Ungrateful People

The article below is an extract from the blog of Ravinar ( @mediacrooks ) titled, "Ungrateful People" - a topic made relevant by the current controversy and spat between the IB and the CBI on the Ishrat Jahan "encounter". The full article was posted on 20th July, 2013.

Please visit his very popular blog at http://www.mediacrooks.com for articles that will certainly educate you on the current unholy nexus between the media and political class in India.

Going back to the mid and late 80' when Punjab was gripped by fear and terror .....

To place the current goings on in a historical perspective, it is essential to go back in time to a not dissimilar crisis which confronted the Punjab Police wherein also, a vicious campaign of calumny, hostility and the litigation route was adopted as the most convenient strategy for vendetta against the police. This occurred after the Punjab Police had contributed in significant measure towards the latter part of the Punjab crisis of the 1980's and "peace" was "restored" in that state.

The case of the then SSP Ajit Singh Sandhu of the Punjab Police (somewhat reminiscent of Mr. Vanzara of the Gujarat police, now) and the classic statement of the then Punjab Police chief KPS Gill, unknown to most Indians, require to become a subject of national debate in the context of the "current trial by media".

SSP Ajit Singh Sandhu, during the 1980's, was perhaps the police officer most dreaded by terrorists in Punjab, after K P S Gill. A. S. Sandhu came into limelight for liquidating some top terrorists and restoring peace, particularly in the once terrorist hotbed of Tarn Taran police district in Punjab.

In 1997, nearly a decade after normalcy was restored in Punjab, Punjab Police personnel and especially A.S Sandhu began to be probed by the National Human Rights Commission and the courts, for their alleged excesses during the militancy. What were once touted as "achievements" suddenly became "excesses"? Reportedly, SSP A.S. Sandhu faced more than 40 cases of alleged excesses, killings and "stage-managed encounters".

On 23 May 1997, at about 11.05 AM, SSP A.S. Sandhu (52), threw himself in front the Kalka-bound `Himalayan Queen' and committed suicide; 20 km from Chandigarh. He left behind two daughters and a son besides his wife.

The police recovered a suicide note written by the deceased declaring: "Jalil ho ke jeen to changa hai mar jana'' (It is better to die than to live a life of humiliation).

By citing the above, no case is being made out for "immunity" for any member of the Gujrat Police. Nor is it being suggested that there will take place any "suicides". It is only to iterate that the investigations and trials be held, according to the laws of the land, and also considering the special circumstances that prevail in dealing with "Terrorism", while applying the statutes and also that trials should not proceed according to the processes that are seemingly being improvised on a day to day basis to implicate the Gujarat police personnel.

Two points before going on to KPS Gill's statement .

1. In 1997, when KPS Gill gave the u/m statement, "Low Intensity Wars" were being fought only in Kashmir, Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and Tripura. Having somehow dealt with the "Punjab Crisis", the national leadership should have taken note of the existing pattern of the "Low Intensity Wars" in the country, that could only be expected to grow in the future. Unfortunately, they did not and continued to dismiss them as "non-military threats" and the ill equipped police of the states and the Home Ministries (both of the states and the centre) dealt with them. The  result is that at present, the "Low Intensity War" Zone has got extended to an area stretching right from W Bengal, through Bihar, Odisha, Chattisgarh right down to Andhra and even Kerala( Maoists) ! But that is another subject all together. 

2. In 1997, when KPS Gill gave the statement, he spoke of "We are not far from the edge of the abyss". But, presently, we are perhaps in a state of free-fall in that abyss. That too is another matter altogether.

Now on to "Is namard desh mein paida mujhe kyon kar diya" [ Why was I born in this country where there are no men?] which is an excerpt from the classic statement of former Punjab Police chief KPS Gill  on the death of AS Sandhu.

Every word in the statement of KPS Gill, made way back in 1997 is very relevant and significant even. Those of "US" who were young Captains' and Majors' during the peak of the "Punjab Crisis" and were involved with it in one way or the other, would be able to better connect with the words of KPS Gill.

HERE'S THE CLASSIC STATEMENT OF FORMER PUNJAB POLICE CHIEF KPS GILL. READ IT AND DECIDE FOR YOURSELF.

I have not called this press conference to express my grief at AS Sandhu's death. My feelings on this count are between his family and myself. What I have to say today is that we have already given up most of this country to criminals, to corrupt politicians, and to unscrupulous lobbyists who will work with any cause that serves their personal ends, whether criminal, political or secessionist.

Nonetheless, in a country dominated by those who prefer to criticise from the safety of their homes, or the comfort of air-conditioned debating societies at Delhi and Chandigarh, there are still a handful of people who are willing to risk everything including their lives and the lives of their family to protect the unity and integrity of their nation, and the lives of citizen's terrorised by an utterly unprincipled and merciless enemy. I can say without reservation that AS Sandhu was one such man.

Tarn Taran, at the height of terrorism was sometimes spoken of as the rocket that would propel Punjab out of the Indian Union. The terrorists influence was absolute; for years, it was virtually out of the control of the civil administration, and even the police had no more than a nominal and symbolic presence there.

It was in such a situation that I was looking for an officer who had the courage to mount an effective campaign against militancy in this militant heartland. I spoke to several officers, and each excelled in the invention of ingenious excuses to avoid the responsibility. When I asked Sandhu if he was willing to go to Tan Taran to put down terrorism, he accepted without hesitation. Some will say that he went there to exploit and enjoy the "power of the state".  But the state, when Sandhu went to Tan Taran, had no power there. I know that he was a hair's breadth away from death throughout his tenure in the district. I know he never compromised.  And yet, he achieved everything I could hope for.

Few, today, understand the significance of what happened in Tan Taran. Had we lost control over the district, Punjab's secession would have become an inevitability. Had we lost Punjab, Kashmir would certainly have followed. And once this process of fission began, every linguistic, ethnic and cultural group would have raised the standard of revolt. Pakistan would have been celebrating this 50th year of its independence through the realisation of its dream of a balkanised India. Delhi and its "think tanks" would have no hinterland to analyse and exploit. The unending supplies of electricity, food, water, and a cornucopia of goods that keep Delhi's elite in a state of luxury would have come to an abrupt end. And the Government and the Apex court of the land would probably have presided over a jurisdiction from "Delhi to Palam". Judges may have still continued to write erudite and exquisitely worded judgements. But they would have no relevance for this country. This country, as we know it, would no longer have existed. The fact that this scenario appears incredible today is testimony to the achievements of men like Sandhu.

