Thirukkural’s Kaamathupaal: The Book of Love

After another long break, I have resumed Thirukkural translation on my Thirukkural website. The first few chapters of Kaamathupaal are published in the bilingual Tamizhini e-magazine.

What is the alternative?

‘What is the alternative to the BJP?’ you are asked.
You are tempted to say the Congress, but no, this is not even a valid question.

The only question of relevance to the Indian democracy is, ‘What is the alternative to the Congress?’

There have been alternatives. JP/Morarji, VP Singh, multiparty coalitions. Sadly for the Indian democracy, none of them evolved into viable long term alternatives. But, though their support was taken – always to be rued later, the answer never was, and never should have been, and never should be the RSS/JanSangh/BJP.

Once you vote for a fundamentalist organisation, made deadlier by a fascist ruler, and there’s going to be no dearth of them in future, it becomes very difficult to dislodge them through elections. They become too entrenched. They ruthlessly crush the opposition in ways democratic parties can never do. They undermine and dismantle the regulatory institutions. They muffle the media. People forget how they got to power and start getting indoctrinated. We really have to dig deep into history to see how many fascists have been voted out electorally, peacefully. We might still have a chance, however slim it may be, and the opposition has to go for it with utmost vigour. It will not get any better the next time.

Hate speeches and inequality

What do all these talks on Muslims and Maoists and mangalsutras hide?

It’s this. And it’s not just a sensational election issue but a most important problem that has been staring at us for long – even I have been personally speaking about it in many forums over the last few years.

Inequality in India, and especially the obscenely disproportionate income and wealth concentration with India’s top 1% or top 10%, is amongst the worst in the world, and is worse than during the highest recorded income inequality in the British era.

Poverty eradication, by itself, will not and cannot remove the debilitating social imbalance caused by high levels of inequality. From climate change action to political choices, it impacts every aspect of our lives.

https://time.com/6961171/india-british-rule-income-inequality

/The top 1% holds 22.6% of the country’s income.

India’s top 1% had access to a staggering 40.1% of national wealth. /

/the rise in inequality had been particularly pronounced since the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party first came to power in 2014. Over the last decade, major political and economic reforms have led to “an authoritarian government with centralization of decision-making power, coupled with a growing nexus between big business and government,” the report states. This, they say, was likely to “facilitate disproportionate influence” on society and government. /

The Congress party too cannot be absolved of their contribution in bringing about this situation. But the BJP rule has exacerbated it. If the Congress is now proposing measures to address inequality, the masses should welcome it and not get diverted by all this fear mongering about Maoists and Musalmans and mangalsutras – by the highest elected representative and no less.

Congress, if it truly intends to make inequality a priority, should go on an all-out offensive on it now rather than getting pushed into the defensive and denial by the hate speeches, which are likely to get more intense and which will get amplified on WhatsApp groups and social media.

The poorest of the poor in UP and Rajastan and all over, stand to gain from measures on inequality, and these intense attacks on that intent are only to protect the interests of the Adanis and Ambanis and the 271 billionaires in the country, the highest number after the United States. They own 7% of the world’s total wealth and 40% of India’s wealth, and this is what will be put at risk by equality initiatives and not the ‘mangalsutras of poor mothers and sisters’ (if at all any gold remains on them).

The hypocrisy of the West: from Qurratulain Hyder

(The great hypocrisy of the great liberal West, since 1950s and long before till now, from Algeria to Palestine.)

/B: A police officer appears before me. He was reading Sartre in a cafe in Monmartre last week. And he believed in freedom.

A: Now, I can see too. He orders her to take off her clothes.

B: And she takes off her clothes. (1)

(1) During the Algerian War of Independence in the 1950s, any French army or police officer could order an Algerian woman to strip and prove she was not carrying weapons./

– from the short story, Point Counterpoint, in The Sound of Falling Leaves, Qurratulain Hyder.

