridiculous 200 rupees for a pair of Kolhapuri chappals in Delhi’s Palika Bazar which my friends told me that I would have got for just twenty five rupees (1992 prices). God! It is such a torment doing the shopping to get the right stuff while paying the right prices. Leaving it to the wife altogether, at least I get the opportunity to find fault with someone else for over-spending which I would have done too. It is a pity that my wife has learnt this part of the transaction and ignores the prices while concentrating on the quality she looked for. She has code-worded this as fifty-fifty – her blame/her quality; my convenience/my money.

I had this hilarious experience the other day in a mall I sauntered into along with my wife, daughter and almost-2-year-old granddaughter. Trisha like all small kids, like to cosy up to bigger kids and was attracted to this 6-7-year-old boy in bright clothes, shopping with his mother a few years older than my daughter perhaps. So I stood by, and was fascinated by the boy’s mother bargaining in chaste Hindi. While Trisha was pulling at his shirt, the boy ignored her and concentrated on his mother’s clever talk. He suddenly pulled the mother and was heard telling in English, “mama, please don’t try to cheat the old lady”. His mother was visibly embarrassed and admonished him: “Karthik, it is none of your business, please keep quiet”. Karthik wouldn’t be dissuaded, and he went on pleading with his mother, “mama, please don’t try to cheat the poor old lady. It’s not fair mama”. Mom was furious and asked him to go away if he didn’t want to be spanked back home. Karthik was subdued by this threat and kept watching the drama involving his mother and the shop assistant, occasionally throwing furtive and benign glances at Trisha beaming at him. At this point the shop assistant gave in and showed up the woollen pull-over and declared she was packing it for Karthik’s mother. This was beyond little Karthik’s understanding of business, and he was heard asking his mother almost in desperation. “mama, she allowed you to cheat her?” I smothered a laugh and looked away at Trisha who had meanwhile grabbed Karthik’s hand starting a conversation in a language cocktail of English, Malayalam, Hindi and her own gibberish. So who’s cheating, afterall?

LEARN TO LIVE WITH RATIONAL FEAR AND CAUTION

When President Pranab Mukherjee’s son Abhijit Mukherjee, recently elected as MP from Jangipur in West Bengal, made certain snide remarks about women protesters in New Delhi clamouring for stricter action against rapists and molesters he drew  such sharp comments that his sister first and later he himself apologised for hurting the sentiments of women in general. Along with Mukherjee’s nasty remarks was also seen reported CPM leader and former WB Minister Anisur Rehman mocking the Trinamool government's compensation for rape victims, saying, "I would like to ask Mamata Banerjee what would be her fee if someone gets Rs. 20,000 after being raped." In the generally smouldering anger by the educated and media savvy women, this embarrassed the CP(I)M and it upbraided the erring male leader.

I was, however, reminded of a former Chief Minister of Kerala, and CP(I)M leader (late)EK Nayanar’s unbelievably ugly remark in the context of a rape case. A couple of US women tourists were robbed and raped on the famous Kovalam beach in Kerala and Nayanar said in front of the media: “Look here, my dear chap, rape is nothing for these American women. In their country it is such a routine matter as drinking tea is for us!” Since the so-called intelligentsia roots for Marxists in Kerala, protests by people on the other side of the political spectrum carried no weight and neither Nayanar nor his party bothered to apologise. Nayanar had this reputation for being an affable yokel, and after all, what he said was about American women, so why cry hoarse about it and also get blamed for being pro-imperialist to boot?

What Abhijit Mukherjee said in some colourful phrases was that he doubted the sincerity of many of those socialite protestors stalking the streets of Delhi waiting for politically correct causes. I have myself noticed the phenomena he described, and wondered how rooted were these people to the realities and how genuine were their concerns.

