Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Lamb and Lion, God and Man- Jesus Christ the Meek and Mighty

About 10 years ago my friend Philip gave me a copy of the book 'Truth and Social Reform' by Vishal Mangalwadi. He'd been working with Mangalwadi, researching for some of his projects and recommended his works to me. I took a long time to read it, as Mangalwadi seems to be more of a scholar and researcher rather than a parable-teller, but certain things stood out. The cover illustration showed a painting which showed Jesus driving out the money changers and the shopkeepers from the temple at Jerusalem with a rope-whip, his face set by determination and a stern look in his eyes. The content of the book, among other things, was about the role of the church in creating Christ-life reform in its ecosystem, which has been long ignored by believers who placed the verbal sharing of the Gospel much more important than living it out for the world to see.

It's interesting that the facet of Jesus' personality- the divine anger for righteousness- has been recorded in the chronicles of his earthly life only once, perhaps to help us understand that this too is his nature, but to not overdo the point. There have been many explanations for this. The temple was meant to be a place where worship was to be conducted in a manner prescribed by God, where people took animals without blemish from their homes for sacrifice over long distances. The new markets at the temple made it easier for them and this wasn't what God wanted- just sacrifices that fulfilled the letter but not the spirit of the Law. At the very least we know that Jesus in his earthly example is not the sweet sacharine push-over some have thought him to be, but a man of righteousness that drives him to action.

I just thought about this a while ago when my Dad (who is now staying with us on vacation) told me about problems in his neighbourhood in Kerala. Driven by greed, some neighbours have ignored the safety and security of their once peaceful neighbourhood and built warehouses or "go-downs" on their properties. Trucks move in and out of these warehouses all day long and the truck drivers spend hours talking long into the night, speaking coarse and often foul Malayalam, loudly enough for neighbours catch snippets of their conversation. They are often a menace to the homeowners' cars when their trucks scrape past the smaller vehicles. As it happens, most cars in the area have been at least a bit damaged by these trucks. Most neighours have been passive and let these events pass without comment. Dad hasn't been passive and has several times clashed with them, threatening legal action and calling the police once. Unfortunately the neighbourhood is not united with him and things have not changed much. Some neighbours are moving out o the area while some others- my Grandma among them- prefer to close all windows afterhours and shut out all noises, despite the sweltering, humid heat! To be fair to the neighbours, most people in Kerala behave this way- they are the most non-confrontational people I have seen when it comes to defending their own against those blue-collar workers who use their muscle to make a living (head-load workers, truck drivers and so on). The governments in power in the state have always favoured them. But I think a little leadership would have helped unite the neighbourhood- if only someone who had charisma enough to pull people together, someone who had the diplomacy, level-headedness and knack for tact and negotiation, could rise to the occasion!

What would Jesus have done? I don't believe he would have shut the windows and remained there. I don't think he would have simply shouted at the truck drivers. I doubt he would simply have thrown up his hands and moved out. I think he would have driven them out with force, but with the support of people and never losing his legitimacy, i.e., never going overboard. He wasn't against sinners, but he was against sin.

Let's take another example. When President Bush won the last elections against John Kerry, there was a cartoon strip that portayed a son asking his father about global warming, the US soldiers dying in Iraq and myriad other problems the US was facing, and why in the face of all this Bush was elected. The father tells the son, "Yes, son- but we can be happy now that the gays can't marry!" Certainly Bush could be told off for several policy decisions that have been failures, but simply trashing his opinion against gay marriages does not cut it.

While I don't want to go into a discussion about gay rights, I do want to assert one point- people who oppose gay marriages are not necessarily being bigots. They believe that giving social sanction to gay behaviour is not simply allowing a group of people to do what they like, but to influence society as a whole with a thinking that any moral choice is legitimate. That's why I'm puzzled by John Edwards who claims that he opposes gay marriages personally but in official capacity would do nothing about it. Does being in a democracy mean that an office bearer can do nothing to influence society and the nation with his or her won values? If the righteous do not influence society with their values, wherever the values come from - the Bible, the school of hard knocks, wherever- then the unrighteous will. And they are clever enough to turn the argument around and say that to oppose their point of view is to prevent democracy itself from functioning. If your personal conviction doesn't inform your public policy then how good are you as an office bearer? Would I permit bigamy to be legitmized? No- though I know some people would, although they don't practise it.