The Talisman of Kamaraj

Whenever governments have to make huge economic decisions that directly benefit the people, there are a thousand reasons cited by the prosperous sections, who don’t need those benefits, to prove why they will not work. Like it’s done in the case of farmer protests and whenever any welfare scheme is mooted. Or when sleeper coaches are converted to AC coaches, and fancy superfast trains take precedence over basic trains for the increasing number of migrant labourers. Or when government schools are closed in remote villages due to insufficient enrollment. Or when the elite incessantly complain about PDS or MNREGS.

Beg, borrow, steal, money will be found if it is for buying warplanes or building bombs or aiding big businesses. Does it have to go to the needy? ‘No, show me the money.’

Earlier this month, we were at Gandhigram Constructive Workers’ Home, attending the annual Sarvodaya Day events, celebrating the lives and struggles of Jegannathan and Krishnammal.

This year, we went on a field visit with BEd students to a couple of schools near Chempatti.

One school was a government school with concrete buildings, and was located in a large village.

Another was a government aided middle school in a small and remote village. It had a traditional building made of stones with tiled roofs, sturdy but with sparse facilities. The children were vibrant, teachers were friendly and the women’s support group working there were hospitable. They were all pointing out the need for investments on the school, especially for rest rooms and other basic amenities. Meanwhile, we were treated to hot bondas and a unique blend of ‘Boost tea’.

An inscription on the walls drew and held our attention. The school had been inaugurated by the then Chief Minister, Kamaraj, in 1955. Within a year of coming to power. Especially after his predecessor Rajaji had to step down due to the fiasco over trying to optimise expenses, space and manpower in schools by sending away students early to learn crafts outside the school. I still believe, using crafts in education is an essential and useful method, integral to Gandhian approach, but the brash manner in which Rajaji implemented it, drawing the rather harsh epithet of Kulakalvi (hereditary education), doomed craft-based education and labour in Tamil Nadu forever, or thus far.

This is just one little school in a small village. Not the sprawling campus of an IIT or the imposing building of a CEG. But this inscription in the simple yet functional building in a seventy year old school in such a remote village signifies something more remarkable, and is a reminder to how the same problem was approached in two different ways by the two successive Chief Ministers, both, I believe, with noble intents but contrasting approaches. There could not have been many more important priorities than primary education in a newly independent and largely illiterate and poor country. Means to provide it had to be found and were somehow found. Leaders who care for the masses would seek and, most often, find the talisman to solve the foremost problems of the poorest of the poor.

We kept gazing at the inscription with a nostalgic amazement.

The condition of the farmers and the Farmer Protests

When we bought our farm nine years ago, coconuts were being procured by the traders from the farmers @ Rs.8 per piece. The same year it went down to Rs.2 (yes, it did). We decided not to sell coconuts any more. And started selling coconut oil @Rs.180 per litre. It translated to around Rs.10 per piece, without adding our labour. But needless to mention, any such value addition involved a huge amount of additional toil. We were able to carry the oil in our car and sell directly to our friends in the city. Not a luxury available to a majority of small farmers. Soon, the price returned to Rs.10 and gradually moved up to Rs 20. It didn’t make sense for us to make oil anymore and we went back to selling the coconuts. To deal with the vagaries of the market, we were collecting and storing the coconuts so that we could sell them when the price was right. However this too involved the additional work of gathering coconuts by ourselves every day. There was always the risk of someone else doing the gathering and walking away with it, when we were away. Also it wasn’t easy to play the market. By the time we chose to sell, many coconuts used to get spoiled, or lose weight. The yield also went down, as the mature coconuts stayed too long on the trees, blocking the nutrition meant for the next lot, the locals insisted. After a couple of years of this experiment, we reverted to the traditional practice of having a trader pluck and gather the coconuts at regular intervals. The price again started plummeting towards Rs.10 and has stayed thereabouts. We have however chosen to stick to the traditional method, as it saves us a lot of work and anxiety.