A newspaper this morning had a headline WE WANT TO BE NIRBHAYA. Well then, ‘Nirbhaya’ was the name given to the New Delhi  rape victim by the Time of India since the journalistic code did not allow the original name of the victim made known to the public as long as she was alive. The report said that actor Shabana Azmi led a march “with hundreds in attendance” from Juhu Beach to Kaifi Azmi Park to express angry sentiments against the administration and judiciary, and urging the “political class” to take action. There were photographs of Shabana Azmi, Jaya Bachchan and Deepika Pudukone tears smudging their faces or rolling down from eyes. I thought Shabana Azmi and Jaya Bachchan belonged to the political class and quite active that way, unless they were playing their roles on movies. Well, personally I have always doubted the sincerity of these people delivering their socio-political dialogues and expressing their sorrow because their histrionic skills are considerable; and I have always wondered, had I harried an actress, how would I ever have believed her emotions to be true! I am not saying that these people are insincere, but I suppose they have this professional jeopardy of being not taken seriously for their emotions outside the silver screen.

In the late Eighties when I used to work in Mumbai, somewhere on the side of the road leading to Colaba from near Brabourne Stadium Music was being blared out from a shamiana, and since I was walking that road, I went to see what was happening. Shabana Azmi, clad in jeans and a T-shirt, was lying there on a cot, protesting the removal of sugarcane juice vendors off the streets by the City Administration after publishing a series of public service advertisements warning the dangers of coliform bacteria, and harmful amoeba spread by the Ghana (sugarcane) juice made and sold on the roadside. Shabanaji’s worry was about the plight of the poor sugarcane juice vendors plying their innocent trade. To shore up the argument for their cause, she cited the possibility of the fruit juices served in ‘Five Star hotels’ having larger number of coliforms.  As someone who roamed the streets of Mumbai on my marketing calls, I had seen the “innocent” sugarcane juice vendors ‘cleaning’ the sugarcane piled on the dirty footpaths next to their hand-driven or motorised juice extractor by simply passing the blades of their long knives over their lengths in the most casual manner possible. Then the canes are fed to be crushed in between the toothed rollers of the machine, and the juice collected after removing solids using a cloth/plastic sieve. This juice is then served plain with a few drops of fresh lime juice or with ‘masala’. Mumbaikars used to superstitiously believe this as an anti-dote to jaundice and queue up (just as pregnant Mumbai women before the tender-coconut vendors) to have this elixir. As someone who studied biology, I used to take pains to explain to so many people that this sugarcane juice was a recipe for disastrous amoebiasis and jaundice, not too convincingly. Upset by a celebrity endorsing the sugarcane juice vendor’s cause and such pressure forcing the Mumbai Municipal Corporation to withdraw the ban on their trade, I wrote an angry ’Letter to the Editor’ and got it published in the Indian Express as well as the ToI. My comment was that I was more interested in the “aam aadmi” ingesting the dangerous bacteria and courting disaster drinking cheap sugarcane juice and I believed that those who got coliform bacteria served in their juices from the Taj or Oberoi (the two huge hotels in Mumbai then) could very well take care of themselves.

That incident made me harbour a deep prejudice against Ms.Azmi, and that spread to her tribe in Bollywood as well as to the ‘political class’ she represented.

While Abhijit Mukherjee’s description of the “dented and painted” women protesting against the gang-rape in New Delhi appearing to be staging something like a ‘nautanki’ (drama) was in bad taste, and politically incorrect as coming from a politician belonging to the party that ruled the State as well as the entire country, I too felt that the women protesters were too good looking for a spontaneous crowd, and did not exactly look like students. This is a free country, and I have my constitutional right to freedom of expression too!

Now, I have more controversial things to write. I hail from a State known for sexist behaviour by males of all ages, and it is generally explained away (!) because Keralites were sex-starved! When some Malayalam newspapers editorially worried about the Mumbai Underworld’s activities, writer, late MP Narayana Pillai wrote an angry article in one of them saying that Mumbai was the safest city and compared very well with any place in Kerala. He asked the editorial writers and readers of the newspapers whether a person belonging to the female gender between the age of six and sixty was safe in the streets of Kerala even in broad daylight.