In other words, is virtue simply the absence of vice? Isn't it also a real Presence? C S Lewis offers in The Weight of Glory:



"If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old, he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive...."
If Love isn't simply Unselfishness then we had better be careful of how we view Love. Love binds, as they say- and free love is a contradiction in terms. If Love says Yes to something or someone, then it follows that Love could say No to someone else or something else. The nature of truth is to exclude falsehood.

I think God left out some of Jesus' harsher sayings or doings for a reason. I don't think it was because he was rarely harsh. In fact we see some hints here and there, especially when He is juxtaposed with a shoot-from-the-hip Peter who got to hear both bouquets and brick bats aplenty from Him. I do think it's because God wants us simply to understand that righteousness is a deeper matter and needs to be displayed in many ways. We need His wisdom and His Spirit to understand when to use which.

Friday, June 22, 2007

The New Pragmatists- India's Leadership

This article by Gwynne Dyer on China's aggressive posture toward India was indicative of so many such articles in the past. They are still the staple of many Indian journalists even today- notably those of the Hindu which echoed the same sentiments in an editorial a few days ago. The gist of this article seems to be that India in its new found nuclear friendship with the US has been deferring considering the cost it would entail with China, what China would have to say about this. And now, the article says, India has been caught on the wrong foot because the Chinese have raised the issue of Arunachal Pradesh and claimed the state to be Chinese territory in its entirity. The article goes on to say that India had been claiming for the past couple of years or so that it could now engage China succcessfully, but the politicians were now all of a doo-dah.

Then there is this article by B. Raman, India's former head of the intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), which is titled 'Tawang: Some Indian plain-speaking at last!' This piece says that India's response to China's claim has been plain, calm and aggressive but not impractical or reactionary. In the past several politicians would decry such comments, using strong language to describe the Chinese claims as unwarranted, unjustifiable, etc; and would 'condemn' them, as newspapers would quote. Raman's article quotes the only two politicians who gave their comments on this issue. This is notable because: (1) the rest of the political machinery has been silent- an unprecedented occurence; and (2) the content of the comments has come across absolutely unexpected and utterly magnificent.

Which is this is true? Let's take a look. India's press has been as knee jerk as ever before, wagging their fingers and saying 'I told you so'. If this had been 1995, India may have politely refused the US the nuclear deal and appeased China by refusing to undertake any infrastructure, industrial or military initiatives in Arunachal as has happened since the 1962 Sino-Indian war, until recently. In the end we would have engaged neither the US nor China, getting no military or diplomatic partnership with the US and no engagement with China.

In 2007 however External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee commented 'he had made it clear to his new Chinese counterpart that any elected Government of India is not permitted by the provisions of the Constitution to part with any part of our land that sends representatives to the Indian Parliament.'


The minister added: 'The days of Hitler are over. After the Second World War, no country captures land of another country in the present global context. That is why there is a civilised mechanism of discussions and dialogue to sort out border disputes. We sit around the table and discuss disputes to resolve them.'


Mukherjee's first comment notes that the Chinese claim over Arunachal is impractical in that they cannot simply get the state just because they claim it. This is not 1962 where a conventional war could be fought and boundaries decided. But this is a known fact. I would venture that the Chinese, masterful negotiators that they are, do not want to let go of the Arunachal issue because it is a leverage they have in negotiations. After recognizing Sikkim's statehood within India, the Chinese lost a playing card. To get a concession from India they need to give back something. And that could be Arunachal. But it looks like the Indian leadership sees this for the smokescreen that it is. For India to give up something significant, say recognizing Tibet as Chinese territory (we did accept Tibet as an autonomous region within China in 2003, whatever that means!), and accept Chinese recognition of Arunachal would be silly- we would be getting nothing of value! Secondly, Mukherjee states that the discussions to resolve the issue are going on and any claim over past occupation does not hold good now. This is a mature, down to earth stating of facts.

Take a look at Defence Minster AK Anthony's comments:

'China has been building infrastructure (near the Line of Actual Control). We are also building infrastructure. Nobody can prevent both sides. There is nothing wrong in that. They have the right to build infrastructure on their territory. We have the right to do that on ours. We are also trying to hasten the development of our infrastructure. They have their perception (about Arunachal Pradesh). On our part, we are very categorical that Arunachal Pradesh is part of India.'