I also realised why the farmer who sold the land to us chose to do so. There was no way he could have supported the college education of his children. After selling the land, his daughter completed her BE, joined an IT company, and travelled to Australia for a while. Meanwhile they built a comfortable house and moved out of their 50 year old cramped dwelling. The son completed his BCom and got employed, though not as handsomely as his sister. Finally the girl was married off, and has taken her parents with her to Chennai to look after her child. But, of course, the father picked up diabetes, pressure and what not, along the way, which took him to near-death ailments twice.

Coming back to our story, the coconuts are selling at more or less the same price as they used to when we bought the farm nearly a decade ago. You can do the math of inflation. The day our annual income from the farm catches up with my monthly income from my last job, which I quit twelve years ago, we would consider ourselves to be successful farmers.

Of course, though I still don’t claim to fully understand how, the land price is the one aspect that has kept up with or outperformed inflation. Farm lands, if they are at the right locations, are still a good investment – I can’t say for how long. But farming is not a profession by any definition; it remains a voluntary service. If the farmer needs money, she’d be better off selling the land than her crop.

Without getting into any details, I support the farmers’ protests. No demand they are raising is going to establish economic parity for them with the rest of the world.

The landless farm labourers are worse off and would invariably get out of farming soon enough. Can humankind afford to exit farming?

A Republic Day to remember

We had taken our Payilaham children to the Mahatma Gandhi Ashram at Anaimalai on the Republic Day. I had been invited to speak there. Ranganathan anna, who started Gandhi Ashram, is a traditional, hardcore Gandhian, simple to a fault and respected by all. He has strong opinions, not all of them palatable to the liberal mind. He is perhaps stronger in adhering to his beliefs. He is always clad in coarse white khadi; he often walks barefoot. He works with underpriviledged children and tribals. The flag hoisting at his ashram is usually done by a sanitary worker from the neighbouring areas. A qualified lawyer, he has argued only public interest cases. He has been to the prison a few times, as a reward for the various public causes he has taken up, especially around prohibition. I have seen even senior Gandhians feel nervous if he is expected to be around because he speaks his mind and is prone to raise an objection to the various modern evils used even in events organised by Gandhian and environmental organisations – packaged water bottles, airconditioners, paper/plastic cups, paper spreads on dining tables, flex banners, English citations and more. He doesn’t think a Gandhian can be non-spiritual but continues to invite me, despite my apparent non-spiritual, irreligious bent of mind, to speak at his ashram, and showers love and praise on our family. I happily oblige and reciprocate with respect.

 

After he invited me to sit on the stage, he walked up to me and asked me politely, if I was wearing a khadi dress. He always insists that his speakers must be wearing khadi. The first time when he invited me many years ago, he sent khadi dress material (pure white) to our village , which I had to stitch and wear. I told him, this time, my veshti was mill cotton as I had not carried any of my khadi dhothis to the village but my shirt was khadi. Not exactly trademark khadi but Tula. He allowed me a third class ticket to proceed and sit on the stage.

 

I completely agree with him on the importance of khadi. Otherwise I always have trouble adhering to dress codes. The first time one of my banking bosses insisted on me wearing a tie everyday, I almost quit my job at Bangalore – thankfully I had to only quit on my boss and take up an internal transfer to Mumbai. (Not that I never wore a tie or suit. There were occasions. Ironically, my Mumbai boss gently persuaded me to wear a tie to office for a while.) In this new post-corporate incarnation, I am a willing, though not yet exclusive, user and advocate of handmade products and I need no convincing as long I can afford it. Without wearing a khadi dress, I feel quite naked on stage when I talk about Gandhi, decentralisation and ecological changes.

 

I had to tell him, and later the audience, and I must now tell you this about my Tula shirt. It is the modern equivalent of the original khadi, made of rain-fed organic cotton, hand spun, hand woven and hand stitched and dyed with natural colours. I have heard Ananthoo Anantha Sayanan , who is one of the indefatigable forces behind Tula, proudly proclaim, and I think, rightly so, that it is the dress with the least carbon footprint.

