Iraq, Again



I had written about Iraq before. I’m compelled to write again now because this week, the entire western media is busy observing the fifth anniversary of the war. Understandably, the noise is particularly jarring in the UK. From documentaries to public surveys to special supplements to newspapers, they are everywhere. Since I have been reading some of them and forming opinions, I thought I’ll add my two pence to these piling of reams.

The media across the world has been extremely critical of the Iraq war. Among others, it considers the failure to foresee the prolonged battle or the emergence of insurgents as the important one. It’s like Bush thought he will enter Iraq, overthrow Saddam, establish democracy, withdraw the troops and the Iraqis will celebrate him as the Saviour. Before the war, the former Prime Minister Tony Blair called for a meeting of middle-east experts from the top universities for a consultation. The experts warned of a possibility of a prolonged battle and also the insurgencies. Today, the experts lament that Blair ignored their advice.

Overall, most of the world considers this war as a wasteful exercise and hence a bad decision. Not me. There are three angles to see this from, national, economical and international threat.

Nationally, Iraq is divided into three communities is something everyone would know, Shia majority, Sunni minority and Kurds. Of these, except Sunnis to a large extent, others have faced worst possible atrocities during Saddam. Shias are the majority but they were a ruling minority and there was genocide against them post Gulf War because they aligned with the US army. Kurds have been the guinea pigs for Saddam’s chemical warfare experiments for years on. There have been brutal ethnic cleansing exercises that, if Saddam was allowed further, would have attempted to match the Holocaust. Even among Sunnis, those who are against Saddam’s regime have been continually put through hardships, from loss of jobs to lives.

Peter Galbraith, the Iraq expert who is now critical of Bush has called for use of arms to remove Saddam in the early 90s. He has personally witnessed the atrocities against Kurds and recorded them in his book The End of Iraq. He was actually instrumental in bringing documented evidence to the US that forced the White House to slap comprehensive sanctions, which almost broke the backbone of Iraq’s economy. Life was not better before this war.

Life is not great after the war either but the news is hesitantly trickling in that the life is limping, albeit slowly, back to normalcy. The biggest achievement is that Saddam is gone. The US and Britain are pumping in money towards the national building exercises. There are some growth figures according to a study by The Observer.

The rise of children enrolled in middle and high schools (02-05): 27%
The rise of telephone subscribers (05-07): 3m to 9.8m
Monthly Wages of a university professor: $1300

According to a survey by Channel 4, 80% of people felt that the situation is improving and according to the statistics, the insurgent violence has come down.

Not all statistics are this encouraging. There are others that far less consoling but I’m not including them because the doomsayers must be already over quoting them.

Finally, the Kurds, who have always been the victims, have an autonomous state and their own president today.

Economically, the money being pumped in is slowly making a difference. The arrival of satellite TVs, Internet and mobile phones are trying to compensate for the lack of security to a little extent. The government should work towards Shia-Sunni unity, which will bring down the insurgencies and ensure that the money is spent on national building rather than security.

From the international perspective, Al Qaeda has lost another territory that could have provided an official residence to their business. Today, highly marginalised and reduced to living in the remote caves of Afghanistan, their terror network is being severely amputated with the elimination of Sadddam. I don’t know what would have happened if Osama were free to operate with Saddam around. Chances are that more of 911s were being planned by the group but could not materialise it due to a breakdown in their support structure, what with Afghanistan and Iraq gone. I am not ready to ignore the ‘What-If’ especially after the highly successful campaign on 911.

I do not believe that Bush really believed that he can let the democracy flower in Iraq and return victoriously within weeks of Saddam’s exit. With the worldwide track record of Islamic countries evident aversion towards democracy and ‘foreign’ occupations, it would be naïve to think that. Yes, I would be upset if Bush were to invade India and throw my leader out. But what would I do if my leader destroys my country and his presence is a threat to the world, and worse, if I’m powerless to overthrow my leader through democratic or other means?

As an aside, there is a personal consolation to me. Clinton once commented that Kashmir is the most dangerous zone in the world. This created murmurs among the Indian diplomatic circles. Today, Clinton will have to change his line because there is some place else that’s possibly worse than Kashmir. Also, he will perhaps empathise with India because he should now know what it means and costs to fight Islamic Terrorism.