All men are heroes in a time of peace. But those who are heading the self-righteous witch hunt against the officers and men of Punjab police today should ask themselves where they were hiding for 10 years when terrorists roamed free, unchallenged by any but the Punjab police and their comrades in uniform from other services -  and a handful of courageous farmers who would not succumb to terror? For 10 years the judiciary remained in a state of unmitigated paralysis in Punjab. Where was their commitment to justice then? For 10 years, the press published on the terrorists" diktat- with only a single exception that all of you know of. That is a long vacation for the "truth".

I am not here to defend corrupt or venal policemen. But the distortion and manipulation of legal process that is being resorted to by an utterly compromised "human rights" lobby cannot be supported. This lobby understands the nuts and bolts of the judicial engine, and knows every method of the orchestration of the media and the new tyranny of trial by the press. A police officer can effectively fight their designs only if he has a great deal of money to buy the best legal advice in the country; and only the corrupt have that kind of money.

A sustained campaign was carried out by the Human Rights lobby against A.S. Sandhu on the Goebbelsian Doctrine that an untruth repeated endlessly becomes the truth. He was supposed to have made a lot of money.

I do not, despite these circumstances, justify the action of a proud Jat Sikh committing suicide. But I understand the reasons. This is not the action of a coward unable to face the dangers of life. Sandhu faced more dangers during his tenure at Tan Taran than many brave men could in several life-times. It was not fear that drove him to death. I do not think that the man knew the meaning of the word, it was ingratitude.

It is not, of course surprising that having lost the battle for Khalistan through force of arms, the terrorists and their front men should have exploited the human rights angle to target men like Sandhu. What is unforgivable is that the nation he fought to defend, the people who he risked his life to protect, simply turned away in indifference or joined the crescendo against him, when such a plot was engineered; without checking the merits of evidence, without even giving him the opportunity of a fair trial. 

The Indian state must start educating itself on how it is to tackle individuals and groups trying to destroy the State. And it must learn how to arm and protect those who put their lives at stake in the defence of India's unity and integrity.

We are not far from the edge of the abyss.  Let this nation beware of the hour when no man will risk his life to protect another or to defend the nation, Josh Malihabadi once wrote, "Buzdilon ke ishq mein, shaida mujhe kyon kar kiya. Is namard desh mein paida mujhe kyon kar kiya". When men of courage begin to say this, all hope will die. No people who treat their heroes as we have done can expect to survive.

K P S Gill

Chandigarh

(Although the speech of KPS Gill has been reported in various sites, the full speech reproduced in the mail is not verified by me. Readers can make their own assessment and conclusions.)

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We are rubbish. Literally.

By : Vandana Vasudevan

This article appeared in : the blogs of Vandana Vasudevan in The Economic Times
on Wednesday July 03, 2013

I have only one question : Why are we like this, only?

A British youngster calling herself “Garbage Girl” galvanises people around her in disaster struck Uttrakhand to clean up the place. In another part of the same unfortunate state, a German lady and her nine year old son quietly pick up plastic wrappers and cartons in an overcrowded relief camp.

Two Caucasians clearing up the mess Indians caused.

The Uttarakhand relief camp inmates would have been tired, ravaged, hungry and maybe we shouldn’t expect model public behaviour from them if well fed, prosperous families in hill stations don’t think twice about chucking a soda can into a verdant valley in the Himalayas. Last year, at the Formula one race in Greater Noida, where ticket prices start at Rs.3000, two couples littered chips packets on the grassy stands and looked at me like I was the freak when I pointed it out to them. Sure enough, a uniformed attendant whose job it was to clean up, appeared and picked up all the trash.

Perhaps that’s the problem, say some sociologists. Cleaning in Indian society has always been the job of a poorer low caste person and Indians therefore assume some such person will emerge and do it for us. That’s why we just don’t get the idea of keeping public spaces clean. Even in the villages of UP that are on the border of Delhi, it is the job of members of certain castes to sweep the village roads everyday. No other person belonging to other castes will do the job. This behaviour is so deeply entrenched that it stays on even if you’ve left the village, prospered in the city and bought yourself a bungalow in Defence Colony. 

Another theory as to why Indians stubbornly refuse to practice public hygiene is even more interesting. Sudipta Kaviraj, scholar of south Asian politics teaching at the University of Columbia has argued in a remarkable paper that studies filth in public spaces in Kolkatta, that this behaviour harks back to our colonial history. In the city, the municipal authority run by the British, was intent on shaping public conduct and making people subscribe to certain regulations. It installed blue metal boards with white lettering (still the preferred design for government boards) telling people how to behave. Boards which ordered “No spitting” or “No urinating” or “Commit no nuisance.” They were written in English, at that time an alien language. (Maybe even that possibly apocryphal, but horribly offensive notice “Dogs and Indians not allowed” was one such board.) So, such instructions evoke the spirit of that time- they convey the subjugation by a higher, resented power over the poor and the powerless. Defying is a sort of rebellion; a thumbing of their noses at someone telling them how to behave in what they see as their own space.

Or perhaps it is race? Are we just genetically hard coded to throw trash about irresponsibly? Like the two Uttrakhand girls who led by example, are Caucasians somehow hard wired to keep their surroundings clean while Indians are the opposite? I would be tempted to root for this theory, looking at how naturally public hygiene comes to even a two year old in the west. What stops me is that it is not just the western world but even the Japanese are intrinsically clean. Recently, Japanese children in a school grouped together to clean the school’s toilets. (Can you imagine the outrage a similar initiative in India will cause among Indian parents?) People who have worked in African countries like Tanzania and Nigeria say no one defiles public spaces there. So, it would be a bit of a stretch to imagine that evolution bestowed only Indians with the filthy gene. Most tellingly, Indians in other countries will meekly find a bin to throw their garbage in and even separate recyclable and biodegradable garbage wherever they are asked to by the law of that land. If we were “congenital litterbugs” as a British MP labelled us in 2008, then we wouldn’t be able to abide by cleanliness rules in other countries. Therefore, we don’t seem to be racially disadvantaged with respect to civic cleanliness.

So, what may be the problem?

I have a personal theory on what makes India a large trash can and this is consistently borne out by my observations of daily life whenever I am in the west. It is that in all the countries where public space is clean, people’s patriotism is not notional, it is real and practical. They think of their country as though it was one large home. This is not as simplistic as it may sound when you first read it. The next time you get a chance to travel to a “developed country” watch the common as they negotiate public spaces. The poorest mother living on social security dole instructs her child to throw the soda can into the bin, just like she would do in her own home. Even the homeless tramp with a big Alsatian holding a “end of the world is here” placard doesn’t mess up the corner he occupied. The patriotism in these citizens is active, meaningful and visible in everyday acts. Our so called patriotism is hollow. It only emerges during a cricket match. Whether this is a quality that can be taught or is ingrained is of course another debate. But I think there lies the answer as to why Indian cities are literally rubbish.

