Book review: "The White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga

One hears so much about the dazzling rise of India these days as a major economic power. What about Indian society itself and how is it being affected by globalisation? Aravind Adiga’s first novel - "The White Tiger" - which won the Booker Prize in 2008 is an interesting and entertaining tale about one Balram Halwai, born into a lowly family in Northern India, and how he manages to scale the heights of entrepreneurial success. Although fictional, every bit of the book is believable. Written as a letter to the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Balram tells his tale in his own distinctive way. In the process he shines a light on the darker side of contemporary India from the poverty ridden villages to the rapidly growing urban centres.

Born as the son of a rickshaw puller in a small North Indian village, Balram Halwai’s life seems destined from the outset to be trapped in poverty and insignificance, but he nurses a dream to escape. And escape he does. His big break comes when he is employed as a driver for a wealthy village landlord’s son, recently returned from America, and his wife. Moving to Delhi, the bustling capital of India, with his master and wife, the city is a revelation to him with its frequent traffic jams, call centres, shopping malls, strange civic planning, five star hotels and slums. It seems that the rich can buy anything they want. A turning point seems to be when his master’s wife decides to leave her husband after a road accident, and it is then that the corrupting influence of the city has an effect on both master and servant.

According to Balram, India’s greatest invention is not the number system or chess but the Rooster Coop – the system by which 99.9% of the Indian population, despite being strong, talented and intelligent, live in perpetual servitude to a handful of men. Likening himself to a rare animal - a white tiger - that escapes its cage, Balram desires to break out of this coop. Feelings of loyalty to his master gradually give way to resentment and ambition. He eventually kills his master and runs away with a bag full of money which his master is about to pay a politician. With this money Balram heads south to Bangalore, where so many foreign companies are coming to these days, and makes a new life for himself. Seeing the opportunities present themselves in Bangalore, Balram Halwai, now renamed Ashok Sharma, makes a name for himself as the owner of a taxi service ferrying workers to their offices.

Balram clearly sees himself as an "entrepreneur" – a self-made man, a success in this world, and a white tiger. This is despite the fact that he has killed someone, which he justifies by saying that most men of stature have done the same. Here Adiga seems to be critiquing the ruling classes of India, some of whom are guilty of criminal activity.

Written in a simple way, mixed with a good deal of wit and humour, the book is an enjoyable read. It seems Adiga is deliberately caricaturising his main characters for greater effect. For example, the greedy village landlord is called the "Stork" and his son the "Mongoose". Issues surrounding caste, religion, politics, corruption, violence and globalisation are all exposed, laying bare the brutal realities of modern India. There is much to shock the reader and make him ponder.

This is not the kind of book many proud Indians would like reading, and indeed some have criticised the book as a Western conspiracy to malign India’s economic progress. I disagree. Just like Charles Dickens shone a light on the inequalities of Victorian Britain during the Industrial Revolution, Adiga manages to do something similar here. This book offers a riposte to the glamorised view of India portrayed by Bollywood. Adiga deserves credit for casting a sharp eye on modern India, however uncomfortable that may be, and telling a most interesting story. Congratulations to him for winning the prestigious Booker Prize

Holiday in India 2012

We had an enjoyable short holiday in India from the end of July to the middle of August. Most of the time was spent visiting relatives in Kerala. It was good to meet them after so long.

There was little sightseeing this time but we did make a short pilgrimage to the famous shrine of Vailankanni in Tamil Nadu (see my write-up about it here). The main places we visited in Kerala included Thrissur, Kozhikode, Pudukkad and Pavarratty. We travelled by car, train and bus. Unfortunately the transport infrastructure showed no sign of improvement. On the roads there was no semblance of discipline or order; here the law of the jungle, in which one man looks out only for himself, prevails. Hasn’t it dawned on Indian politicians that if the country really wants to progress, it needs to improve its internal infrastructure?

Traffic in Thrissur

Without knowing Malayalam, communication can be problem. Educated professionals do know English, but the common folk do not. I got by speaking pidgin Malayalam mixed with English. We found people generally friendly, but also nosey. This is an interesting contrast to England where people who are more reserved and non-interfering. Everywhere we went we were served with a platter of food, most of which was quite sumptuous and filling. Exercising doesn’t seem to be a priority for most people.

Elephant sanctuary in Guruvayur

One excursion took us to an elephant sanctuary in Guruvayur. I have never seen so many elephants in one place at such close range as I did in Guruvayur. These elephants are used in the famous Thrissur Pooram every year.

I think I saw more churches in Kerala than temples even though Hindus are the majority. The Church is still quite powerful there, and it can count on generous donations from its numerically significant members. Coming from secular Europe, where religion is increasingly shunned, it was nice to see a vibrancy of religious life in Kerala. This is despite the fact that Communism still holds sway in certain sections of society. When one visits a church, for instance, he is not confronted by a crowd of silver haired pensioners but people of all ages, from the very young to the very old.

Palayur Church

Although the middle classes do seem to have more money nowadays, I did not see much progress in the state per se. The increasing number of shopping malls can’t disguise the fact that the infrastructure is creaking badly. With few industries and fierce competition for the best jobs, people continue to migrate elsewhere in search of better employment prospects. Dubai is any day preferable for most people than their own state. At the same time, low caste people from other states like Tamil Nadu, Bihar and Orissa flock to Kerala to enjoy better wages. Here human development indices are all high, but the economy still lags behind and is to a large extent still dependent on weather. If the rains don’t come, the crops fail and there are power cuts. The monsoon was weak when we arrived but it gained in strength as time progressed.

Backwater it is, but Kerala is still home in our hearts. Standing in my father’s house in Chevayur, a welter of memories came flooding back to me. I had enjoyed a happy early childhood there before my family moved to England. Maybe one day I might return, but not in the near future. For now I am happy to keep coming to Kerala every few years.

For Nithya and Anya, it was particularly heart breaking to say goodbye to loved ones. Anya, who is eight, had grown more attached to her cousins, aunties and grandparents this time. There were tears at the airport, but back to England we came with happy memories.

A trip to Vailankanni

Vailankanni is the place where the Virgin Mary is believed to have appeared to two poor Indian children over 400 years ago. It is situated on the south eastern coast of India in the state of Tamil Nadu. So popular has this shrine become today that it is known by many as the “Lourdes of the East”. Every year it attracts millions of pilgrims. They come from near and far and from all different walks of life - rich, poor, able and disabled - and from different castes, creeds and religions. This is remarkable in a country where only a small fraction of the population is Christian.

Statue of Our Lady of Vailankanni at Matha Kulam

I had visited Vailankanni before as a young teenager, but I did not enjoy that trip. I was sick at the time and I had little knowledge of Our Lady’s apparitions in Vailankanni.  However, in recent years, having learnt more about the events associated with Our Lady of Vailankanni, I decided to make another trip there with my wife and daughter on our next visit to India. How would it compare to other more famous Marian shrines like Fatima and Lourdes?

Just as in Fatima and Lourdes, Mary appeared to two poor young children, bereft of great talents and well acquainted with suffering. These were the chosen instruments by which God decided to act. Initially only a small thatched chapel stood at the site of Mary’s second apparition. Then with the arrival of shipwrecked Portuguese sailors - fervent believers in Mary – the thatched chapel was replaced by a modest brick chapel. In the twentieth century the chapel was extended further, and in 1962 it was finally raised to the exalted status of a Minor Basilica by Pope John XXIII. Thus the shrine gained implicit approval from the Church for the apparitions of the Virgin Mary.