Anthony seems to be confident enough in talking about our infrastructure building in Arunachal which had been languishing since 1962, when we decided to leave it well alone for fear that the Chinese may eventually get the state. Indeed, India has begun a series of hectic road building in this state unparalleled since then. After this China went further and jammed the All India Radio and Doordarshan signals in Arunachal's border towns with more powerful signals from China. But the message is clear enough: the way to engage the dragon is through aggression. We know that from their interactions with the Americans and the Japanese. India's aggression (without unnecessary sensationalism) pays and we have since seen the dividends. India has been pragmatic and diplomatic enough to encourage trade with China (which hit $20 billion this year, well on its way to be $30 billion next year, significantly large for them as it is for us) and cooperation in a number of projects (including joint bidding for gas and oil fields abroad), but our foreign policy seems to be finally free of dogmatic appeasement.

After Chinese statements hit the press, we saw another historic event take place. Taiwanese presidential candidate Ma-Ying Jeou (Kuo Ming Tang) paid a visit to India, the first by any Taiwanese leader. This article, titled India Plays the Taiwan Card', talks eloquently about this. China did not protest this as the visit was billed as having economic motives. But this cannot have caused just mild flutters in Beijing- whatever the motives, ths visit was unprecedented in nearly seventy decades, and on a larger, strategic level, reflects India's commitments to engage Taiwan. It also reflects a reversal of the former Indian policy of leaving Chinese feathers unruffled as concerns Taiwan.

Gwynne Dyer's pronouncement that India has been given a rude awakening is far from reality. India has been awake for a while now, but I think our northern neighbour is taking longer to wake up. They got a wake up call when India tested the nuclear bomb and they've been slowly adjusting to the new attitude. India's priorities were made very clear when Chinese President Hu Jintao visited India last November. His welcome party was in no way colourful or warm as the fantastic reception India gave US President George Bush when he visited. President Bush was received maginificently both at Rashtrapati Bhavan, with a parade of cavalry, as well as at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's home, decorated with flowers. The press also noted the informality and warmth between the two leaders. Prime Minister Singh broke protocol and went himself to receive President Bush when he landed in New Delhi. None of that for President Jintao. Regulation red carpet, regulation formal welcome. He was welcomed by senior Indian bureaucrats, politicians and Chinese consular officers and later met with the Prime Minister and other senior lawmakers. The difference was more than symbolic. Our leadership's comments were clear enough that the visit was not expected to make any grand proclamations of friendship or giant strides in the Sino-Indian rapprochement, but was certainly expected to make progress in trade and economic ties- This contemporary article titled 'Hu Visit: It's Trade, Not Politics' captures the idea nicely.

Another facet of India's pragmatism was made known to me when I visited a US defense contractor yesterday for a possible sale of IT services. The security officer at the door engaged me in conversation as my contact was taking some time to come and receive me. He let me know with some apprehension in his voice that the company was moving some jobs to India. I thought back to one of our strategy sessions within our company when we talked about the $30 billion business in defense procurement that we are throwing open to global arms companies. Perhaps taking a leaf out of the United States' historical record of unreliability when it comes to arms delivery and perhaps from Pakistan's hapless experience of having paid money upfront to procure F-16s and waiting several years to get the goods (because of US sanctions after their nuclear tests), India made it manadatory for the US companies to subcontract 30 percent of the arms manufacture to Indian companies. In addition, qualitative factors such as doing business with Indian companies would feature in a decision to select a supplier. This would ensure: (1) timely delivery of arms; (2) an American stake in ensuring contract terms; (3) the development of a domestic military industrial complex in India. Besides, this relationship would closely marry American interests in improving US-India relations with doing business with the Indians. In the absence of historical, ethnic or such undefinable ties such as that the US shares with Britain, sound economics would be India's best bet to improve the relationship with America.

My answer to the security officer was that since the company was selling several products to India the outsourcing is part of the quid pro quo that is expected in the transaction. Interestingly, the officer warmed to me visibly after I mentioned this. The oft quoted phrase 'I owe you one' seems very appropriate here.