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What a load of sh*t! IPL is betraying no one

This article reflects my own thoughts and says it better than I could say it, hence you see this here. I read it first here : 

http://www.firstpost.com/sports/ipl/what-a-load-of-sht-ipl-is-betraying-no-one-795689.html

by Prayaag Akbar

I have been on a hunt for the Betrayed Billion. Since Thursday morning, I have searched — on the streets, on rooftops, online, on my couch, under my couch. My abacus at the ready, I have looked and looked. Because these past two days I’ve been told, repeatedly and authoritatively, that a billion souls have been devastated and betrayed by the actions of three idiot men.

It’s strange, because life in my corner of Mumbai seems to carry on at about the usual rate of devastation. Yet, all I hear and read from our increasingly incestuous news channels and newspapers is that the national heart has been cleaved, a billion people un-moored from their sense of self because of this sudden renunciation of the standards of propriety, justice, fair play and financial probity that the Indian Premier League has always set.

As the Americans say, what a crock of sh*t.

Protesters demanding a ban on Sreesanth. AFP.

To be betrayed means you had to have reposed a significant degree of faith. Since inception, the IPL has been anything but a receptacle of moral trust. I should know. I’ve spent most of my evenings these past five weeks watching the damned thing, ignoring the girlfriend’s protests, sometimes even catching two games at a time. For most people, even avid cricket fans, I suspect the IPL is something to turn to at a loose moment: there’s a limit to the number of times can you watch a seven-foot West Indian shatter the confidence of an emaciated medium-quick from Saurashtra.

Most of this nation, I think, sees this tournament for what it is: a giant carnival of capitalism, one that comes with a little cricket attached. We like the cricket, we like the cheerleaders — I personally have fallen deeply in love with presenter Rochelle Rao — we like the insane-asylum-inflections of some of the commentators, but we don’t take it all that seriously.

So why all this frothing and foaming since news dropped of spot-fixing? It seems to me that the ones who are so traumatised are either beneficiaries of the status quo or hopelessly inept, questioning only the surface, never the structure. Why are there hour-long prime time interviews with BCCI chief N. Srinivasan, in which he is asked a series of questions about these players, their families, the police and bookies but none of the angry phrasing and righteous spittle is directed at the fact that he owns a team in the league and also sits as president of the BCCI? Why is there no conflict of interest when his franchise captain (also the national team captain) owns one of the biggest sporting agencies in the country and stocks his teams with players from it?

Or, before getting on Sreesanth’s back, perhaps we can have a frank discussion about the ownership structures of most of the teams. If you ever manage to get your hands on one of these flowcharts, don’t let it pass you by. It is truly edifying, a wonderful muddle of offshore accounts and shell companies all joined together by twisting arrows, financial structures of such magnificent complexity that Bernie Madoff would smile.

What Sreesanth, Chandila and Chavan did was inexcusable. Ban them forever, if you must. But let us inject context into this conversation. Was I the only one discomfited by the shot played on loop all Thursday evening, of the Three Fixeteers being frog-marched into the police station, heads shrouded in black in the manner of accused terrorists?

It fit both the hysteria of the moment and the beheading-by-media that concurrently took place. Yet this is all misplaced furore. There is a serious problem with amplification in our electronic media. On television, any issue determined to be of national interest gets the same treatment. It reminds me of a mob in a particularly good episode of South Park. Helicopters! Rabble Rabble Rabble. Coal! Rabble Rabble Rabble. Rape! Rabble Rabble Rabble. Fixing! Rabble Rab….

If we discuss everything from terrorist attacks to pyjama cricket at the same decibel level — because that is what the paymasters demand — we end up equating them all. I, for one, was more bothered by a former air chief allegedly lowering specifications so that a Rs 3,600 crore contract could be awarded to a favoured company for 12 VVIP helicopters. I was even more bothered that VVIPs believed themselves very, very important enough to be deserving of Rs 300 crore helicopters bought with taxpayer money. Yet on television everything is accorded the same outrage.

As ever, the real problems will not be addressed. Dawood will be trotted out, convenient bogeyman that he is for all that ails India and Sanjay Dutt. Which is not to suggest he is not involved. He will have his finger in this pie as well, but are you surprised? He is a mobster and a determined enemy of this country. What about the conditions that allow him to thrive? Who is being bribed so that the illegal betting market in India—so big that a day’s betting would easily buy those 12 choppers for our VVIPs—continues to flourish?

When Sports Illustrated carried a comprehensive investigation into it a couple of years ago, it was ignored because too many vested interests were being shaken up. And perhaps also because the bookies interviewed in the piece suggested that one glorious recent moment, the semi-final victory over Pakistan in Chandigarh, a match when Sachin Tendulkar top scored after being dropped four times, was also fixed.

It’s obvious that there is no lack of information, but there is a lack of political will. So I will extend, then, a little sympathy for the devil. Sreesanth and the other two have been stupid, and they should suffer for it; the Keralite especially, because he has made a good living from the game. But imagine you have spent your life playing a game yet remained on the edges of its biggest bounties.

Imagine you are smack in the middle of a bloated, overdone tournament, and someone offers you half a crore to bowl one quickly-forgotten over a little awry. We go on about these players’ betrayal of their team, but politicians have sold the country for less.

Prayaag Akbar is a journalist with the Sunday Guardian. You can find him on twitter @unessentialist

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Porn OK, please

Why don't SC judges read this article for a bit of enlightenment?

Porn OK, please : By Anup Kutty
(This article appeared in the TOI on April 21st, 2013)

Like most men from my generation, I did not learn about sex from my parents or teachers. It was my neighbourhood video rental man who was responsible. I believe he is no more. God bless his soul.

All those years ago, when he was alive, my friends and I would troop into his parlour every week. After some pointless nudge-nudge-winkwink we would be rewarded with a videotape that contained the secrets of adulthood. My first porn movie was a '70s classic featuring the mature Kay Parker who, with her chipped tooth and ample breasts, seduced teenage boys. Like most first times, it wasn't a pleasant experience. I threw up during the money shot and swore never to watch porn again.