Matha Kulam

Our Lady's Tank Church

It was a long overnight journey by bus across the breadth of Southern India to Vailankanni from Kerala. We arrived at 5.30am on the first Saturday of August. After checking into our hotel, where we rested for a while and breakfasted, we started our tour of the shrine. It was a warm sunny morning. We walked along a narrow road to Matha Kulam (“Our Lady’s Tank”) where Mary first appeared. I saw small houses and nondescript buildings, and we passed some untethered goats along our way. One could sense that poverty was still a reality of the area alongside the hotels, restaurants and shops.

At Matha Kulam there was a small church, known as Our Lady’s Tank Church, built over the site of the first apparition to a shepherd boy. Once there had been a pool here, and the water drawn from this place is still believed to the source of many miraculous cures. There was a store where people could buy holy water, holy oil and candles. I could see there was a lot of demand for these things.

Holy Path & pilgrims

The Holy Path with some pilgrims crawling on their knees

As we walked down the Holy Path that led to the basilica, I saw some pilgrims crawling on their knees in the sand. This act of penance I have also seen in Fatima. Some pilgrims had tonsured their heads as another act of penance. Alongside the path were depictions of the Stations of the Cross.

There were a good number of pilgrims. The Malayalam mass was just finishing when we arrived at the basilica and a great number of people came out. We attended the English mass at 10am. It was nice to finally sit inside the church, partake in the mass and receive the Holy Eucharist. That day was the feast of St John Vianney and the priest paid special homage to him in his sermon.

Basilica

Front of basilica

The basilica is a lovely white building built in Gothic style. It has high domes and contrasting red tiles on the roof. The basilica complex doesn’t contain just one church but different ones within it, having been extended at various times. In the brilliant sunshine the basilica looked a magnificent site.

After mass, I went to the Shrine Depot near the front of the basilica. There one can buy all sorts of religious souvenirs and paraphernalia. I also made a visit to the Museum of Offerings. Here are exhibited various items people have sent as offerings to Our Lady of Vailankanni. With these items were letters written in their native languages expressing gratitude for the help they believed they received through the intercession of Our Lady of Vailankanni. Some offerings, including golden jewellery, looked very expensive.

By this time, Anya and Nithya were tired. With the hot sun beaming down on us and our faces dripping in sweat, we decided to return to our hotel for some rest and lunch. Later on, while Anya and Nithya were asleep, I went out again on my own to Matha Kulam. There I sat in the church and prayed.

Car procession

A statue of Mary and Infant Jesus being carried

In the evening I joined the car procession with other pilgrims. This involved a statue of Our Lady and Infant Jesus being carried from the basilica to the seafront and back while prayers were recited. The proximity of the basilica to the sea became evident for me. How the building avoided major damage when the tsunami struck in 2004 seemed almost miraculous.  The car procession was followed by the Blessing of the Sick, Benediction and mass in Tamil. After visiting the old church and the Adoration & Reconciliation Chapel, we finally returned to our hotel. The next morning, at 7.30am, we were on the bus again back to Kerala.

Final thoughts

I enjoyed my visit to Vailankanni. I had set out to visit the sprawling basilica, pray, experience the atmosphere and reflect on my life and God. For those reasons my trip was accomplished. I found the experience spiritually refreshing and I will cherish it for a long time. To be honest, Vailankanni is not everyone’s cup of tea. The heat, sand and crowd can be uncomfortable; the water has been known to cause stomach upsets; but if one is careful and has a genuine interest all these things are not insurmountable.

What Vailankanni demonstrated to me was the great love people had for Mary, seeking the divine consolation only she diffuses, and their desire to pay respect to the Queen of Heaven who decided to set her feet upon its soil in the sixteenth century. If it wasn’t for her apparitions there, Vailankanni will probably still be an obscure remote seaside town in Southern India. Indeed, just as in Fatima and Lourdes, Vailankanni has been transformed over the years into a major pilgrimage destination. Despite the very real challenges the Church in India today faces, this shows how vibrant it is.

India's "impossible" miracles

By Marco Tosatti

Strange things are going on in the diocese of Itangar, Arunachal Pradesh in north-east India, and Bishop John Kattrukudiyil spoke about them during a visit to Germany for the periodic meeting organised by Aid to the Church in Need, the international organisation that deals with churches and Christians in countries where they face the greatest difficulties.

According to the prelate, the numerous unexplained healings which preceded and resulted from prayer, are the main reason for this extraordinary increase in Catholics - 40% over 35 years - in this remote corner of India. The bishop is informed of things like this on a regular basis; and the stories “baffle me. I have a theological mindset and it is easy to become sceptical about this kind of thing. But the interested parties are absolutely convinced that what happened to them was real.”

The prelate mentioned the case of a man who stopped persecuting the Catholic Church after he married a Catholic girl. “After converting to Catholicism he was asked to pray for a paralytic. He did it even though he did not want to; the next day, the paralytic rose and walked towards the church.”  The newly converted man was so shocked by this miraculous experience that he started attending mass and “is now a very active member of the parish.”

Bishop Kattrukudiyil is well aware of the scepticism with which most of these miracles are met; when he describes miracles that have taken place people in Europe sometimes say: “Hey, bishop, you’re telling tales.” But despite the incredulity “I am told about many cases of healing which we cannot ignore.”

One possible historical- theological explanation is the relative freshness of the local church. “It is the experience of a very young Church that feels the grace of the Catholic Church in the times of the apostles,” when healing miracles were frequent, as the Scriptures tell us.

According to the prelate, the faithful of his diocese witnessed these miraculous healings after gathering in the home of a sick person whom they had been praying for. “People who had been sick for a very long time were healed. These people got a real experience of the primitive Church.” During the early Church period “healing with God’s prayer attracted many people to the Church. Belonging to the Church they felt a kind of spiritual peace.” The bishop revealed that the number of Catholic faithful has grown by 40% over the past 35 years. The situation in the Church has improved a great deal; now, not only is it tolerated, but it is praised for its philanthropic work. “Politicians never miss an opportunity to praise the Church for its humanitarian work.”

Source: Vatican Insider

'Devil worshippers' attack church in Pune

Suspected devil worshippers attacked St Mary’s Malankara Catholic Church in Pune’s Warje Malwadi neighbourhood on Monday. Father Varghese Valikodath, who is in charge of the church, said several people “broke into our church in Warje Malwadi in the small hours on Independence Day, vandalized the altar, burnt the tabernacle, as well as tearing up the bible and prayer books.”

Paintings of Jesus, Mary and other saints were defaced, and the words “Satan is God” were written on walls. Robbery is not thought to be a motive as collection money and valuables were not stolen.

According to Father Valikodath, it could be the work of “some devil-worshipping group”. This would not be the first time suspected devil worshippers have attacked a church in India. In 2006 they entered a church in Mizoram and burned bibles, urinated on the pulpit and tore up pictures of Jesus and Mary. They also sacrificed an animal and splattered its blood on the altar.