 

We started for Gandhi Ashram with six children at 7 in the morning. We changed 3 local buses to get there. We had breakfast and lunch interspersed with our long speeches inbetween. The children were inspired by Ranganathan anna and wanted to take a few snaps with him. He stopped his lunch midway, arose without the slightest hesitation, washed his hands and joined the children. He presented them all with abridged versions of Gandhi’s autobiography, and posed for photos with the children. A happy memory was etched in the digital world. In the meanwhile we missed the bus. Eight of us stuffed ourselves into an auto to get to the Anaimalai bus stop. Then after a half an hour wait in the hot sun next to a stinky gutter, we had to get into a crowded bus, stood all the way to Pollachi, and got a bus to our village after another brief wait.

 

By the time we reached home at around 5pm, I was on the verge of getting my regular migraine. However, coming to the point, I didn’t feel like changing my shirt at all. I still felt as fresh under the Tula shirt, as I did in the morning. I cannot say what magic happens in pure khadi but it makes you feel fresher and better than any premium brand.

 

I remember what Narayan Desai told me. If everyone bought even a small piece of khadi every year, it empowers and gives livelihood to many crores of people. It makes more real economic, ecological and social sense.

 

Gandhi insisted that swaraj lay in the charkha. I can see why.

The Genocide in Gaza – 3

(13-Jan-24)

There were news reports that India has been sending naval ships to protect the commercial ships far out in the Arabian sea. Though not explicitly mentioned, this could be to indirectly/directly aid the genocidal American-Israeli coalition against Yemeni attacks on Israel-bound ships to block the trade route, seeking ceasefire in Gaza. I wouldn’t expect India to support the violent intervention of the Houthis but it is unacceptable to see it lending a helping hand in whatever manner to Israel and its sponsors while the genocide lasts, and when the US and UK have launched their attacks on Yemen.

Why let commercial and religious interests trump the right political and moral choice? How I wish India still had the moral standing to play a prominent role in mediating a peaceful and just solution in Palestine! Or, have the courage of a South Africa in leading a legal recourse against the genocide. At the minimum, I hope India doesn’t land up on the wrong side as this grows into a larger escalation.

India has had its share of genocidal episodes in and around the country. Let it not add more blood on its hands.

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(8-Jan-24)

While many Indian opposition parties cannot even take a bold and honest public stance on domestic issues like Ayodhya or Kashmir, here’s Ofer Cassif, a member of Israeli Knesset, having the moral conviction and immense courage to join the South African lawsuit against his country at the International Court of Justice in Hague.

/In his announcement, he claimed, “My constitutional duty is to Israeli society and all its residents, not to a government whose members and its coalition are calling for ethnic cleansing and even actual genocide.”

Immediately afterward, he stated, “Those who hurt the country and the people are the ones who led South Africa to turn to The Hague, not me and my friends.”

“I will not give up the struggle for our existence as a moral society,” Cassif concluded. ‘That is true patriotism – not wars of revenge and calls for destruction, not unnecessary bloodshed, and not the sacrifice of civilians and soldiers in futile wars.'”/

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(22-Dec-23)

Applicable to Americans then, and Americans now; actually, to all of us everywhere.

“Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in Massachusetts are not a hundred thousand politicians at the South, but a hundred thousand merchants and farmers here, who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, _cost what it may_. I quarrel not with far-off foes, but with those who, near at home, co-operate with, and do the bidding of, those far away, and without whom the latter would be harmless.”

– Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

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(14-Dec-23)

Some of these Aussie players display courage and conviction outside the field too. Cummins speaks for the rights of indigenous people, and now Khawaja.