This shows pragmatism, decisiveness and maturity in the leadership. I just wish our press would understand these larger realities and begin some responsible reportage instead of regurgitating foreign journalists or worse still, quite often agencies like Xinhua. The other party in India that I would like to see responding honourably is the CPI(M). They have been behaving more or less like an informal Chinese trade office by actively pushing for Chinese investments in India's infrastructure and decrying any deals with the US. Remarkably they have been silent about Chinese claims over Arunachal. These gentlemen and ladies of the Left need to behave like Indians before they get any respect from the rest of India. The old joke in Kerala about the Left was that they would open up their umbrellas if it was raining in China. Perhaps it's no coincidence that the Fifth Estate and the Left have so many mutual admirers (no explanations necessary here, I think).

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Bedtime Story

What happens when you are a dad or mom with a toddler whose quest for bedtime or other stories never ceases and calls for you to think up tales of outlandishness beyond utterance? See below on a very abridged version of how I spent this afternoon.

Vijai: A long time ago in a land far, far away...

Emma: Wass hith name?

Vijai: There's no name here, Emma. It's a land, just like Aurora, where we live.

Emma: Yes, but appa... what he do?

Vijai: No, no, no, no... Just like Aurora there was this land where there were people, houses, cars, children...

Emma: Wass hith name?

Vijai: The land was called the land of Oom, like this is the land of Aurora.

Emma: What he do?

Vijai: In the land of Oom there were people just like us, houses , cars, trees, gardens. But the land of Oom was a land of silence.

Emma: Silence?

Vijai: Yes, it means the land was quiet. There was no sound.

Emma: Oh-oh

Vijai: When people talked no sound came out, when children kicked a ball there was no sound, where they cried no sound came, the birds sang but noone heard the song. It was a land of complete silence. One day, a man from Aurora...

Emma: Wass hith name?

Vijai: Jabberwocky. His name was Jabberwocky.

Emma: He was a bigggg strongggg man!!

Vijai: Yes, he was a very big man from Aurora.

Emma: Whad he do?

Vijai: He got into his car and started driving. He drove and drove and drove (here Vijai checks if Emma is anywhere close to sleeping, but her eyes are wide open). He kept driving and after a long time where did he reach?

Emma: Aurora?

Vijai: Oom. He reached the land of Oom.

Emma: Ohhh! Wad he do?

Vijai: When was driving he could hear the birds, but in Oom the brids were silent. His car didn't make any sound. All he could hear was silence. So he went into a house and rang the bell (Emma didn't ask if that made a noise, infant minds are not skeptical enough). A lady opened the door and asked, 'Who are you?' but no sound came. Jabberwocky understood this from her lips and said, 'Jabberywocky'- no sound came but she could understand him and asked him what he wanted. Jabberwocky did not understand so he took a piece of paper and wrote, 'Why is there no sound here?' The lady wrote, 'It's a long story'. Jabberywocky said, 'How long?' The lady wrote, 'How long do you have'? Jabberwocky said, '2 days'. The lady wrote' Okey Dokey. Once upon a time there was a crocodile'

Emma: Ohhh! A big crocodile!

Vijai: A big crocodile. He ate a lot of food.

Emma: Wad he ate?

Vijai: He ate rats, worms, houses, pianos and grew very big. He was always hungry. So he came to Oom and wanted to eat the people. ut the people asked him not to eat them. So the crocodile said, I will eat up all of your sound. That's why there is no sound here.

Emma: I will thtop the crocodile!!

Vijai: That is what Jabberwocky said. He said, this is a job for Jabberwocky! He waved a stick like Moe in 'The Lone Stranger' (a Veggietales story, to the uninitiated) and 'Hi, ho sliver-away!!' But no sound came. He asked the woman, where is this crocodile now? The woman said, in our zoo. So Jabberwocky went to the zoo and the crocodile was sleeping, he opened the crocodile's mouth, pulled out all the sound and then tied up his mouth with sticky tape. And the land of Oom got its sound. The crocodile woke up and asked Jabberwocky if he could take the sticky tape off and Jabberwocky made him promise that he will never eat anyone's sound or anyone again. The crocodile promised him this and went away into the jungle where he couldn't disturb anyone.

Emma: OK, now I tell you a thtory. A butterfly thtory.

Vijai: OK, but after that we sleep. No more talking after that.

Emma: Onth upon a time there wath a purple butterfly.

Vijai: ZZZZZ....