Such incidences are fuelling suspicion of a rise in Satan worship in some parts of India. According to faculty members of Theological College in Aizawl, Mizoram, youth who are influenced by drugs and inspired by films about the paranormal and the occult practice bizarre rituals.

This is, however, the first incident of its kind involving Pune’s Syro-Malankara community. The local Catholic community have condemned the act. They have also appealed to the state authorities to bring the culprits to justice.

According to AsiaNews, “more than 3,000 attacks have been recorded against Indian churches in the past few years. Last Saturday, the glass protecting an image of Christ in St Anthony’s Catholic Church in Vashicherry, Alapuzha, in Kerala, was also smashed, the second attack this month.”

India's unwanted girls

India’s 2011 census shows a worrying trend in the number of girls under the age of 6. There are now 914 girls under the age of 6 to every 1,000 boys. This is worse than the figure ten years ago when the ratio was 927 to 1,000. The picture is varied across the country but the siutation in the north generally worse than in the south. Haryana is at the bottom with a ratio of 830 to 1,0000 followed by Punjab with 846 to 1000.

There are many reasons to explain this trend including female infanticide, abuse and neglect of girl children, but the main reason is sex selective abortions. A study in the British medical journal, The Lancet, estimates that up to 12.1 million girls were aborted in India over the last three decades. This happened despite a 1996 law banning the use of ultrasound screening or other testing for the sex of the unborn child.

Researchers found that wealthier or more educated women were more likely to abort girls because they could afford to pay for sex tests and abortions. They also found that families who already had one girl were more likely to abort a second child if they knew the unborn child was female. Ranjana Kumari, director of the Centre for Social Research, said the findings were “worrisome and threatening” because “we always believed when people are rich and educated they will be more socially aware but that is not the case.”

Cultural prejudice

The problem is not confined to Indians in India. Journalist and author Lady Kishwar Desai last year pointed to statistics from the University of Oxford that showed almost 100 baby girls were “disappearing” from British Indian families every year.

The statistics clearly point to a significant cultural preference among Indians for baby boys. Why is this the case? The main reason is dowry. Although outlawed by the Indian government in 1961 the practice remains rampant, affecting all religious communities, rich and poor alike. There are other reasons for having boys too: they are bread winners; they are expected to look after their parents in old age; they often inherit their parents’ property; they carry forward their parents’ family name; and in the case of Hindus, they are allowed to light their parents’ funeral pyres.

Lady Desai, who was born in Amabala in Northern India, said: “Jewellery, cash, cars, even houses – the value of the dowry an Indian girl’s family must pay to the family of her future husband can run to tens of thousands of pounds.”

“Marrying off one daughter can be expensive, but two, three… that can be ruinous”, she said.

She said that estimates varied as to how many Indian women are now ‘missing’ but “Female foeticide, gendercide – call it what you will – it’s a terrible and chilling statistic”. It is certainly is.

Worsening trend

Unless the deep cultural prejudice against having baby girls is dealt with I do not think the situation is likely to improve. We will inevitably see more and more female foetuses being aborted each year in India. Not only is this the wilful execution of unborn children but it is an affront to the value of a girl’s life. I have to agree with the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who called this a “national shame”. Government laws by themselves will not solve the problem as they have thus far proved ineffective in dealing with the issue. What really needs to happen is social transformation, but the question is: is that really possible?

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor visits India on behalf of Pope Benedict XVI

The former head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Murphy O'Connor, has returned from a visit to India. He was representing Pope Benedict XVI in events commemorating the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's historic visit to the country.

Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor visited many of the areas Pope John Paul II did. In Delhi he celebrated Mass in the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart; in Ranchi he discussed the central role the Eucharist plays in the life of the Church; in Calcutta he spoke about works of charity; in Cochin he preached on the central role of the Family; and in Bombay he met with the city's Clergy and Religious as well as seminarians at the Goregaon Seminary.

Speaking on the BBC Sunday Programme, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor said: "India is the most fascinating country. What struck me most was the respect for religion."

"John Paul's visit had a huge impact at the time. I spoke mostly on the themes he had spoken on himself. I spoke on the family; young people, tribal issues, the Holy Eucharist and inter-religious dialogue."

"What struck me was what an extraordinary brave and courageous man he was. I was in India for ten days and was very tired at the end of it. Pope John Paul went all over the world with huge crowds - proclaiming his belief in Jesus Christ - an apostle of the Gospel. I remember him saying that I want to be in every country; in every home. He was an extraordinary man. My visit made me reflect that he was also a man with enormous faith; enormous stamina to undergo these great visits, but also an apostle who wished to put his belief before the world."

"Twenty five years ago, Pope John Paul II said to the Indian Catholic Church - 'you are a very tiny minority, but you are important - you have a very special part to play in this country with its myriad number of religions.'"

Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor said that the Church in India today is "confident and vibrant." He praised the Indian Catholic Church's distinctive liturgy and customs. "Wherever I went I was garlanded and the crowds were enormously enthusiastic. It was very moving."

According to Cardinal Telesphore Toppo, Archbishop of Ranchi, Pope Benedict XVI is also interested in coming to India, but he may not be able to visit as many places in the country as his predecessor.

"Whenever I meet the Pope, I talk to him about visiting India. Quite a number of Indians were his students when he was teaching before becoming the Pope. He is interested to come to India to see his students," Cardinal Toppo told a gathering of Catholic religious and lay workers in his Archdiocese.

"Maybe, if Mother Teresa is canonised in India, probably he can come here for the canonisation ceremony," Cardinal Toppo said.

I think the canonisation of Mother Teresa, whenever that happens, would be a great time for another papal visit to India. Not only would that be an opportunity to celebrate one of the greatest Catholic saints in modern times, but it would also give India’s small Catholic community a great boost. Living the Christian faith in a highly pluralistic and highly stratified society is a quite a challenge, and in recent times there have been attacks from Hindu extremists.

Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, who headed a recent Vatican delegation to India, encouraged the Church in India to foster “inculturated catechism." By this he means the Church should imbibe and assimilate local cultures, without of course impacting the doctrines of the faith, so that the Indian Church is fully Catholic and authentically Indian. I think that is the way to go. Insisting on Latin mass and other western traditions on the Church in India is really futile. What matters is people practice their faith in the most practical and appropriate manner.

Vatican group looks at role of Indian theologians

Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), is leading a Vatican delegation to India to discuss the role of Indian theologians in the context of global theology. A seven-day closed door colloquium began in Bangalore on January 16 with 28 bishops and 26 leading theologians from India, ucanews.com reports.

Cardinal Oswald Gracias, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India said, “We are discussing the role of the Indian theologians as responsible theologians.” The basis for the discussion is Donum Veritas, the 1990 Vatican instruction on the role of theologians in the Church. The cardinal said their discussions included topics such as inculturation and pluralism.

A theology professor, who is not attending the colloquium, says globalization of culture in the modern world has led to the emergence of a global theology. "The pluralistic theologians have begun to dilute Christianity as one of the many religions to go to God. In this context, such a colloquium could become an alerting occasion," he told ucanews.com on condition of anonymity.