So, when I moved to Thiruvananthapuram from Chennai, I gave detailed ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ to my 13-year-old daughter like “don’t laugh to jokes made by males unknown to us”, “do not give your name to the same category” and so on. There were innumerable occasions when I had indeed to go to her help using my clout as a top media person. But in Mar Ivanios College, a co-ed institution she was absolutely safe. However, it was when she went out of Kerala for higher studies, and immediately afterwards on employment that I started breathing easy!

Not just in Kerala, everywhere, if I had to travel by auto-rikshaw, I would insist on getting in first, as a precaution against the driver speeding away with my wife or daughter! When a first cousin told me once how her father was against her engineering education, and when he pleaded and prevailed over him, he literally wrote out a long list of ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ before she headed for the hostel life. I told her that with just one daughter I was tormented by thoughts of her insecurity, and I could imagine his plight with three daughters. The point I am labouring here, is that I cannot understand how so many of these ill-fated girls casually moved about in late evenings and even unearthly hours sometimes, in crime prone areas made notorious by graphic media reports? While I accept this is a free country, enjoyment of this freedom is highly risky for those who have no power: money power, political power, or physical power. Remember, an affluent doctor’s family was totally helpless against a lecherous police officer lusting after their dear daughter when even the politicians sided with him.

The other day police men arrested a man and woman in Kerala for being seen together “under suspicious circumstances” though they tried to prove they were man and wife! Thanks to the story of the hapless Delhi girl, and the atmosphere of vigilance, the erring Sub-Inspector was suspended from service. But I am worried for the family because their address is known to the police officer. This is the law enforcement organization whose one senior officer had another one’s wife raped by letting a convict off from jail temporarily, in order to settle a score! (This was in a Malayalamanorama serial piece on the Police force in Kerala)

Let us, all those “dented and painted women” and the others and their men folk including me, not be fooled by this talk of women’s dignity, safety etc. A Prime Minister of India had thrown out her widowed daughter-in-law from the Prime Minister’s official residence, also asking the chowkidar to check her bags before she left the gates! That the remaining daughter-in-law who watched this atrocity in silence if not in collusion happens to be wielding ultimate power in the country now when the media is full of crimes against women is perhaps happenstance. But that is enough for Abhijit Mukherjee M.P. and me to be sceptical about this hoopla over Nirbhaya as it comes from some of those innumerable mothers-in-law and sisters-in-law who physically and mentally torture women in India that is Bharath. Rapists and molesters are infinitely fewer in numbers.

TO THE WOMEN WHO DEMAND EQUALITY: PLEASE REMAIN ON COURSE. DO NOT ASK FOR PRIVILEGES FOR BEING THE WEAKER SEX. WHEN YOU GO FOR SOFT OPTIONS LIKE PRIVILEGES, YOU LOSE OUT ON EQUALITY BECAUSE THESE DO NOT GO TOGETHER.

AND TO THE YOUNG GIRLS CARRYING PLACARDS carrying: “Don’t you dare tell me what to wear: Teach him not to stare.” The slogan rhymes well, but you know, exhibiting your bodies is as rude as staring. Wo/men do not stare at the naked bodies of their parents, sisters, and brothers. You have a right to oppose unsolicited physical intimacy from others; but expecting them to look the other way is a tad unrealistic.

RAM JETHMALANI AND THE THEORY OF GROTESQUE

Sri. Ram Jethmalani has a gift of gab that often runs riot like an undisciplined young colt, careless of what it bruises, and crushes. A man of immense talent as a lawyer, he is more often ruled by personal piques than an informed conscience. Currently he is up against the Party that he also strived to build and had several times tried to drag into disrepute as well, almost as a matter of right.