We, however, truly live in a crazy, senseless, materialistic era. It’s okay for cricket teams to wear shirts of sponsors who promote gambling but an individual player is barred from wearing on his shoes, of all places, a simple statement, ‘All lives are equal.’ Of course, it means something in today’s context but so what? No wonder, there are people who act more swiftly and decisively against slogans in universities than stopping real bombs that kill real children.

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(4-Dec-23)

If you are in the USA and you are supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, you are most likely a White adult (61%), male(59%), aged above 55(63%), a Republican -unless you are Joe Biden or any elected representative.

Most people aged above 55 approve the military action (euphimism for genocide) and most people aged 18-34 disapprove. It just shows, those who are most likely to have been brought up only on mainstream media propoganda and not weaned away from it yet are still supporting.

64% people of colour oppose the genocide while 61% white adults support it. There seems to be a clear racist angle in addition to the religious bias.

But, of course, this is just the broad trend indicated by data and various posts. I do personally know white Americans who strongly oppose the genocide and Indian Americans who steadfastly support Israel.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/545045/americans-back-israel-military-action-gaza.aspx?fbclid=IwAR2P9csDet13xE8TpScOR8QEAPxTrnvIbUvMorMQGn9wpXg7f08BxqSM1cU#:~:text=Americans’%20Views%20of%20Israel’s%20Military%20Action%20in%20Gaza&text=According%20to%20the%20Nov.%201,and%204%25%20have%20no%20opinion

Gallup Study

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The Careless AI

I am still an AI sceptic, for whatever it’s worth. Not that I doubt its ability or inevitability but am not yet sold on its necessity. However, my daughter, inspired by my techie sister, already has a chatgpt account.

Offline, I was helping her with Algebra. An answer we arrived at (correctly, I insisted) did not match the answer given in the NIOS textbook – unfortunately, not an infrequent occurence. Fed up with the endless methods of factorising a polynomial and the errors in the book, she decided to have some fun and fed the problem to chatgpt to verify the answer.

Not surprisingly, it gave a wrong answer. She kept prodding it but it kept giving the wrong answer. Finally she keyed in the right answer and chatgpt apologized for the wrong answers and accepted the answer she gave as the right one. I still don’t know if it was bluffing, since, when my sister asked the same question a couple of days later, it continued to give wrong answers.

Yes, per se, nothing exciting about this. It’s still early stages, and, no doubt , the machine will get better. What grabbed my attention was the nature of the mistake. It was not a logical error or a formula error. Chatgpt appears to have made a careless mistake. a^4+b^4 became (a^2)^2 – (b^2)^2 in the subsequent step. I would have thought this is not an error a machine is capable of. Maybe, it is indeed getting closer to human intelligence and has developed the ability to make careless mistakes, which should, like love or hate, be confined to the human realm. It’s indeed scary.

(And now my daughter questions, or rather, proclaims, ‘If AI can make mistakes in Maths, why shouldn’t I?’)

The Genocide in Gaza – 2

(11-Nov-23)

Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1941,talked about Four freedoms for the whole world – freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear.

Louis Fischer wrote about a conversation with Gandhi around that time.

/”Your President,” Gandhi continued with a low voice (to Louis Fischer), “talks about the Four Freedoms. Do they include the freedom to be free?”/

How pertinent! That is one freedom the free world had been then and has been now denying to others across the world. Not that they have done well on the other four freedoms even within their own countries. France has banned pro-Palestinian protests. The Home Secretary of UK (now fired) has accused the London police of bias for allowing the protests. BBC has been accused by its own reporter of withholding complete information about the war. US Universities have cracked down on anti-Israel protests. Many people have lost their positions for supporting Palestine. The US government tried to curb the reporting of Al-Jazeera. Israel has outlawed even consumption of ‘terrorist’ propaganda.

That the free world is fully free is a myth we have all been sold convincingly all these years.

In the same conversation, Gandhi also says, “…America is the ally of the England which enslaves us. And I am not yet certain that the democracies will make a better world when they defeat the Fascists. They may become very much like the Fascists themselves.”