Unfortunately, Indian theologians have earned a reputation for being some of the most dangerous in the world today. John L. Allen Jr., Senior Correspondent at National Catholic Register Reporter, says:

“India has acquired a reputation for some of the most adventurous theology in Catholicism today, especially in “religious pluralism.” Thinkers such as Michael Amaladoss, Felix Wilfred, Raimon Panikkar, Aloysius Pieris and Jacques Dupuis, all of whom are either Indian or influenced by India, have been controversial because of the various ways in which they try to give positive theological value to non-Christian religions. That’s a logical development given India’s religious diversity, but it has raised alarms in quarters of the Church identified with evangelical Catholicism. Catholic leaders will want to encourage theological exploration that can open up dialogue, but without transgressing doctrinal limits.”

Let’s hope the discussions go well. India is important to the Vatican because the country could potentially be an important player in Catholic affairs in the 21st century. If current growth rates continue, there could be almost 30 million Catholics in India by 2050 – not big by Indian standards but large by Catholic ones. Hence the need to root out doctrinal errors earlier rather than later.

Book review: "Holy Warriors: A Journey into the Heart of Indian Fundamentalism" by Edna Fernandes

Not only is India home to all the major faiths, it is also host to virtually every type of religious fanatic. But what drives these “holy warriors” of various faiths? Their actions sometimes have tragic consequences. In this a fascinating, disturbing, brave and at times funny book, British Indian journalist Edna Fernandes explores the world of Indian fundamentalism. By travelling to areas of past conflicts and interviewing a number of key figures, she reveals an interesting picture of a country where the forces of fundamentalism are very much alive as in the past.

In Jammu and Kashmir, the only Muslim majority state in India, Fernandes finds a region still suffering from the wounds of a violent insurgency that broke out in 1989. Between 40,000 and 100,000 people are thought to have been killed here. Both local Muslims and outside agitators supported by Pakistan have been involved in the militancy. Kashmir is the unfinished business of partition: for the militants and Pakistan it is a question of territory in the name of Islam, while for India it is a question of territory in the name of secularism. A fall out of the insurgency is that hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Brahmins have had to flee their ancestral homeland due to threats from militants, and their tragic plight is borne out in the book.

In the small, rural town of Deoband in the Hindu heartland of Uttar Pradesh, Fernandes visits a madrassa known as Darul-Uloom, the House of Knowldge. This is no ordinary school; it is the second most important Islamic academic institution in the world. Here the gates of ‘ijtihad’ (independent thinking) are firmly closed and a rigid, puritanical version of Islam is taught. Darul-Uloom was established soon after the Indian Mutiny in 1857 and since then thousands of Deoband-affiliated madrassas have been established worldwide, particularly in the tribal regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Although Muslim leaders in Darul-Uloom stress on the peaceful message of Islam, some of its sister schools teach a more radicalised version of it.

Fernandes is from a Goan Catholic background and there are some delightful reminisces about her childhood throughout the book. It was in Goa in the sixteenth century that St Francis Xavier, outraged by the licentiousness of the Portuguese colonialists as well as how Indian converts to Christianity continued their earlier religious practices, requested the Inquisition. The Inquisition only ended in 1812. Fernandes finds a Goa today that is changing fast. On the one hand, there’s a rising Hindu conscientiousness with the BJP party trying to rake up old history and undermine the church; and on the other, there’s a lot of external influences from Delhiites, foreigners and people from Mumbai. While old churches are razed to make way for new apartment blocks and hotels, criminal gangs from Russia bring prostitution and drugs.

The Protestant powers that came to India were initially slower than their Catholic counterparts to see the opportunity for missionary work, but eventually they too encouraged it. Despite their obvious contributions to education and healthcare, Christian missionaries in India remain controversial. They have been accused by Hindu hardliners of using forceful and fraudulent means to convert Hindus to Christianity. In recent years there have been attacks on Christians including priests, nuns and missionaries.

One area where Christian missionaries did have a big impact was the north-east. Here the overwhelming majority of the population is Christian. In the restive state of Nagaland, Fernandes encounters a people who have been fighting for a separate homeland. The Nagas are not Aryan or Dravidian but of Mongoloid stock. They were one-time tribal headhunters before they were converted by American Baptists in the nineteenth century. In terms of culture, language, race and religion they see little in common with other Indians. “Nagaland for Christ” is the call of the Naga nationalists, but Fernandes is sceptical of their chances of success as they have little support from powerful external allies.

In Punjab, Fernandes finds the situation is a lot calmer today than at the height of Sikh militancy in the eighties. The storming of the Golden Temple by the Indian Army to flush out armed militants, and the gunfight that ensued at Sikhism’s holiest shrine, led to the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in October 1984. In retaliation many Sikhs were openly butchered in Delhi and other parts of northern India, which only made calls for a separate Sikh nation, Khalistan, even louder. The man who led the crackdown on the Khalistan movement was K. P. S. Gill, former Director General of Police (DGP) Punjab, and there’s a fascinating interview with him in the book. By the mid-nineties there was little support left for Khalistan as the activities of the militants didn’t endear them well with the community. However, a sense of grievance felt by Sikhs remains because grave human rights abuses were committed and the guilty were not punished.

The final part of the book deals with Hindu nationalists. There’s a vivid account of the Gujarat riots in 2002 in which Muslim owned businesses, homes, apartments, vehicles and places of worship were systematically targeted and destroyed by Hindu fanatics. The violence left at least 2,000 people dead and up to 140,000 Muslims in refugee camps. Fernandes was able to get a good picture of what actually happened because she visited the area just a few weeks after the riots began. There was evidence that Narendra Modi’s hard-line BJP government was complicit in the violence, yet it was retuned to power in the state elections later that year. The irony was that this all happened in the same state where Mahatma Gandhi was born.

There are interviews with two firebrand Hindu nationalist leaders - Bal Thackeray and Praveen Togadia. Thackeray formed Shiv Sena in 1966 to stop south Indians coming to Bombay and taking the jobs of Marathis; but as the city became a melting pot of people from all over India he transformed the prejudices of his party to be more explicitly anti-Muslim. To Thackeray the Muslims in India are the enemy within and they should always know their place. Togadia, leader of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), is arguably more extreme. He has publicly defended the Gujarat riots and called Sonia Gandhi “that Italian bitch”. He believes India should drop a nuclear bomb on Pakistan to be rid of terrorism forever. There’s also an interview with Yukta Mookhey, former Miss India and Miss World, who campaigned for the BJP in 2004 general elections. Yukta is passionate about her country; she wants to help the common man and be remembered for more than beauty, but she naively thinks the BJP will help her fulfil all this.

There’s a glimpse into the world of the RSS, the mother of all Hindu nationalist organisations. At a RSS shakha in Delhi Fernandes finds men dressed in khaki shorts doing marches and exercises. They may look like boy scouts but their ideology is far from comical. Based on 1930s European fascist movements, RSS wants to create a theocratic Hindu state in which the minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians, are reduced to being second-class citizens. Central to the RSS ideology is the belief that Hindu submissiveness is to blame for India’s turbulent past in which the Hindu has been the constant victim. First, the Hindu was the victim of the Muslim invaders, and then the British imperialists. Today, he is the victim of the minorities and Pakistan.