The whacky, weird and the wild charges/opinions of Mr.Jethmalani has indeed invited the attention of the media which is currently in search of balms and potions to minimise the damage it had done to the Congress Party and its government, besides the ‘ruling family’ the Prime Minister and many ministers for getting involved in corruption of unprecedented proportions. Mr.Jethmalani was never happy with the BJP leadership, and had criticised practically every eminent leader of the party, including the venerable L k Advani. In a recent interview given to Srinivasan Jain of the NDTV I was astonished to find that the great criminal lawyer was allowed by the interviewer only to speak against his party though he tried several times to drag Sonia G and Rahul G. He didn’t seem to get angry at all at the interviewer whose brief was obvious. But I remember distinctly Ram Jethmalani justifying his association with the BJP saying that it was the best option available to him in the country.

Years back I was dismayed and hurt when Jethmalani whom I respect so much had left the BJP after being asked to step down by Prime Minister A B Vajpayee from the Cabinet as Law Minister of India following his taking swings at the Chief Justice of India. In a Letter to the Editor to the New India Express I defended Jethamalani. But soon I found Ram Jethmalani taking up the defence of Laoo Yadav in the case of most brazen acts of corruption in the history of India till the time. He was spiting the BJP then too!

For a person who could defend a former DGP who had indulged in the most cruel act of sexual exploitation of an under-age girl, and misused his official clout to silence the girl’s family, saying that we had to go by the lower court’s finding, and not by the allegations raised by the interested parties, Ram Jethmalani exhibits considerable lack of respect for the due process of law in the allegations against BJP President Nitin Gadkari who had invited any probe into his alleged wrong-doing. As to his argument that he was trying to “save” the party, the less said, the better. You know it, Ram, just as us we all know, that this argument over ‘first principles’ do not take politics anywhere. The justification you gave to Srinivasan Jain about your association with BJP is the right one to adopt under the circumstances. The party by far is the most principled, the least-corrupt and led by the ablest and the most committed patriots, period.

Now that Ram Jethmalani has, sort-of burned his bridges with the BJP, he opts to spite the party further. He assaults the symbol of Indian manhood and God-head respected and revered by all Hindus - Lord Rama particularly in the context of the party’s Hindutva agenda. As someone trained a bit to be a literary critic, for me it is “taking a spade to a soufflé ”violent criticism and “deconstruction” technique the epic of Ramayana considered a great religious text instilling human values of filial duty, brotherly love, wifely devotion, princely dedication and even ethics of war and peace. Well, there is only a thin line separating myth and reality in our epics, and just as religious Hindus consider Ramayana as an epic of true stories, meant to spread dharmic principles, disbelieving deconstructionists can make a terrifying villain of it’s chief protagonist. Ramayana and Mahabharatha were written when there was no ready readership, no printing, no publishers, no royalty payments, no awards and such recognition; and it is logical and tenable to conclude the authors were inspired by higher motives and their works were intended to be read and understood for their values as parables and stories of exalted human beings if not ávatars’ giving dharmic education – fictional constructs emancipating facts and truths from perhaps their bondage to reality at times. The learned comment of a great man was that through Ramayana runs a whole gamut of emotions, like anger, absolute arrogance, jealousy, joy, passion, regal equanimity, tender compassion and violence, there is an underlying message that if one steadily hung on to one’s sense of duty one could triumph over the dark emotions which ruled the human heart.

Ram Jethmalani, nearly ninety years old, had just adiscovered the other day that Sri Ram was a bad husband. It may be noted here that Valmiki’s Ram was not an incarnation of Vishnu, while a student of Ramayana is never out of touch with its sanctity and its unequalled importance to the study of our culture and civilisation. Valmiki had his chief protagonist say the words “ätmaanam maanusham manye” suggesting that his conduct was that of a human being desirous of acting in conformity with the highest ideals of Dharma or the best traditions of his time. It could be sheer calculated anachronism to read present-day socio-political prejudices in to an epic that reflected the morals of Thraethayug, some 5000 years ago! 