You can’t change even an earthworm



I got the belated news that writer Sujatha passed away on Feb 26th. The shock lasted for a long time and sent a feeling of something being snatched away from me. With deep reflection, I realised that it is a part of my childhood.

Because, I grew up on Sujatha. To say that I was his fan would be an understatement of ridiculous proportions. I lapped up everything he wrote. Sujatha once lightly commented that publishers would buy even if he were to sell his laundry bill. I would definitely have bought it if it came to print. I didn’t care whether it was deep, profound literature he wrote or trashy detective stuff. He wrote both. I used to sit hours together with my then childhood best friend Viswanathan pouring over the fine nuances of his serious novels. I used read his novels, criticisms, film reviews, interviews, prefaces to other books and virtually anything that he scribbled in print, except his laundry bill because he refused to sell it.

In one of the interviews, when asked who his favourite author was, he mentioned of one Sundara Ramasamy (Su-Ra). I got so excited that I searched every bookshop in town but was disappointed that not many bookstores stocked Su-Ra's books. I couldn’t believe that the books of my most favourite writer’s favourite author are not available. Later, I managed to get a copy of one of his novels but couldn’t understand a line of it. It took a few more years and a lot more experiences before I could understand and appreciate great writer Su-Ra.

But this piece is about Sujatha. Actually is not about Sujatha but ‘my’ Sujatha, so the Su-Ra episode is important. I read Sujatha’s book Introduction to Computers that triggered my passion for Computers, which eventually pushed me into entering the IT field. I lapped up his detective fictions and wrote my own detective novels imitating his style. I watched the movies he liked, I read the books he read (whether I understood or not), and thought his thoughts. I found out that he used a Tamil word-processing software called Bharati and I went and picked up a copy of the software and even learned to type in Tamil.

A voracious reader himself and constantly at mockery of his own self and style, he redefined satire. A master of lucid prose and engaging narration, his writings had a sense of careless abandon. It’s almost like nobody really wrote them. He wrote about almost everything and I learned about all those things. Schools never taught me anything. My books were my schools, and Sujatha was the head master. I read his play about Euthanasia and spent long lonely evenings reflecting on it. I read his novel on Kidney transplant and I was deep in melancholy about those people. I read his super natural thriller and got scared. In a nutshell, he defined my childhood.

In the later years, when I grew up and grew out of Sujatha, I still retained my fondness for him. Reading his works once in a while brought the glimpses of my childhood back. I came to differ from his political and theological ideologies. At times, I even detested his all-knowing, condescending narration style. However, I could not turn away from him. He never consciously wrote serious literature but never claimed to. But he read serious literature and never failed to point to his readers where it lay. I was one of the lucky ones to look in that direction. If I am able to proudly boast of names such as Su-Ra, Aadavan, Indira Parthasarathy, Manushya Puthiran, Thi. Janakiraman, Pudumai Pitthan, etc., all towering literary personalities, it’s because of Sujatha. In a way, he was the cause for me moving away from him. The kind of attitude that said ‘I’m only a pseudo-literature and if you are looking for a real one, go away from me and go to so-and-so.’

That required spunk. He had spunk and much more than that. His unconscious serious works became classics of their own rank and today they are rated among the top in contemporary Tamil literature.

A few tributes I managed to read online were mostly about his screenwriting stints. I or any of Sujatha’s avid fans would hardly have anything to say about them because he wrote those scripts to suit the directors. But his books are what we are going to remember him for. Millions like me who grew up on him who had the good fortune to read some of the best in Tamil because Sujatha read them. They are going to miss him because their kids will not have Sujatha to tell them what to read. They are going to be terribly upset that without Sujatha, the new youth will be led to trashy stuff. The trashy stuff that doesn’t show them where the good stuff lies.

‘I started writing thinking that I’ll change the world. But as I grew up, I realised that you can’t change anything. Not even an earthworm,’ he had mentioned in his semi-memoir. He didn’t just change me. He literally raised me. If not the world, at least a couple of generations. Not bad for such an ambition.

Good bye Sujatha. Thank you for living in the same age as ours. We’ll boast to our grandchildren of what they missed.