This is an interesting book which I enjoyed reading just like the author’s other book “The Last Jews of Kerala”. It is well written and quite objective. Fernandes is a good observer, has an eye for detail and brings her characters to life. She is not shy to express some of her her own views. Where the book does fall short is seeing the bigger picture. How strong are the secular forces in India? To what extent do class and caste play in sectarian violence? How has bad governance played a role? What about expatriate Indians and their influence on fundamentalist groups? The book is not an extensive study, but it does give a valuable overview of the various sectarian fault lines in the country today.

Since the book was published in 2007 there have been more instances of terrorism and sectarian violence in India. This shows, as highlighted in the book, there are clearly some leaders who are willing to exploit and fan the flames of bigotry. Communalism is very rarely spontaneous and nearly always manufactured. One only hopes that with time things will improve. That of course remains to be seen.

Mangalore plane crash: lessons need to be learnt

India had experienced a relatively safe period in civil aviation history over the last decade until the morning of Saturday 22 May 2010, when Air India Express flight IX 812 from Dubai overshot the runway at Bajpe Airport, Mangalore, and plunged into the valley below, killing almost everyone onboard. Air India Express is a low-cost subsidiary of India’s national carrier Air India, and most of the passengers on this flight would have been low-income expatriate workers in the Gulf. Only eight passengers managed to jump out of a gap in the fuselage and escape, while the remaining 158 passengers and crew were killed. Many of these people would have been looking forward to spending a short break with their family and friends. Sadly, apart from the lucky few, they met their end soon after their Boeing 737-800 aircraft touched down.

Already the suspicion is falling on the commander of the plane, Capt Zlatko Glusica, who was a British national of Serbian origin. Eyewitness reports suggest the plane landed some 2,000 feet past the touchdown zone. The plane then veered off the runway, after suffering a suspected tyre burst, and crashed through the airport perimeter wall to the valley below. Bajpe Airport has a reputation for being a difficult airport because it is located on a hilltop with a drop of 100 metres on all sides. Although the runway is sufficient in length for most small aircraft, such as the Boeing 737, the margin for error is small with little overshoot space. Pilots are required to undergo special training before they operate from Mangalore.

The “black boxes” and the cockpit flight recorder, which have been recovered from the crash site, will be crucial in piecing together exactly what went wrong. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in India will be responsible for carrying out the investigation. However, one must bear in mind that the DGCA is an integral part of the government of India, and whatever its findings they will not be perceived to be truly independent. Previous investigations have tended to pin the blame on the pilot, even though other factors may have been involved, and an air of mystery still surrounds many past accidents. "To my knowledge in the last 50 years no inquiry report has been made public," Kapil Kaul, head of the Centre for Asia-Pacific Aviation in South Asia, told Reuters.

The Indian aviation industry has enjoyed phenomenal growth over the past decade with a number of new private airlines starting operations and many Indians taking to the skies. India’s air safety record has been remarkably good during this time. A number of near misses in recent years at Indian airports, including Mumbai and Delhi, have, however, raised question marks about whether the infrastructure is keeping pace with the growth in air traffic in the country. From personal experience, I think there is a general problem with all types of infrastructure not keeping pace with economic progress in India. This adversely affects safety. "Safety standards in Indian aviation have been on the wane for the last six years. Efforts are being made to correct the drift, but the systematic rot is so deep ... we are not likely to see any improvement in safety unless drastic changes are made," A. Ranganathan, an airline safety consultant and pilot instructor, told Reuters.

I do hope the DGCA will conduct a proper investigation of this accident. They owe it to the victims, their families, and Indian air passengers in general. Apart from the obvious suspicion of pilot error were there other factors that could have contributed to the disaster? Was there any communication problem between the Serbian pilot and his Indian co-pilot? Were they sufficiently well trained? Was fatigue a factor? Was the runway dangerous? Did the airline’s procedures contribute in any way? Is Mangalore waiting to happen at other “table-top” airports in the country like Kozhikode? This would be a good time to carry out such a review. It is quite easy to blame the dead pilot for the crash, for he has no voice to defend himself. The attitude should be to do as thorough an investigation as possible and learn from the mistakes in order to avert the possibility of a similar accident in the future.

It has emerged that the Environment Support Group (ESG) had objected to the building of the second runway at Bajpe Airport on the grounds that the design simply did not conform to the most basic national and international standards of airport design. Twice it took the case to the Karnataka High Court, but the case was dismissed. Finally the ESG petitioned the Supreme Court, which too dismissed the plea while emphasising that laws and norms be followed while expanding the airport. Not heeding this direction, construction of the second runway began in 2004 without a techno-economic assessment, feasibility study, or even a comprehensive Environment Impact Assessment. "This was no accident, but apparently the failure of officials in ensuring proper construction of the second runway at the airport resulted in the tragedy," alleged Leo F Saldanha, coordinator of ESG. The ESG had previously suggested a more appropriate location for the second runway would have been towards north of the old runway. This option was not even considered, as the acquisition of such lands would displace about seventy large landholding families that were well connected politically.

I do have the highest regard for Indian pilots, who I believe can be matched to the best in the world. Having flown into some dicey Indian airports in the past, such as the old Cochin Airport, which offer very little room for error, I know that it was the skill of the pilot more than anything else that ensured nothing went wrong. But relying on the skills of the pilot alone without the support of the underlying infrastructure is risky, especially at a time when Indian aviation is experiencing high growth. In an industry in which safety is critical it is important that standards are not compromised. It is essential that proper investments be continuously made to ensure the highest levels of safety are always maintained. If India is serious about the safety of its air passengers, it must have an independent air safety board which is transparent and free of political manipulation.

Despite this tragic accident, air travel remains incredibly safe. It is statistically safer for you to travel on a commercial airliner than it is for you to cross the road. Improvements in technology and lessons learnt from past mistakes have made air travel safer. Air travel is increasing worldwide. However, the fact remains that since an aircraft is a machine and a human being is responsible for flying it, there is always the risk of something going wrong. The best we can do is to minimise that risk, which involves learning the lessons from accidents such as this one in Mangalore and taking safety seriously.

Will Delhi be ready for the 2010 Commonwealth Games?

According to a leaked government report in India this may not be the case, reports the Times of India:

"In what could bring huge embarrassment to the country, key Commonwealth Games (CWG) projects - including games venues, infrastructure for conducting the sports and major city upgrade plans - are running so much behind schedule that there's a real threat of India's showpiece Games turning into a non-event.

The Comptroller and Auditor General, which early this month submitted an evaluation report to the Prime Minister's Office and the sports ministry, has observed that in at least 13 of the 19 sporting venues, the work shortfall is between 25% and 50%. This means all these projects would either miss the deadline or compromise on quality in the haste to finish on time.

That's not all. Sources quoting the report said the Delhi government and some central agencies executing Games-related projects have officially shelved at least six infrastructure projects by delinking them from the Commonwealth Games.

Though the delinked projects are flyovers and bridges that could at best clog up traffic and hamper timely conduct of events, what could actually result in the Games being shifted elsewhere is the organizers' inability to complete sports venues even in the extended timeframe. As per international guidelines, all CWG projects were to be completed by May 2009 and the last year should have been kept for trial runs.

Far from that, sources quoting the CAG report said in the case of Jawaharlal Nehru stadium - the main venue of the Games - even the final designs were yet to be frozen. Authorities executing the projects hadn't received layout details for LAN, CCTV, broadcasting overlays, video screens, scoreboards and signages etc.