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Christianity among the Urban Squatters

I was intrigued to see this article on the urban slum population in India on Rediff.com. One of the factoids mentioned in this piece is about the rise of pentecostal Christianity in slums. This is mentioned by author Mike Davis in his book Planet of Slums. Curious about this, I did some research on Davis and read quotes from his works on several websites. Here's one from a fellow Indian (full article here).

The counterpart of populist Islam in the slums of Latin America and much of sub-Saharan Africa is Pentecostalism. Christianity, of course, is now in its majority a non-Western religion, and Pentecostalism is its most dynamic missionary in cities of poverty. Indeed, Pentecostalism is the first major world religion to have grown up almost entirely in the soil of the modem urban slum. Unified around spirit baptism, miracle healing, charismata, and a premillennial belief in a coming world war of capital and labor, early American Pentecostalism originated as a "prophetic democracy" whose rural and urban constituencies overlapped, respectively, with those of Populism and the Industrial Workers of the World. Its early missionaries yielded nothing to the I.W.W. in their vehement denunciations of the injustices of industrial capitalism and its inevitable destruction.Since 1970, largely because of its appeal to slum women and its reputation for being colorblind, Pentecostalism has been growing into what is arguably the largest self-organized movement of urban poor people on the planet. Recent claims of "over 533 million Pentecostal/charismatics in the world in 2002" are probably hyperbolic, but there may well be half that number.In contrast to populist Islam, which emphasizes civilizational continuity and the transclass solidarity of faith, Pentecostalism, in the tradition of its African-American origins, retains a fundamentally exilic identity. Although, like Islam in the slums, it efficiently correlates itself to the survival needs of the informal working class (organizing self-help networks for poor women, offering faith healing as para-medicine, providing recovery from alcoholism and addiction, insulating children from the temptations of the street), its ultimate premise is that the urban world is corrupt, unjust, and unreformable. With the left still largely missing from the slums, the eschatology of Pentecostalism admirably refuses the inhuman destiny of the Third World city that Slums warns about. It also sanctifies those who, in every structural and existential sense, truly live in exile.


One of my enduring memories from the two years I spent in Delhi from 1996 to '98 is that of a small team of men and women- all students from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and members of an Assemblies of God congregation in the city- visiting a neighbourhood slum. They taught kids to read and write and on occasion brought in speakers from the church to address whoever would listen. They had Christmas celebrations and plays organized by the kids at the slum. There was some opposiion initially but as the slum dwellers watched the group and saw their lives and sincereity they eventually warmed to them. Although I wasn't involved in the group's activities, I watched this happen on several occasions and one incident captured it well. One day as I accompanied them into the slum a small kid let us know that one of the little girls in a mud hut wouldn't come out because her mom had passed away a few days ago. One of the women went inside the hut to talk to her. Eventually she came out and put her arms around another woman-missionary and wept uncontrollably. They stood there for a long time, the girl weeping, the woman just standing there holding her. No words were exchanged.

If Pentecostalism is indeed on the rise- or any other form of evangelical Christianity for that matter- could it be more than faith healing? Could it be that Jesus' wounds still comfort and his hands still stretch out to feed and bless (through his church)? Perhaps those who are quick to point fingers at fallen idols among Christian leaders don't understand or acknowledge the lamps that still burn, but to the needy these men and women offer something noone else can- the Bread of life.

Mike Davis- I don't know if he's a Christian, I do know he leans prominently to the political Left- writes that Pentecostalism is the first modern religious movement to arise from the urban have-nots. He's probably right that in our day and age no other movement has come up similarly, but Christianity itself was one such movement 2000 years ago. After all, barring Paul and a few wealthy or influential people such as Joseph of Arimethea, Nicodemus and Philemon, the vast majority of Jesus' followers belonged to the less wealthy sections of the urban society of the time. The churches that Paul preached in were all in the cities. Paul writes to the Corinthian church:

Consider your own calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God. It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, so that, as it is written, "Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord." (1 Cor 1:26-31)


I'm reminded of what Malcolm Muggeridge wrote in one of his books (autobiography? Jesus rediscovered?) on Simone Weil's recollection of a scene in Portugal. A group of fisherfolk in procession with an indescribable sadness along the shore, singing to God. Hope is in Christ, and I haven't found it anywhere else.