It took me just a couple of days to be back at the video rental store. By then a whole new world had opened up along with fresh facial hair and a change of voice. My new teachers — the brunette Racquel Darrian, the oriental Asia Carrera and the blonde Jill Kelly — taught me that a woman's genitalia looked nothing like a cow with horns and that it was capable of far more than just "receiving the spermatozoa discharged from the male organ". With cable TV came the secret 11.30pm slots for "double X" flicks. If one was in a mood for local flavour there was always Surya TV's late night Malayalam and Tamil porn. My schooling was now complete.

In the hallowed student residence of St Stephens' College, we had a term for smut. "Pondy", in the form of graphic literature, was generally stashed under mattresses and circulated in times of dire necessity, especially during exams. A lot of it was handed down to juniors and I believe some stash from my time is still in circulation.

The internet happened around this time. That ghostly sound of a modem connecting to the www was music to our ears. It meant getting to watch Pamela Anderson pleasure her husband who's driving a car. At times, the girls secretly borrowed from our collection. "Go watch some porn and get off, asshole!" was a standard line they used (and still do) to fend off aroused men.

All this happened while my parents still fumbled for the remote control each time a sanitary napkin or condom commercial came on TV. I finally came of age the day my mother discovered that my VHS tape collection was more than just guitar tutorials. That was the day my father began discussing household finances and politics with me.

As cliched as it sounds, times have changed. The trickle of broadband has made learning life's important lessons so much easier. I envy today's kids. They don't have to smuggle bulky videotapes in and out of their homes. They don't have to smother a bellowing modem with a pillow in the dead of the night. They don't have to wait till everyone's asleep, tiptoe to the living room, switch on the TV and press 'mute' just in time.

Not for long though. If this PIL that's proposing to make viewing porn on the internet anonbailable offence goes through then we are suddenly surrounded by a lot of criminals — young twisted minds with broadband access who have wronged society by giving vent to their otherwise suppressed selves. Huddled in cyber-cafe cubbyholes across the country, these are apparently future rapists who are sharing their devious ideas through little pen drives and mobile phones. They are watching their favourite pornstars enact their deepest, darkest fantasies and relishing it. They are creating alter egos on Facebook to follow pages dedicated to Hot Aunty Breasts. They are doing this because at home they have to reach for the remote during condom commercials and watch sterile movies with words like "crap" and "sex" bleeped out.

The petitioners for the PIL, just like those who opposed the Playboy club in Goa, have claimed that pornography treats sex as a commodity and exploits it commercially in turn provoking violence towards women. In a society where repression and hypocrisy are ways of life, this is as absurd as claiming that vaginas look like cow heads. Criminalising the whole thing instead of regulating adult content, taking strict action against brutal forms like child porn and snuff, and then channelising it to the right section of society is about as regressive and ridiculous as blaming a woman's sense of style for the trauma she faces on the streets. The trauma that she can't even try to wriggle out of by asking the pervert to get off on some porn. It would be criminal to do that.

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The sexual offence allegations against Assange.

The timeline in bullet points

Huge interest in the subject but I don't think many aware of the specifics of the allegations and why they are raising suspicions and doubts. The following is presented as an agreed statements of facts and issues by both sides, according to ABC Four Corners "Sex, Lies and Julian Assange" documentary. Mods later choose to merge this with the other thread, but I felt this was relevant enough to warrant a separate thread to garner attention to these specifics.

On August 11th 2011, Assange arrived to attend a conference organised by the Swedish Brotherhood. He was offered Anna Ardin’s apartment whilst she was away, but Ardin returned a day early on the 13th and invited Assange to stay over the night where they would have sex. She would later tell police Assange had violently pinned her down and ignored her requests to use a condom. Assange denies this.

On August 14th, the following day, Assange addresses the conference with Ardin at his side. Later that afternoon, Arden organises a crayfish party [barbecue] and posts a Twitter message writing: "Julian wants to go to a crayfish party. Does anyone have a couple of seats tonight or tomorrow?”

The crayfish party was held that night and went on till the early hours of the morning. Ardin posts a twitter message: “Hanging out with the coolest and smartest people in the world at 2am. Its amazing”.

A guest at the party would later tell police the event was a “very hearty evening”. When he offered to host Assange for the night in his apartment, Ardin replied: “He can stay with me”.

The next day, Assange attends a dinner party organised by Pirate Party founder, Rick Falkvinge. Anna Ardin had arrived with Assange, and according to Falkvinge, the mood at the dinner was “professional”. Here is a photograph of that evening. Anna Ardin is on the left. Assange would yet again spend the night with her.

The following day, August 16th, Assange had sex with Sofia Wilen at her apartment. According to police reports, Ardin was aware that he had slept with Sofia. A witness tells police that he had contacted Anna Ardin looking for Assange, to which she texted back: “He’s not here. He plans to have sex with the cashmere girl every evening”. That same day, the witness asked Ardin: “Is it cool he’s living there? Do you want me to fix something else?”. She replied back: “He has a problem with his hygiene, but its okay, he lives with me. It’s no problem”. {Note: The tweets would later be deleted}

Three days later, Sofia, accompanied by Ardin, went to the police to seek advice on whether Assange could be forced to take an STD test. Ardin had gone along primarily to support Sofia but at some point during the questioning, the police had announced that Assange was to be arrested and questioned about possible rape and molestation. [Note: it wasn’t the police themselves who pressed for this but a duty prosecutor who was contacted by the police]. Sofia became so distract by the idea that she refused to give any more testimony, and refused to sign what had already been taken down. Assange was “arrested in his absence”. Assange wasn’t questioned by the police.

Within hours, not only was this development leaked to the tabloids, but in addition to that were the statements made by the two women. It became international news.

Less than 24 hours, a more senior prosecutor dismissed the rape allegations leaving only the lesser allegation of molestation.

On the 30th of August, Assange of his own accord went to the police and expressed his fears of anything he said in questioning would end up in the tabloids. The interviewing officer responded: “I’m not going to leak anything”. The interview was then leaked.

This article is reproduced from the website : 
 http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=41190027#post41190027

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Sachin and the god particle

By : Ajaz Ashraf | December 22, 2012

This article below is more about us mad Indians, than about Sachin ... and how true! - cr

The debate over whether Tendulkar should retire provides us a perspective into our collective psyche. How dare he fail after we have worshipped him for 23 years?

Five months before the English cricket team began its tour of India, triggering a passionate debate on whether Sachin Tendulkar should retire from international cricket, the batting maestro was in Herzogenaurach, Germany, where the Adidas headquarters are located. The Germans were astonished at the reception Tendulkar received: a few hundred Indians gathered at the headquarters, lustily cheered and screamed at his sight, and jostled to touch or have him sign their autograph books. One Adidas executive remarked to a journalist, "Even Lionel Messi did not receive such a reception. " The dwarfing of Messi for a soccer-crazy nation seemed inexplicably mysterious. 