The evaluation report says these details, as well as the type of track and turf to be used, were required to be submitted in October 2008. Instead, these have been received by CPWD only recently. The location and the requirements for the photo finish room at JLN Stadium were finalized by the organizing committee as late as May 2009.

Meanwhile, the all-too-familiar finger-pointing is on. CPWD, the project executing agency, has blamed the organizing committee and its consultants for delaying the projects by constantly revising and re-revising designs for every venue, sources said."

This is so typical of the state of affairs in India today. To undertake any major project, there are a countless number of delays and objections, that by the time something is completed, it is either too late or there is a need for something even better. You would have thought seven years is sufficient time to prepare for these games, but not in India.

Contrast India’s struggling attempts to host the event and China’s highly successful running of the Olympics last year. Whether construction work will be completed before the start of the 2010 Commonwealth Games is anyone's guess. Even if the government pulls out all the stops to complete construction, there is no guarantee quality won't be compromised. One way or another, it seems India may not be spared the blushes.

India trip 2009

I have just returned from a short holiday in India. It was an enjoyable and interesting trip in many ways. The last time I visited the country was in 2006, so this holiday enabled me to take stock of changes that have happened since then. This time I was determined to see some places other than my relatives’ houses because having a young daughter, who was born in the UK but has no knowledge of India, I wanted her to come away with a reasonably good impression of the country.

We landed in Mumbai on 14 August 2009, just one day before Independence Day. Mumbai was in a state of panic about swine flu. After disembarking, all passengers on my flight from London were screened for the illness. The screening process was largely a paperwork exercise, which wasted half an hour and left me wondering: was targeting foreigners the best way of tackling the virus given that it had already spread to India?

Despite warnings about possible terrorist attacks in the run-up to Independence Day, I did go out and see some of the major landmarks in the city of Mumbai including Nariman Point, the Gateway of India, the Taj Hotel, Malabar Hills, and Juhu Beach. The Taj Hotel has been largely restored to its erstwhile glory following the terror attacks in November 2008. It is a majestic building, as is the Gateway of India, just a stone throw away. I didn’t like Juhu Beach, which makes much derided Blackpool Beach seem clean. The many new shopping malls in Mumbai are very popular with the middle classes.

Mumbai is a city of striking contrasts. Here you find people from all walks of life, and all parts of India, and their differences are bewildering. The poor are very poor, and the rich are very rich. In Mumbai, people from just about every state in India rub shoulders with each other. The dilapidated buildings of Dharavi contrast with the tall, modern skyscrapers in the heart of the city. It is a bustling, noisy cosmopolitan that never sleeps. Unfortunately the traffic can be a nightmare, due to the burgeoning population, but that is a fact of life in every major town or city of India today.

After spending a couple of days in Mumbai, we flew down to Kochi and headed to Thrissur in the centre of Kerala. Thrissur is Kerala’s cultural capital, having a number of Hindu temples and Christian churches. Every year the Thrissur Pooram festival, held near Vadakkumnathan Temple in the centre of the city, is celebrated with much gusto by thousands of people, featuring caparisoned elephants and fireworks. The city is also famous for gold jewellery, producing 70% of Kerala’s ornaments. A number of new hotels have come up in Thrissur in recent years.

After visiting my in-laws and my mother’s family in Thrissur, we travelled north to Kozhikode by train. Train travel in India is much more comfortable, and less hazardous, than travelling by car. The passenger compartments are not always tidy, the food can be dodgy, but train travel in India is cheap; it is the best way to see the country. Now more of the tracks are becoming electrified, reducing the dependence on that polluting fossil fuel, diesel.

Situated on the Malabar Coast, Kozhikode is a bustling, multiethnic and muilti-religious city. Although Hindus form the largest community there is a substantial Muslim population here, and a smaller Christian community. The city played an important role in the spice trade during the Middle Ages, and even today there is a strong mercantile character about it. The shopping centre has expanded in recent years, with a wide variety of shops selling anything from Halwa to sarees.

We spent a couple of days in Kozhikode, visiting some of my paternal aunties, and then we travelled south to Alleppey. At Alleppey station, our tour operator from Indian Panorama met us and took us to the houseboat jetty. Alleppey is a small town where the main business is fishing, and more recently tourism. I was impressed with the facilities on board our houseboat including an area at the front for sightseeing and dining, an air-conditioned bedroom and en-suite bathroom, and a kitchen at the back for preparing food. The boat was manned by three crew members including the cook.

As our houseboat gently navigated the lotus-filled backwaters around Alleppey and headed toward Kumarakom via River Pampa, we sat and watched the beautiful green Kerala countryside. This was surely the best way to see Kerala, away from the maddening traffic on the roads, unhurried and relaxed. The palm trees arched over the banks of the waterways, their canopies hanging high over the water. The scenary was simply serene, composed of different shades of green, each shade owing to a different kind of crop. As we passed small villages and paddy fields, we saw people going about their daily lives. Women washed their clothes while fisherman ferried their catches in their skiffs.

We passed many other houseboats in the opposite direction, some occupied by foreign tourists, as well as other types of boats and small ships transporting goods to various trading centres in Kerala. The food we ate on board was fresh and tasty. We docked at a quiet spot not far from Kumarakom for the night, and completed the journey the next morning. It was truly a wonderful experience which I will not forget for a long time, and my five year old daughter particularly enjoyed it.

After a visit to St Mary’s Forane Church at Bharananganam, where Kerala’s first Christian saint, St Alphonsa, is buried, we travelled to Kochi, the commercial capital of Kerala, in our pre-arranged taxi. The traffic in Kochi was the worst of all the cities I visited in Kerala. Although many new businesses and people had moved into the city, the transport infrastructure had failed to keep up with the change. The result was heavy congestion especially during the morning and evening rush hours. We just spent a day in Kochi, visiting the homes of two uncles, before heading back to Thrissur where we spent the remainder of our holiday.

This was a most enjoyable holiday and I am very grateful to my relatives for all their hospitality. I have seen a lot of change in the country. Just about every consumer good that you get in the west can now be purchased in India. There is a new confidence among the middle classes with their increased opportunities and affluence. More people seem to know English, the language which enables Indians to communicate with the rest of the world. However, not all change has been for the better. As more and more people flock to the urban areas to get a share of the money pie, the transport infrastructure is struggling to cope. Due to bumbling bureaucracy, appreciating land prices, lack of planning and corruption the infrastructure, particularly the roads, is creaking at the seams.

Climate change is also adding to people’s woes in India. This year’s monsoon wasn’t heavy, especially in northern India, adversely affecting crop production and pushing prices up. India will have to improve its irrigation facilities if it wants to help its agriculture sector. The population continues to grow, putting further pressures on its limited resources, and there are still many areas where illiteracy and poverty are rife. Sectarian violence occasionally flares up in some trouble spots, and caste discrimination is still oppressive in various places, especially in some of the backward northern states. The threat of terrorism, motivated by internal and external elements, is ever present.