Again, Gandhi was being prescient.

The fascist faces of these democracies are being unmasked (again) by their complicity in the ongoing genocide.

P S.:

Gandhi further added: “Assuming that the national Government is formed and if it answers my expectations, its first act would be to enter into a treaty with the United Nations for defensive operations against aggressive powers, it being common cause that India will have nothing to do with any of the Fascist powers, and India would be morally bound to help the United Nations. “

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(11-Nov-2023)

This blood is on the Americans, the English and the French too, whose leaders rushed to Israel, embraced Netanyahu and gave him a clean chit and a blank cheque, when the first hospital was bombed. Would they now clarify whose side is bombing the remaining hospitals and the wounded children with no surviving family?

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(29-Oct-23)

Israel must be one of the most merciless murderous régimes in history. While others may have taken some care to keep the horrors of genocide hidden from the world, Israel has no compunctions about waging an open ethnic cleansing. Right before the eyes of the world. (And now, the communication lines have been destroyed for the entire region.)

I can only scoff at any argument about understanding the nuances of the Israel-Palestine conflict. If ever there’s anything absolutely black and white in history and the contemporary world, this is it.

My X timeline is full of devastating stories from Palestine. Children killed. Doctors and journalists killed. Their families killed. Even in the virtual world, being surrounded by news from a war zone is stifling and overwhelming. I cannot imagine how it would be in Gaza and West Bank. There’s a video of a doctor and journalist scurrying in panic when their area is bombed. ‘Where do we go? Where shall we go, doctor, where? Shall we open that door and jump?’ Then we see a final blast. The bodycam on the journalist falls along with him. What door can be opened? And where would they jump? Somehow the video has survived. Only the video. There are many many more, more tragic and more gruesome, that I dare not view. This is unbearable. Feeling the panic of a war live. To see thousands of children slaughtered. To see the governments of the entire West backing a genocidal regime. To see those who support Palestine dismissed from their positions in the supposedly free world. To see the moral bankruptcy of mainstream media in the so-called civilised world, on whose behalf Israel is doing this ethnic cleansing of ‘barbarians’ and ‘human animals ‘ and ‘children of darkness ‘, terms used by the Prime Minister and ministers of Israel to dehumanise their opponents. To feel the despair of parents and children who die and who survive when everyone else is dead. To know that half the population of Gaza comprises of children and those who survive are going to carry this hurt and loss for the rest of their lives. To also feel the pain of those Jews around the world who cannot bear to see their brethren doing to others what was done unto them. To be reminded of the horrors of the other genocides in our neighbourhood and elsewhere, past and present.

This has to stop. A ceasefire is not enough to bring peace. There can no lasting peace without justice. But it may at least give a breathing space for the million children there.

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(29-Oct-23)

I have been following the posts of the British-Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah, who has been working in Gaza. How much courage, commitment and compassion it must take to go back to serve where you are really needed but in such dire conditions! To go on treating ‘wounded children with no surviving family!’

He rubbishes the Israeli claims about human shields. It’s not different from the human shield accusation used by the Rajapakse regime in Srilanka, with the tacit endorsement of India, to justify the genocide of Ezham Tamils.

/The Israelis say that they bomb military targets and claim that Hamas uses civilians as human shields. From your first-hand experience, what should the world know about such claims?

There is no such thing. I mean, 16,000 human shields are now wounded and another 6,000 human shields are now dead? Even countenancing this kind of rubbish, I remember the same discourse around in 1982, with the Israelis doing the same thing to Beirut when they besieged it—that they were only targeting PLO fighters. And the problem is the West laps it up because the West is complicit in this murder.

The idea that somehow these amazing bombs are just targeting Hamas, and that there are these kind of super evil individuals who are hiding behind civilians—it’s just, for people who heard it back in 1982, it’s just the same tired argument and justification for murder./

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23-Oct-23

What can one say! When the history of the modern world has been shaped and made by such ruthless racists, it’s bound to haunt our present and future.