Obviously, the German executive did not know that deification is embedded deep into the Indian psyche. Remember the bewildering pantheon of gods we Indians worship. Recall our propensity to turn the cremation sites and residences of mortals, extraordinary though their achievements are, into monuments and museums. From gods we ultimately become a tad alienated as our supplications do not lead to divine intercession, goading us to shout Jim Morrison style, "You cannot petition the Lord with prayer. " 

From the Invisible we can only turn away, but our disappointment with the flesh-and-blood gods provokes us to acts of vengeance. It is we who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi. We mock Jawaharlal Nehru, pummelling him more now than what we did in his life, dismissing him as a woolly-headed idealist who wanted to keep India non-aligned and insisted on the state occupying the commanding heights of economy. We have belatedly begun to herald BR Ambedkar's contribution to the framing of the Indian Constitution but have no qualms in breaking his statues. 

It is this national trait of deification which has turned Tendulkar the cricketing genius into Tendulkar the god of cricket. How dare he fail after we have worshipped him for 23 years, pinned our hope on him for India's redemption on the cricket ground, bought goods he advertised and sent our children to coaching camps! It is galling that his failure has coincided with India's precipitous decline in Test cricket. Aren't gods supposed to magically help us overcome seemingly insurmountable odds, which perhaps are consequences of tamasha cricket aka T20 cricket? 

No doubt, unharnessed popular expectations mounted tremendous pressure on Tendulkar. What else can explain the sudden dip in form as soon as he reached his 99th international century? Till then, he had been in fine fettle, batting with aplomb and scoring centuries as frequently as only he can. Thereafter, in 17 Tests he managed 953 runs, at an average of 31. 76;in ODIs, he managed 473 in 14 outings, at an average of 33. 78. On reaching his 100th international century against Bangladesh, Tendulkar said, "I was not thinking about the milestone, the media started all this, wherever I went, the restaurant, room service, everyone was talking about the 100th hundred. Nobody talked about my 99 hundreds. It became mentally tough for me..." Indeed, there couldn't be a more apt example of how deification unravels gods. 

The debate over whether Tendulkar should retire provides us a perspective into our collective psyche as much as it has diminished his chances of, yet again, rediscovering his old form. What explains our national trait of creating idols of our heroes? In some ways, it is redolent of the feudal mindset, from which we believed we had emerged. The personality of the feudal lord was infused with charisma that made his subjects consider him worthy of unquestioning adulation. It was/is an important factor why many erstwhile royalties were/are elected to Parliament. The subcontinent is the land where charisma reigns - the Nehru-Gandhis are supreme in India, as are the Bhuttos and Sharifs in Pakistan, the Wajeds and Zias in Bangladesh and, to some extent, the Koiralas in Nepal. 

Worship presumes accepting your own inferiority in relation to those who boast of seemingly exalted lineages or, as in the case of Tendulkar, are prodigiously talented. From them, we feel, flow our blessings, whether in politics or cricket. We prescribe a different set of rules for them. We wish to exempt Tendulkar from the mandatory duty on the car he wants to import. We nominate him to the Rajya Sabha, knowing he won't have the time to attend its proceedings. Not for us a culture, say, that of Germany, which incarcerated tennis star Steffi Graf's father for violation of tax laws. Our inferiority stems from the pervasive caste codes which have taught us to accept the inequality inherent in the social system. 

Place the national psychology and Tendulkar's breathtaking talent against the backdrop of political ambience of the 1980s, in which he made his debut, and you will understand why he was turned into a national icon. The 1980s was the decade of pessimism. There had been a succession of grisly communal riots - Moradabad, Bhagalpur, the Nelli massacre etc. In 1984, the assassination of Indira Gandhi sparked off a veritable slaughter of Sikhs, prompting an organisation to print a poster with the photos of Kapil Dev (Hindu), Mohd Azharuddin (Muslim), Roger Binny (Christian) and Maninder Singh (Sikh) with a caption declaring, "If we can play together, we can live together. " In 1989, the Bharatiya Janata Party initiated the Ram Janambhoomi movement, bringing consecrated bricks from different parts of the country to Ayodhya. The nation was pushed to the edge. 

It was also in December 1989 that Sachin Tendulkar, a callow 16-year-old, stepped out on Pakistani soil to make his debut, against the fury of their fast bowlers. In the fourth Test of his life he was struck on the nose. Blood gushed out but he refused to leave the field. The picture of that moment was there in every newspaper;he went on to score 57. A dream had been born, of talent and aspiration. 

It was to take another three-four years for the dream to truly develop wings and soar high. By then, the Babri Masjid had been demolished and Mandal and Mandir politics had bitterly divided the nation. In this gloomy scenario Tendulkar became the symbol of national unity, his majestic wielding of the bat papering, however ephemerally, over all social schisms. He was also our only popular entertainment, as the culture of VCR was gradually squeezing the life out of Bollywood until the multiplex-driven renaissance resuscitated the cinema from its death throes. We made him a national icon because of our own compulsions, and laid out different yardsticks for him. 

Forgetting our own connivance in turning Tendulkar into a god, we have triggered a debate not only graceless but also deeply insulting to our own memory of pure bliss he brought to us. As a people we are notoriously fickle. We hailed Indira Gandhi as an incarnate of Durga and then pelted stones at her, only to vote her back to power three years later. Likewise, we mounted such pressure on Tendulkar at the time he was a century away from his 100th ton that his batting prowess diminished overnight, as if some celestial being wished to punish us for our pathological obsession with milestones. 

Yet a question remains: why didn't the crossing of the 100th-century milestone relieve the pressure on Tendulkar ? Alas, as any psychologist would tell you, it is difficult for a person to rediscover the earlier state of serenity once his mind learns fear and anxiety. Such foibles are habit-forming. This malaise had afflicted him earlier as well. Tendulkar took as many as eight Tests and a string of poor scores - 2, 8, 1, 8, 2, 5, 55, 3, 20, 32* - to equal Sunil Gavaskar's 34 centuries, then the world record. He took eight more innings to reset the record and another 18 innings to score his 36th ton. That malaise has now returned on a more tragic scale. 

Perhaps he now finds difficult to overcome his mind because he lacks the resilience of the young. The biological change is often sudden - for instance, many 40 year olds suddenly discover one day that they need to hold the newspaper closer to their eyes to read it. It's the body's signal to have reading glasses prescribed. Tendulkar's cheap dismissals are time's intimation to him of his ageing body and slower reflexes. 