The challenges the country faces are indeed huge. Talk of it becoming a superpower, I think, is highly optimistic given India’s current social, political and cultural environment. India will continue to make economic progress, even if that growth is a little lopsided, but it probably won’t be much more than the regional power it currently is. Its success shouldn’t just be measured in pure economic terms. Despite its obvious flaws, what I find heartening is that the majority of its large and diverse population are tolerant of one another’s differences and get along fine. Long may that unity in diversity continue.

Maharajah begs for its survival

The last time I flew on India’s national carrier – Air India – was in August 2000. I was returning from India when my flight was delayed almost a full twenty four hours. My plane, an ageing Boeing 747-200, over twenty years old, developed a technical snag in Dubai which meant it couldn’t make the journey across the Arabian Sea until engineers from Bombay flew out spares there. I was used to the customary one or two hours delay with Air India, but this was extraordinary. My father wrote a letter of complaint to the airline after returning to UK, but he needn’t have bothered. There was no reply, except to say the airline would look into his complaint, but in all likelihood the letter probably just ended up in the waste bin with all the other letters of complaint at the Air India office.

I have never experienced such appalling customer service on an airline as Air India. So it comes as no surprise that I learn today that Air India is on the brink of collapse. Most airlines around the world, including British Airways, are struggling to cope with the current economic downturn, but Air India’s problems have been brewing for over fifteen years due to neglect. Today it neither has enough money to pay its daily operating costs nor the salaries of its bloated workforce of 31,000 employees. Last month, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had asked Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel to prepare a restructuring plan by the month-end.

The restructuring plan will be presented to a committee on 25 July, and it is likely to include a number of changes in return for equity infusion from the government and other financial support. It is not easy to downsize Air India’s powerful unionized workforce, so Praful Patel is trying to involve them in the restructuring process. Measures are likely to include a recruitment freeze for the next three years, cut loss making routes, return leased planes to lessors, and defer deliveries of some new planes. Already Praful Patel has sought to change the management board within thirty days, bringing in top executives with proven track record from elsewhere.

It remains to be seen how successful this restructuring plan is going to be, but one thing for sure is that without a radical overhaul the airline is bound to fail. A few tweaks here and there is simply not going to be enough, for Air India has been steadily losing market share since the Indian civil aviation sector was liberalised in the early 1990s to both foreign and domestic operators. “Instead of meeting competition head on though, Air India allowed its decades of problems to pile up and up,” said Peter Morris, chief economist of Ascend, the London-based global air transport industry consultancy firm.

After years of pampering as India’s national carrier, the root of Air India’s problem was simply its inability to perform in a competitive market. “While every airline in the country calibrated their business model with appropriate cost and revenues structure to meet competition, Air India failed to capitalize on its dominant position, a position any airline would give anything to have,” said Morris. Air India also suffered from political interference, under investment in its fleet, and a weak management.

“I think the only way to make Air India viable again is privatization,” said Vivek Gupta, senior consultant with the Hyderabad-based ICMR Center for Management Research. “That is the key because AI’s management has never been serious about running AI as a competitive business. Privatization will allow AI to shed its national carrier tag, which looks imminent anyway, and will make it easier for the airline to focus on customer service and competition.”

Affectionately known as the “Maharajah” after its mascot for many years, Air India has unfortunately suffered the fate of many maharajahs since Indira Gandhi abolished the privy purse in 1971, and been reduced to the begging bowl. To survive in the fiercely competitive civil aviation market an airline has to be very nimble. Air India’s future seems far from rosy as it fights for its survival. The best thing the Indian government can do is bail it out one last time and privatise it. Then if it goes to the wall, let it go to the wall.

Indian elections: a meaningless exercise in the machanics of democracy

It’s almost election time in the world’s largest democracy. Next month more than 700 million Indians will go to the polling booths and cast their vote, in what will be the biggest exercise in the democratic process anywhere on earth in recent years. The result will be interesting, as no single party is likely to win outright, but for many Indians, considering the state of Indian politics today, the elections will be a largely meaningless affair. Audacity of hope? Life will be the same as usual for most Indians after these elections.

Since the ‘golden era’ of Indian democracy in the first two decades following independence, Indian politics has become increasingly populist and chaotic. Today there are many, many parties at the national and regional levels, and central governments are usually coalitions. Gone are the days when India’s grand old party – Congress - ruled virtually unchallenged across the breadth and depth of the country. This broadening of democracy reflects the diverse nature of the Indian population, but along with this increased political pluralism has been a distressing corruption of the entire system.

Around a quarter of India’s politicians are facing charges of serious crime including murder, armed robbery, kidnapping and rape. Many politicians thrive on the use of muscle power, but this nexus between politics and crime only weakens the rule of law. The legal process is so slow and ineffective that it only facilitates the further criminalization of politics. How can one expect a parliamentary system infiltrated by criminals to serve the people, let alone uphold the rule of law?

Corruption is so endemic in public life that to get anything done one has to pay a bribe. A report by Transparency International India (TII) estimated that the total sum of bribes paid to access public services by poor people in India was more than 9 billon rupees. The protectors of the law, the police, topped the services accounting for the most bribes being paid, followed by housing services and land administration. Bribes are routinely paid for gaining admission to schools, to get a bed in a public hospital, or to get the electricity turned on. India is currently ranked 85 in a list of 180 countries worldwide for corruption by Transparency International.

There has been much praise for the rapid economic growth India has enjoyed in recent years. Certain sectors of the economy like IT, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals have indeed experienced tremendous growth, but the effects of this economic growth are failing to trickle down. In the latest United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Index, India is ranked a low position of 132 out of 179 countries, falling far behind other large countries such as China (94) and Brazil (70) with similar sets of challenges, and it has not improved its position for years.

Among two of the main failings of successive Indian governments have been the inability to make basic education and health care available to all its people. When India embraced free market reform in the early 1990s, with its elitist concentration on higher education, a semi-literate population was poorly prepared for a widely shared economic expansion. The situation is not much different today. The contrast with China couldn’t be greater. Chinese governments, even before China turned to capitalism in 1979, went for massive expansion of education, and later of health care too. The result has been that China has reaped the benefits of free market reforms much better than India.

India is, of course, a very diverse country and there are large variations in living conditions across different regions. The poorer states, mainly in central and northern India, such as Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Bihar, have living conditions not much different to the most deprived countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Here there are high levels of illiteracy, infant mortality and undernourishment. Meanwhile Kerala, in the southwest, has almost total universal literacy and good health care facilities. The result is that people in Kerala live longer, in smaller families, and they are less likely to suffer from acute poverty.

The Indian electorate has the uncanny ability to surprise political pundits. In the last general elections, against all odds, Italian born Sonia Gandhi led her Congress party to an unlikely victory over the incumbent right wing Hindu nationalist BJP party. Following her surprising victory, she stepped aside for the soft-spoken Oxford University educated economist, Manmohan Singh, who initiated India’s economic liberalization in the early 1990s. This year the newly formed Third Front, a grouping of secular left wing and regional parties, could possibly play the role of kingmaker.

There are huge challenges that lie ahead for the next government including poverty eradication, overpopulation, and an increasingly unstable neighbourhood. It is difficult to see how a coalition government, constrained by compulsions to please its internal partners, will be able to meet all these challenges. However, as Kerala has shown, the provision of basic education and health care, achieved without too much government expenditure, can lead to tangible social benefits in the long run. The next government must address such fundamental issues; otherwise, for many Indians, life will continue to be a misery and elections a meaningless affair.