“I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”

Winston Churchill

To the Peel Commission (1937) on a Jewish Homeland in Palestine, when Peel questioned whether “it is not only a question of being strong enough,” but of “downing” the Arabs who simply wanted to remain in their own country.

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21-Oct-23

A day after categorically endorsing the Israeli claim that the ‘other team’ bombed themselves, Joe Biden had this to say:

“Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common: they both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy.”

What hypocrisy! Fight Russia for occupying Ukraine and fight Palestine for opposing the occupation by Israel, all in the name of democracy! Even if, as alleged, the hospital had been blown by the rocket misfire, there’s still a genocide going on all around it, and Biden gave a clear licence to continue with it, and wants to pump in billions of dollars to aid it.

“History has taught us that when terrorists don’t pay a price for their terror, when dictators don’t pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction.”

Terrorists, dictators – there’s always a suitable label you can put on others to unscrupulously pursue your own ends. Hypothetically, if they have to fight Israel, they would see Netanyahu as a threat to democracy and a genocidal war criminal that he is.

I am again reminded of what GB Shaw’s Napoleon said about the English in The Man of Destiny. It holds true for Americans too.

” No, because the English are a race apart. No Englishman is too low to have scruples: no Englishman is high enough to be free from their tyranny. But every Englishman is born with a certain miraculous power that makes him master of the world. When he wants a thing, he never tells himself that he wants it. He waits patiently until there comes into his mind, no one knows how, a burning conviction that it is his moral and religious duty to conquer those who have got the thing he wants. Then he becomes irresistible. Like the aristocrat, he does what pleases him and grabs what he wants: like the shopkeeper, he pursues his purpose with the industry and steadfastness that come from strong religious conviction and deep sense of moral responsibility. He is never at a loss for an effective moral attitude. As the great champion of freedom and national independence, he conquers and annexes half the world, and calls it Colonization. When he wants a new market for his adulterated Manchester goods, he sends a missionary to teach the natives the gospel of peace. The natives kill the missionary: he flies to arms in defence of Christianity; fights for it; conquers for it; and takes the market as a reward from heaven. (….)

He makes two revolutions, and then declares war on one in the name of law and order. There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find Englishmen doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles; he bullies you on manly principles; he supports his king on loyal principles, and cuts off his king’s head on republican principles. His watchword is always duty; and he never forgets that the nation which lets its duty get on the opposite side to its interest is lost. “

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(14-Oct-23)

Lest we forget: All these were Before the recent attack by Hamas.

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/10/29/gazas-drinking-water-spurs-blue-baby-syndrome-serious-illnesses/?fbclid=IwAR2VUh8Nlni2OaVLRbtHnNb9IbLLQ48HQa2DSfsfXpVozourg5J4HJqGMLc

(13-Oct-23)

Depending on your political positions, you may choose to term the Hamas attack as terrorism or a desperate suicidal reaction to years of oppression and occupation. You may see it as justified or unjustifiable. I personally hold that, despite all the extreme provocation by the continued occupation and blockades by Israel, the killing of civilians by Hamas is unjustifiable. But whichever way you look at it, what Israel is committing is a Genocide. It is a horrible turn of history to see victims of a genocide becoming perpetrators of another genocide within such a short time. ‘Never again’ has to apply to all of humanity.

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(26-Oct-23)

காசாவில் நடைபெறும் இனப்படுகொலையை உலகுக்குத் தெரியப்படுத்தத் தரவேண்டிய விலை: அல்-சசீராவின் ஊடகவியலாளர் வேய்ல் தாதோ குடும்பமே கொல்லப்பட்டுள்ளது. அவரது இளம் மகனும் மகளும் ‘காசாவுக்கு மனிதவுரிமைகள் இல்லையா? நாங்கள் உயிர் பிழைத்திருக்க உதவுங்கள்’ என்று அண்மையில் வெளியிட்ட காணொளியை இப்போது காணும்போது நெஞ்சை உலுக்குகிறது.