It is true that Valmiki’s treatment of Sri Ram makes him for a while subject to a violent human passion, jealousy, combining with it his concern as a king for the slanders from his subjects, which sullied the yasas of the Royal House of Ishvakus. Then Sita undergoes the fire ordeal with the whole world and the Gods watching, his dead father Dasaratha himself watching from heaven, and they all testify to her purity and Agni delivers her back untouched.

Ram Jethmalani’s problem is that he started with what is called a Convenient Reverse Logic: the logic of a preferred point of view influencing his personal judgement. He is angry, and in a mood to inflict maximum hut to the BJP and therefore assaults one of their cause celebre, the Ram Jana Bhoomi movement based on the divinity of Ram and his personification as “Maryaada Purushottam’ and the bed-rock of our culture. It is said that there is nothing called objectivity, unless it can be of some advantage to us. In trying to prove his “secular” credentials attacking Lord Rama himself, Ram Jethamalani chose to that Sri Ram for millions of Hindus is no persona so much as personification of certain ideals and values. Not even the lunatic fringe among hard-core Hindus would approve Ram abandoning Sita. The South Indian Hindus play Sitaakalyanam (in Raag Sankarabharanam) during the crucial stage of the marriage ceremony not without any reason. They do not celebrate Ram abandoning Sita. They celebrate the ideal husband in Rama just as the loving wife in Sita. Ram Jethmalani’s criticism of Sri Ram falls into the category of the grotesque. If a person picks up a single flaw from among the many attributes of a great individual to the exclusion of others to bring him down in esteem, the point of view turns grotesque. Valmiki’S Ram is shown ascending steps of perfection throughout his life, in an essentially human document that Ramayana is. Sri Ram’s trials and tribulations, the many adversities he went through, the great changes of fortune that came over him, are vicissitudes of life that readers of Ramayana devoutly and earnestly endeavour to imbibe lessons from.

I am even more upset with Jethmalani for describing Lakshman as "even worse" telling the audience at the function organised to launch a book on a man-woman relationship, that "When Sita was abducted, Ram asked him to go and find her as she was abducted during his watch. Lakshman simply excused himself saying she was his sister-in-law and he never looked at her face, so he wouldn't be able to identify her"! Ramayana has no such incident at all. When Sugreeva found the ornaments Sita had thrown for help to follow the path as she was being taken away by Ravan, and asked the brothers to see whether they belonged to her, Ram fainted ass soon as he saw his beloved's arnaments. Lakshman's reply was“Na hum jaanami kaeyoore, na hum jaanami kundale / Noopurathve-bhijaanami nityampaadaabhivandanal”  that is, he had seen only Sita’s feet as he did pranam everyday to her, and therefore, could identify her anklet among the ornaments. This is what Jethmalani, in his anxiety to deliver a mouthful of nasty words against those whom millions of Hindus   consider immortals and role-models all their lives, misreads and misinterprets! In Valmiki Ramayana, Maaricha seduces away Sri Ram and Lakshman refused to believe that his brother was in danger even after the most pitiable counterfeit cries issued by the rakshas. That was when Sita forgot herself in a wild rage and abused Lakshman for harbouring ulterior motives after his brother’s death. Lakshman abuses her and leaves his watch in disgust. Many believe that what misfortunes befell her later was punishment for her suggesting that he had improper and unspeakable motives. So much for Ram Jethmalani’s erudition.

Since we encounter a legal eagle like Ram Jethmalani in the issue discussed here, I am convinced of the need for a Blasphemy Law in India because people have a right to have their religious feelings protected from outrageous attacks of their beliefs in deities they revere, and it is in public interest to prevent offences which lead to civil discord. Otherwise, as Chandrasekhar’s supporters thrashed Jethmalani publicly when he chose to demonstrate his democratic protest to the Socialist leader’s ascendance to the Prime Ministership of India, violent Ram Bhaktas are likely to physically hurt our Scotch-fed tiger in the streets of India.