Cricketers become terrorist targets

Cricket will never be quite the same again, especially in the Indian sub-continent, following the attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore, on 3 March 2009, by suspected Islamist gunmen. For Pakistan, the incident is almost certainly bound to deter international teams from visiting the country, at least for the short to medium term, until the general security situation in the country improves. Only Sri Lanka was prepared to take the risk, to support a fellow South Asian country affected by terrorism; now even they won’t be returning in a hurry after their players narrowly escaped with their lives. It was an incident that many people, including players, commentators, and cricket officials had been dreading, especially after the Mumbai attacks in November 2008. Now that it has happened, we have passed an unprecedented psychological milestone.

The attack happened in a residential area of Lahore in Punjab. Eight people, including six policemen, were killed. Although no group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, the likely perpetrators of the attack could be Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) – the same group blamed for the Mumbai attacks last year. LeT is headquartered around Lahore and under pressure from the US and India, the Pakistani military has been moving against LeT assets in the country. LeT was originally set up by the Pakistani military to fight Indian rule in Kashmir, but it has since widened its activities. The daring attack on the Sri Lankan team demonstrates the boldness with which many militant groups operate in Pakistan, and the withering writ of the Pakistani state.

Now that cricketers have become targets for terrorists, it is important that security is dramatically stepped up for them. New security arrangements must ensure their safety at hotels, city roads and cricket grounds. Perhaps the distinctive team bus may have to be abandoned, and players transported in bomb proof cars. The Lahore attacks demonstrated at least a moderate level of planning by the terrorists, so every aspect of a cricket match including transport, accommodation and the play must be reviewed. The Indian Home Minister, P Chidambaram, has been going out of his way to ensure that cricket will be safe in India. In a recent press conference he said, "I want cricket to be played in India. Nobody needs to worry about safety while playing in India."

In India cricket is more than just a sport, it is a national obsession. It is played in almost every nook and cranny, and followed by hundreds of millions of cricket fans. It is one of the few sports that Indians have actually been able to do well at the international level, relying more on guile and skill rather than sheer physical strength. The game is also a great unifying force in a large and diverse country, bringing together players from different regions and rendering insignificant the everyday divisions of language, religion, class and caste. It may have been brought to India by the British, but today India is the powerhouse of international cricket, contributing up to 80% of world cricket’s revenue.

Already questions have been raised about this year’s Indian Premier League (IPL) and the World Cup in 2011. Organisers of the IPL, who could lose up to £300 million if the tournament is cancelled, are adamant the tournament will go ahead, although the timetable may be altered so that matches do not clash with polling days in India’s upcoming general elections. Some foreign players, who are yet to sign binding contracts, may decide to pull out of the tournament. There’s no doubt security for the tournament presents a tough challenge, and so it is important that the government and the organisers work together collectively if they want the tournament to be safe.

This is not the end of cricket in the sub-continent by any means. It is far too popular for that to happen. Teams may well avoid Pakistan for the coming years but, like in the past, matches can be played in UAE, Malaysia and other places which are considered safer. For a country that has consistently denied terrorism emanating from within its borders, the only silver lining in the Lahore attack is that the humiliation of not hosting cricket matches at home may finally force the general public and establishment to recognise that they have a problem.

Cochin International Airport: a model for Kerala and India

Back in the 1980s, when I was in my early teenage years, I would go on holidays to Kerala, India, with my parents. We would invariably fly to Bombay in western India, and then take a domestic flight south to Cochin. I remember the small airport in Cochin well. After a flight adjacent to the Indian coastline, the aircraft would swoop down and upon landing, the pilot would immediately apply full reverse thrust and generous braking to slow the aircraft down, as the runway was short. The airport terminal was small; at best, it was capable of handling a couple of flights at any one time. When aircraft arrived or departed from the terminal, the building would reverberate with the sound of the jet engines, making conversation difficult. The airport was actually a naval airbase on Wellington Island that was converted for civilian use.

Everything changed at the end of the 1990s when a new, bigger airport was opened in Nedumbassery, 30km from Cochin city centre. The new airport, which replaced the old naval airport, was the result of a public-private partnership (PPP), with the government only having a minority stake. The government of Kerala, unable to provide funding for the entire project, sought private funding, and the response from Non Resident Indians (NRIs), who had long desired an international airport in Cochin to avoid having to take a detour via Bombay, was overwhelmingly positive. Nearly 10,000 NRIs from 30 countries contributed to the project. The total project cost Rs3.15 billion (about US$68.4 million), which was low cost compared to many other airports. This was the first time an international airport in India was built with only a minority (13%) central government stake.

Today, Cochin Airport is the fourth busiest airport in India in terms of international traffic, with passenger traffic continuing to grow. It handles more than 400 services in the domestic sector and more than 300 services in the international sector per week. It has a 3,400m long runway, which is the second longest in India, and besides Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, it is capable of handling all types of commercial aircraft including the Airbus A380. The duty free shops, which currently contribute a substantial amount of the airport revenues, have also earned the reputation of being amongst the lowest priced in the Asia-Middle East region. Recently the airport has opened one of the largest cargo centres in India, providing a major boost to the movement of perishable cargo from Kerala.

There are plans afoot by Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL), the public company that owns the airport, to build an aerotropolis (airport city) around the airport. To fund this ambitious plan, CIAL will tie up with two international airport developers, and float 26% of its equity between April and December 2009. The aerotropolis project will develop 450 acres of land with a view to increasing non-aeronautical revenue. The aerotropolis will include, among other things, the following:

• Aircraft Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facility
  
• Aviation Academy
  
• Star/budget hotels
  
• 18-hole world class golf course
  
• Convention/exhibition centre
  
• Amusement parks
  
• Shopping malls
• Food Court
  
• Super Speciality Hospital
  
• IT park

The aim is to increase non-aeronautical revenue to such a level that the airport will be able to operate profitably without depending so much on aeronautical revenue, so that by 2015 the airport will be able to scrap aircraft landing charges to airlines.

For a state that has always been very sceptical about free markets, the success of Cochin Airport demonstrates what can be achieved through collaboration between government and private enterprise. One of the main reasons for the airport’s success is that the government has not interfered in its management, leaving all decisions to be made by the board of directors. The present Chief Minister of Kerala, V S Achuthanandan, is also the chairman of the board. Having a chief minister as the head of the board helps to get clearances quickly and certain benefits from the government; and in turn the airport, aware of its social responsibility, provides employment and opportunities to many people, promotes tourism, and acts as an essential gateway for Kerala to the outside world.

Kerala is notorious for the large number of strikes, due to powerful trade unions and political parties, which bring the state to a grinding halt on a frequent basis and cause massive losses to the state exchequer. Many companies either avoided setting up office in Kerala or moved out from the state for this particular reason. While other southern states like Karnataka and Tamil Nadu experience rapid economic growth, Kerala is a laggard in comparison. It has become dependent on remittances from NRIs abroad, which contribute a substantial part of the economy. This is an indefensible position. The success of the new airport at Cochin, which has been a model for other new airports in the region, shows what can be achieved through benevolent capitalism. When government maintains a hands-off approach, private enterprise can deliver the goods to the benefit of all, providing that it also maintains a sense of social responsibility.