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(18-Oct-23)

முள்ளிவாய்க்கால் முதல் காசா வரை இனப்படுகொலையாளிகள் குழந்தைகளையும் மருத்துவமனைகளையும் விட்டுவைப்பதில்லை.

அரசுகள் அறத்தைவிட அரசியல் கணக்குகளாலேயே வழிநடத்தப்படுகின்றன. இந்திய அரசு அன்றும் இலங்கை அரசின் பக்கம் நின்றது. இன்றும் இசுரேல் பக்கம் நிற்கிறது. ஆட்சியாளர் மாறியுள்ளனர் என்பதில் மட்டுமே மாற்றம்.

வன்முறையில் இராணுவம் தீவிரவாதம் என்ற பாகுபாடுகள் எல்லாம் கரைந்துபோகின்றன.

இராணுவ அமைப்புகள்தாம் உலகெங்கிலும் மாபெரும் தீவிரவாத அமைப்புகள். மத, இன வெறியர்கள் கையில் அவை அகப்படும்போது சிற்றழிவிலிருந்து பேரழிவு நோக்கி நகர்கின்றன.

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(14-Nov-23)

‘பிறப்புச் சான்றிதழ் வரும் முன்னரே இறப்புச் சான்றிதழ் வழங்கப்பட்டுவிட்டது’ ஈழத் தமிழர் படுகொலை செய்யப்படுவதைத் தடுக்க இந்தியாவோ உலக நாடுகளோ இறுதிவரை உறுதியுடன் தலையிடவே இல்லை. பாலசுத்தீனமாவது அவ்வாறு கைவிடப்படாமல் காக்கப்படுமா?

காசா: மருத்துவர்களும் குழந்தைகளும்

The Genocide in Gaza – 1

Israel must be one of the most merciless murderous régimes in history. While others may have taken some care to keep the horrors of genocide hidden from the world, Israel has no compunctions about waging an open ethnic cleansing. Right before the eyes of the world. (And now, the communication lines have been destroyed for the entire region.)

I can only scoff at any argument about understanding the nuances of the Israel-Palestine conflict. If ever there’s anything absolutely black and white in history and the contemporary world, this is it.

My X timeline is full of devastating stories from Palestine. Children killed. Doctors and journalists killed. Their families killed. Even in the virtual world, being surrounded by news from a war zone is stifling and overwhelming. I cannot imagine how it would be in Gaza and West Bank. There’s a video of a doctor and journalist scurrying in panic when their area is bombed. ‘Where do we go? Where shall we go, doctor, where? Shall we open that door and jump?’ Then we see a final blast. The bodycam on the journalist falls along with him. What door can be opened? And where would they jump? Somehow the video has survived. Only the video. There are many many more, more tragic and more gruesome, that I dare not view. This is unbearable. Feeling the panic of a war live. To see thousands of children slaughtered. To see the governments of the entire West backing a genocidal regime. To see those who support Palestine dismissed from their positions in the supposedly free world. To see the moral bankruptcy of mainstream media in the so-called civilised world, on whose behalf Israel is doing this ethnic cleansing of ‘barbarians’ and ‘human animals ‘ and ‘children of darkness ‘, terms used by the Prime Minister and ministers of Israel to dehumanise their opponents. To feel the despair of parents and children who die and who survive when everyone else is dead. To know that half the population of Gaza comprises of children and those who survive are going to carry this hurt and loss for the rest of their lives. To also feel the pain of those Jews around the world who cannot bear to see their brethren doing to others what was done unto them. To be reminded of the horrors of the other genocides in our neighbourhood and elsewhere, past and present.

This has to stop. A ceasefire is not enough to bring peace. There can no lasting peace without justice. But it may at least give a breathing space for the million children there.