Perhaps he still believes he has the capacity to adjust to the gradual withering away of his powers. Or perhaps he can't retire because, as some allege, the business model built around him would collapse. But give Tendulkar a few more Tests to know whether or not his form has deserted him permanently. Let Tendulkar bat without the fear that he might be asked to leave without a delectable swansong. Should such an innings prove elusive, he won't potter around, for the structure of sports can't sustain a cricketing equivalent of Dev Anand, who continued to produce films for the love of it even though no one watched them. We owe this much to Tendulkar, for bringing light and warmth in those gloomy years we lived in. 

(The author is a Delhi-based journalist. Email: ashrafajaz3@gmail. com)

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Baby Falak - Only the nurses remember

FALAK KI YAAD ME

======================

phoolo si komal thi jiski kaya,

jivan me jiske andhera tha chaya,

masumiyat jiske chehre se jati thi jhalak

ha ha us pari ka naam tha baby falak.

usne apne jeevan me kya paya,

na mata pita ka sath

or na apno ka saya

bachpan uske liye ban gaya ek abhishap,

garibi or lachari ka bhugta usne dushparinam.

na ma ka use anchal mila ,

na pita ka mila sahara,

or na hi bhai bahan k sath waqt usne gujara,

jane kin lakiro ne uske hatho me ghar tha banaya,

jane kesi taqdeer ne tha uska matha sajaya,

ese jaal me uljhi vo nanhi pari,

aatma jhakjhor de esi vipda us par padi

masumiyat bhare uske chehre par

kar diye hevaniyat k nishan,

sharir par hazaro jakham diye,

har pal nikalti uski jaan.

karhana usne sikh liya tha ,

kilkariyo ki umar me.

har dard apne naam kiya,

bachpan k khel bhool k.

par hosla tha uska buland ,

ladi thi vo jee jaan se.

begano se bhi apno sa pyar mila,

desh videsh se mili duaae thi.

par ek din wo har gai ,

is jivan jaal se.

hevan rupi insan se ,

or uske kiye kam se.

par jaate jaate wo dikha gai ,

hame buraiyo ki shakal.

de gai ek gehri soch ,

ki kesa hoga hamara ka.

kya yu hi bachpan dam tode ga,

majboori or lalach k jaal me.

kya yu hi bikti rahe gi aaurat,

hevano k hath me.

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India's Baby Falak

This is Falak, this is India and this is the story of our own inhumane psyche, where nobody is at fault, but a few poverty stricken people living with their own miseries. The people who should be accountable, in the various child welfare agencies, and the government  for paying them salaries, go scott free, as other Falaks and worse brutalities continue to happen... Click link below to read the story. It will be worth it...

NEW DELHI–The story of Baby Falak is a close-up look at the underbelly of Indian society: prostitution, human trafficking, bride selling, and domestic violence.

It also is the story of a small group of ordinary people – a young mother, a rebellious teenager, a taxi driver, a tire repairman, a lonely graduate — trying to escape the tribulations of their daily lives, and of the people who exploited them, the institutions that failed them, and the people who helped them. 

The events that transpired over 10 months, from mid-2011 to early 2012, moved millions, at least briefly, to unprecedented outrage and introspection, as if India were asking itself: “Are we like this only?”

Falak: The Complete True Story of ‘India’s Baby’

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This govt is taking the country down with it

By : Francois Gautier | (As appeared in DNA on Tuesday, May 8, 2012)

In Tamil Nadu, one of the country’s most industrialised states, there are 10 to 15 hours of power cut a day, workers stand idle, small units are closing down daily by the dozens and business is slow. The rupee is sliding, India is downgraded by many countries as an investment risk and the stock market tumbles. The government allows the best airline, Kingfisher, to go nearly bankrupt, bled dry by extravagant airport charges, huge fuel taxes, while it keeps pouring thousands of crores into Air India.

India is the laughing stock of South Asia: Pakistan sends its terrorists, New Delhi cries murder, but the next moment the pretty Pakistani foreign minister comes and the Indian media goes gaga. China plays the Indian government like a violin. Maoists have a field day, kidnapping officials at random, knowing that ransoms will be paid.

Indians today live in a country where mullahs can preach secession, while Hindu gurus revered by millions of Hindus are the target of ridicule, media attacks and police assaults.

Even the army, India’s last non-politicised, casteless barrier is not safe: since Sonia Gandhi has come to power, it has been targeted, first by attempting to make a census of its Muslim soldiers, then by trying to remove AFSPA, which would be as good as giving away Kashmir to Pakistan, and lastly by the concerted attack on General VK Singh, the man who dared to expose the total disinterest of the Indian government on the army’s preparedness and the rot in defence procurement.

Here we have a government that is racked by scandal after scandal which would have brought down any government in the world. But this government has no shame: it does not care if it brings down the country with it, as long as its ministers can keep their perks and loot the country for another two years. What it is good at, however, is surviving, using lie, deceit, all that with a smile on its face.

For, democracy in India has been hijacked to the point that a government that is basically in minority, which is openly flouting all values of decency and honesty, which has lost the trust of the people, is able to continue damaging India’s fabric, taking advantage of the fact that the majority of Indians, who are Hindus, do not riot and descend in the streets when they are unhappy. The instruments of power have also never been so perverted in India: the CBI blatantly and shamelessly quashed all injunctions against Ottavio Quattrrochi and even allowed him to get away with billions of rupees which he had stolen from India. Yet, without batting an eyelid, and with the Indian media turning a blind eye, it goes ruthlessly after Narendra Modi, chief minister of the most efficiently run state, the most corruption free. Her governors shamelessly hijack democracy by twisting the laws.

It is a fact that Sonia brought discipline, order and cohesion into the Congress party. But the amount of power, that she, a non-Indian, a simple elected MP, like hundreds of others, possesses, is frightening. She is the ultimate arbiter and nothing of importance is decided without her caveat. Because of her immense power, India has now entered an area of semi-dictatorship, where hundreds of thousands of phones are tapped, emails are read, letters opened, gurus arrested, journalists scared to speak aloud…

The going down of India because of the selfishness and petty interests of its politicians, including the BJP, which is terribly disunited and refuses to acknowledge that Modi is its only eligible PM candidate, is a tragedy for the few of us who have dared over the years to defend India in our respective countries, by saying that India, and not China, should be the natural choice of investment for western countries, for it is democratic, liberal, pro-western and friendly people. We have also clamored that the West should realise that India is of an immense strategic geopolitical importance — at the cross roads of many civilisations, a buffer of freedom against the Chinese hegemonic tendencies and an example of integration in the face of Islamic fundamentalism.

Cry O my Beloved India, look at what Thy children are doing to Thee…

Follow Francois Gautier on Twitter@fgautier26
Link : http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column_this-govt-is-taking-the-country-down-with-it_1685873

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Make mistakes but never repeat them!

Harsha Bhogle: "Make mistakes but never repeat them!"

From  : http://www.careers360.com/news/8259-success-journey-against-odds-harsha-bhogle 
Published on: April 13, 2012

The TV anchor and cricket commentator writes about his life, struggles and the reality of learning and perseverance.

AFTER so many years in the profession it might seem unusual to say so - but I should never have been in television. I didn’t have what it took and for a better part of my career I was defined by who I wasn’t rather than by who I was! I wasn’t a test cricketer, I didn’t look like a suiting model (far from it!), I had no sense of fashion or colours. I wore large glasses, I had gaps in my teeth and I spoke too fast. It has been suggested that I had a face for radio and after the first programme of a new series for ESPN, the producer said (though I must admit, not at the time) that there was everything wrong with it, including the anchor.



Harsha feels that making mistakes is not a crime.
Not learning from them, repeating them is criminal.

Worse still I had no one to look up to. Live television was very young in India and Doordarshan was the only channel. I guess you could say that, as a result, I knew what not to do but didn’t always know what was right. And so I had no choice but to learn by making mistakes. I did what I thought was right and if it was wrong, I tried not to do it again.

Big blunders

I made many mistakes. I once ended a presentation ceremony at the end of a high profile tournament halfway through because I thought the director was telling me to move on when in reality he was telling someone else. I had very little idea of how to use the ear-piece through which the presenter gets instructions from the director. So when he said, “After this we will go to an interview” I assumed he was talking only to me and not to the crew so after that particular award had been given, I turned to camera and said “That’s it from the presentation”. WhenI turned there were a million eyes boring holes into me. I crept up to where the producer was, feeling as terrible as anyone could, and said, “Sorry Rik, I promise it will never happen again”. He put me at ease but I knew I had committed a blunder.

He is never afraid of learning.
He learns from everyone around him.

Making mistakes isn’t a crime, repeating them is!

Indeed the year before that, I was first asked to present the telecast and I said, “Yes”, without having a clue about what it meant. So before leaving for Chennai, my wife and I went to buy a couple of jackets. We only knew one store so we went to the Raymond shop and as it turned out they only had double breasted jackets so those were what we bought! One of those was a black and white striped jacket, the kind you should never wear on television because the picture jitters.

But I learnt one thing about mistakes and about failure. It is not a crime to commit them, but it is criminal not to learn from them and ensure they are not repeated. If you make one mistake it tends to be pardoned but if you keep making it, no one is interested in you anymore.

Look, failure is a necessity

And you know, little failures are like potholes on a road. After a while you know where not to drive. Also, you learn what not to do and it was thus that I learnt what I did about television. So if you fail, don’t think it is the end of the world. Ask yourself why you failed and promise yourself that you will never do it again. You will actually emerge tougher. In a programme my wife and I did some years ago, an Australian sports psychologist told us that when they put together elite squadrons in Australia, they don’t pick you if you’ve never failed because if you have never been face-to-face with failure you may not know what to do when confronted by it. If, however, you have looked failure in the eye, vanquished it and returned stronger, you are considered a better candidate.

The one thing we should all try to do in life is to convert a problem into an advantage, into an opportunity. Because I didn’t have much to start with, I tried much harder than anyone else, I was never afraid of learning. I learnt to be professional from the cameramen and the editors on the crew, I learnt what colours are good for television from Navjot Sidhu, I learnt how to knot a tie from my friend whose camera I had to look into, I learnt how to iron a jacket from someone else.

Unfortunately in India we condemn failure too strongly, we attach a social status to it and clothe failures with a stigma. Stay away from such people or better still, try harder to prove them wrong. Failure can sometimes drive you towards getting even better than you would have if you hadn’t failed.

 We fail when we fear failure

But remember, failure can be a friend only if you learn from it and never repeat it. There are hundreds of stories around you of what the human spirit can do. Failure is not an enemy, failure is not fatal so don’t fear it because the more you fear it, the more you attract it. I found that the day I stopped being afraid of failing, I grew much more relaxed. I told myself, ‘what is the worst thing that will happen?’. I would have had to apologise on air, in front of all those viewers but I would only be apologising for a mistake, I wouldn’t be committing a crime.

Very often we fail because we are afraid of failing, because we fear the aftermath of failure. I didn’t do well at all in my first term at IIM Ahmedabad because I spent more time fearing a D or an F than actually studying - which would have saved me in the first place. So relax, if you fear failure, it will encircle you.

If failure, if mistakes, could ruin people, then I would never be in television.

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Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs

By GREG SMITH

Appeared in the "The New York Times" in The Opinion Pages - Published: March 14, 2012 

This struck home as something very familiar, something I have lived with. As I read it, I found uncanny similarities to what happened in my own company, GE which I had to leave after 33 years.  I considered GE as my own company for over a quarter of a century after which I went through the same turmoil faced by Greg Smith. I loved every bit of my work there, with wonderful people to work and be friends with. Slowly, I saw the changes overtaking the work and ethic culture. People who were friends, started slowly jockeying into positions for better "visibility and instant rewards" at the cost of colleagues and customers. Well, Greg Smith's article says it all, so, read on. 

For sake of brevity, some details has been editted out. The full version of the article can be read here

TODAY is my last day at Goldman Sachs. After almost 12 years at the firm — first as a summer intern while at Stanford, then in New York for 10 years, and now in London — I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its identity. And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.

To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money. Goldman Sachs is one of the world’s largest and most important investment banks and it is too integral to global finance to continue to act this way. The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for.

It might sound surprising to a skeptical public, but culture was always a vital part of Goldman Sachs’s success. It revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our clients. The culture was the secret sauce that made this place great and allowed us to earn our clients’ trust for 143 years. It wasn’t just about making money; this alone will not sustain a firm for so long. It had something to do with pride and belief in the organization. I am sad to say that I look around today and see virtually no trace of the culture that made me love working for this firm for many years. I no longer have the pride, or the belief.

But this was not always the case. For more than a decade I recruited and mentored candidates through our grueling interview process. I was selected as one of 10 people (out of a firm of more than 30,000) to appear on our recruiting video, which is played on every college campus we visit around the world. In 2006 I managed the summer intern program in sales and trading in New York for the 80 college students who made the cut, out of the thousands who applied.

I knew it was time to leave when I realized I could no longer look students in the eye and tell them what a great place this was to work.

When the history books are written about Goldman Sachs, they may reflect that the current chief executive officer, Lloyd C. Blankfein, and the president, Gary D. Cohn, lost hold of the firm’s culture on their watch. I truly believe that this decline in the firm’s moral fiber represents the single most serious threat to its long-run survival.

Over the course of my career I have had the privilege of advising two of the largest hedge funds on the planet, five of the largest asset managers in the United States, and three of the most prominent sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East and Asia. My clients have a total asset base of more than a trillion dollars. I have always taken a lot of pride in advising my clients to do what I believe is right for them, even if it means less money for the firm. This view is becoming increasingly unpopular at Goldman Sachs. Another sign that it was time to leave.

How did we get here? The firm changed the way it thought about leadership. Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence.

Today, many of these leaders display a Goldman Sachs culture quotient of exactly zero percent. I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all.

It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off. Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as “muppets,” sometimes over internal e-mail. Even after the S.E.C., Fabulous Fab, Abacus, God’s work, Carl Levin, Vampire Squids? No humility? I mean, come on. Integrity? It is eroding. I don’t know of any illegal behavior, but will people push the envelope and pitch lucrative and complicated products to clients even if they are not the simplest investments or the ones most directly aligned with the client’s goals? Absolutely. Every day, in fact.

It astounds me how little senior management gets a basic truth: If clients don’t trust you they will eventually stop doing business with you. It doesn’t matter how smart you are.

These days, the most common question I get from junior analysts about derivatives is, “How much money did we make off the client?” It bothers me every time I hear it, because it is a clear reflection of what they are observing from their leaders about the way they should behave. Now project 10 years into the future: You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the junior analyst sitting quietly in the corner of the room hearing about “muppets,” “ripping eyeballs out” and “getting paid” doesn’t exactly turn into a model citizen.

When I was a first-year analyst I didn’t know where the bathroom was, or how to tie my shoelaces. I was taught to be concerned with learning the ropes, finding out what a derivative was, understanding finance, getting to know our clients and what motivated them, learning how they defined success and what we could do to help them get there.

My proudest moments in life — getting a full scholarship to go from South Africa to Stanford University, being selected as a Rhodes Scholar national finalist, winning a bronze medal for table tennis at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, known as the Jewish Olympics — have all come through hard work, with no shortcuts. Goldman Sachs today has become too much about shortcuts and not enough about achievement. It just doesn’t feel right to me anymore.

I hope this can be a wake-up call to the board of directors. Make the client the focal point of your business again. Without clients you will not make money. In fact, you will not exist. Weed out the morally bankrupt people, no matter how much money they make for the firm. And get the culture right again, so people want to work here for the right reasons. People who care only about making money will not sustain this firm — or the trust of its clients — for very much longer.

Greg Smith is resigning today as a Goldman Sachs executive director and head of the firm’s United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

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In an ocean of brutishness, there are some islands of decency

By : David Campbell
(Appeared in the National Times, Australia on January 9, 2012)

It seems the rest of society must bear the brunt of the actions of a selfish minority.

Holiday scenes: a middle-aged man finishes a stubby of beer and casually drops it on the beach; radio thumping, a carload of youths races through a seaside village shouting obscenities; a woman driving along a country road flicks her cigarette butt out of the window; a teenage girl stuffs the wrapping paper from her sandwich in between the slats of the wooden bench on which she's sitting.

They're just small incidents, everyday events, and maybe I'm overreacting, but surely it's worth questioning the thinking behind them. How can these individuals have so little regard for the environment and other people? They represent a subculture in our community, a group that might be called the ''brutes''. That's using the word in the sense of those lacking the ability to reason, to understand consequences; people who simply don't care.

They have no sense of responsibility, no concept of decency or consideration for others. All they're aware of is their own narrow, blinkered self-interest. To accost them and point out the problem is to invite verbal abuse and even physical violence. Somehow, you're the one at fault for bringing it to their attention.

There were undoubtedly quite a few brutes abroad in the English riots last year. Whatever the contributing factors - poverty, community fragmentation, social inequality, parental failure, family breakdown, welfare dependency, political incompetence - there was plenty of evidence of a brutish mentality: I see. I want. I take. But there's nothing exclusively British about brutes, and they're not a new phenomenon.

On October 31, 1923, on the eve of the spring racing carnival, a substantial number of the Victorian police force went on strike. The result was chaos and violence. On the weekend of November 3 and 4, mobs ran riot in the city streets, smashing windows and looting. Three people died. Trams were overturned. Property damage was substantial. Yet most of those who were eventually brought to justice were young men and boys with no previous criminal record. The line between order and anarchy is very thin.

Today they are everywhere, in all walks of life. They're not limited by ethnicity, age, sex, creed or social class. On the domestic front, they do late-night burnouts in suburban streets, gatecrash private events, trash rental properties, and regularly disrupt quiet neighbourhoods with wild parties.

In the financial world, they abuse people's trust by cheating them out of hard-won earnings. They exploit innocence with complete disregard for the suffering caused. It was a widespread brutish attitude to financial probity that led to the GFC.

There are celebrity brutes, sporting brutes and corporate brutes. There are brutes in politics, using their position for purely selfish ends. In the UK a few years ago they were caught rorting their parliamentary allowances. It's not difficult to find similar examples in Australia.

There are many manifestations of these creatures, but they all have one thing in common: a complete empathy bypass. They exhibit an inability to see their own actions in terms of a broader context. They don't regard themselves as part of the general community, but as stand-alone entities in their own little universe. They have an unshakeable sense of entitlement.

This is not an argument for sheep-like conformity. I simply make the point that a society can only function effectively if there is co-operation between its members and respect for others. But there are those who don't seem to understand this concept - and their numbers appear to be increasing.

Maybe I'm the one who's on the wrong track. Perhaps notions of courtesy, compassion and consideration for others are outdated and no longer relevant to our modern society.

Perhaps the message in today's world is that we need to be obsessively self-centred and ruthlessly aggressive to survive the pressures of the 21st century. In other words, it's head down, elbows out, and charge blindly ahead.

But then I read about the kindness of strangers. During last year's natural disasters, there was abundant evidence of a willingness to help in times of adversity, of a generosity of spirit.

So, the positive examples exist. And the more there are, the better the chance that the brutes will see - and learn.

David Campbell is a Melbourne writer.

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