September 2017 Archives

Why Immoral Actions Seem Impossible

Studies show people rarely considered the possibility of a person doing something immoral, seeing it not just bad or undesirable – but in fact, impossible.

Run for it. Credit: Photo by Joiseyshowaa/Flickr

Suppose that you’re on the way to the airport to catch a flight, but your car breaks down. Some of the actions you immediately consider are obvious: you might try to call a friend, look for a taxi, or book a later flight. If those don’t work out, you might consider something more far-fetched, such as finding public transportation or getting the tow-truck driver to tow you to the airport. But here’s a possibility that would likely never come to mind: you could take a taxi but not pay for it when you get to the airport. Why wouldn’t you think of this? After all, it’s a pretty sure-fire way to get to the airport on time, and it’s definitely cheaper than having your car towed.

One natural answer is that you don’t consider this possibility because you’re a morally good person who wouldn’t actually do that. But there are at least two reasons why this doesn’t seem like a compelling answer to the question, even if you are morally good. The first is that, though being a good person would explain why you wouldn’t actually do this, it doesn’t seem to explain why you wouldn’t have been able to come up with this as a solution in the first place. After all, your good moral character doesn’t stop you from admitting that it is a way of getting to the airport, even if you wouldn’t go through with it. And the second reason is that it seems equally likely that you wouldn’t have come up with this possibility for someone else in the same situation – even someone whom you didn’t know was morally good.

So what does explain why we don’t consider the possibility of taking a taxi but not paying? Here’s a radically different suggestion: before I mentioned it, you didn’t think it was even possible to do that. This explanation probably strikes you as too strong, but the key to it is that I’m not arguing that you think it’s impossible now, I’m arguing that you didn’t think it was possible before I proposed it.

Consider for example a series of studies that I conducted with my colleague Fiery Cushman at Harvard University. In these studies, participants were asked to read short stories about people facing a series of problems (such as a car breaking down on the way to the airport). They were then asked to make judgments about what would be possible or impossible for a person to do in that situation. The critical manipulation was that half of the participants were asked to make judgments very quickly, in about one second, which prevented them from having time to reflect, and forced them to rely on their default way of thinking about what was possible. The other half were asked to reflect before deciding whether something was possible. Then both groups were asked about a set of different possibilities, some of which were completely ordinary (like taking a taxi), and others of which were immoral (like taking a taxi without paying).

We then examined participants’ responses to figure out how their judgments of what was possible changed when they had to answer quickly compared with when they had time to reflect before answering. For the ordinary actions, there was no real difference: naturally, people judged ordinary actions to be possible whether they answered quickly or had time to reflect. There was a striking difference, however, for immoral actions. When participants reflected before answering, they typically judged that it was possible for someone to do these immoral actions. In contrast, when they had to answer quickly, participants judged that it was actually impossible to pursue these solutions almost 40% of the time. This suggests that before they had time to really think about it, they weren’t actually thinking of many of these actions as even possible. We also compared these actions with ones that were statistically improbable but not immoral (eg, convincing the airport to delay the flight) and found that this kind of effect was specific to the immoral actions, so it’s not something that can be explained by probability alone.

Consider another related series of studies. In these, we told participants about a person who needed $1,000 on short notice, but who wasn’t sure how to get it. This time, instead of giving participants specific actions and asking if they were possible, we just asked them what the person could do (or will do) in this situation. After participants came up with one answer, we asked them for a different answer, and then another, and then another, until they had given at least five different solutions. Then we gave all of these possibilities back to the participants and asked them to rate how moral it would be to actually perform each solution. Even though the task was quite different, participants’ responses told much the same story: people rarely considered the possibility that the person would do something immoral, and when they did, it was only after being forced to think hard about other things that it was possible for the person to do in this situation.

Once one begins to see the central thesis that these studies suggest, it’s not hard to notice that this way of thinking pervades many aspects of our lives. When you see someone run through a red light, it’s natural to think: ‘Wait, you can’t do that!’ And, by this, I don’t just mean that it was wrong to do that. If I did, I’d have said: ‘Wait, you shouldn’t do that!’ Instead, there’s a way in which we really meant that they can’t do that.

And suddenly, it begins to make sense why, whenever the former neighbours of a serial killer are interviewed, they consistently report not being able to believe that their neighbour actually killed multiple people. Or why, when we hear about an atrocity that is being committed in a foreign country, our initial response is disbelief rather than outrage. Immoral actions often seem to us not merely bad or undesirable – but, in fact, impossible.

Rather than finding it bizarre or stupid that we are often blind to the possibility of immoral actions, it’s important to realise that it is actually a good thing. Consider the alternative: whenever you interact with someone, you frequently consider the possibility that he will intentionally lie, steal from or hurt you. Doing this wouldn’t make you more rational or functional; it would simply make it harder for you to trust, make plans or connect with others in the most basic ways. So, whatever the cost of being blind to the possibility of immoral actions, it is likely outweighed by the benefits of being able to productively interact with other people.

Jonathan Phillips, cognitive scientist and postdoctoral student, Moral Psychology Research Lab, Harvard University.

This article was originally published at Aeon and has been republished under Creative Commons. Read the original article.

Indian Markets Lose Sheen on Economic Travails

Worries that the government might boost spending and widen its fiscal deficit target saw foreign investors sell, as the rupee slumped by 2.2% this month.

A man looks at a screen displaying news of markets update inside the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) building in Mumbai, India, February 11, 2016. Credit Reuters/Danish Siddiqui/File Photo

New Delhi/Mumbai: Rising concerns about India’s economy and the government’s fiscal discipline have sparked strong selling by foreign investors in Indian equities and sent the rupee tumbling, removing some, but not all, of the sheen from a hot emerging market play.

A confluence of factors, including sharply slower-than-expected economic growth, rising oil prices and worries the government might boost spending and widen its fiscal deficit target have combined to pummel Indian markets in September.

The rupee slumped 2.2 % this month, its worst monthly performance since November and the second-worst performance in Asia after the Japanese yen.

Meanwhile, shares have lost more than 1%, and the benchmark ten-year bond yield rose nine basis points.

Foreign investors are also selling in equities, with net outflows of $1.11 billion in September, adding to their $2 billion outflow last month – the longest streak since sales of more than $4.5 billion from last October – January.

Still, foreign investors say the selling reflects some profit-taking, and add India’s economic fundamentals remain strong, despite the growing risks.

The Reserve Bank of India is also well placed to manage any currency volatility after building up record foreign exchange reserves of $402.5 billion.

But much will depend on how Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government opts to arrest India’s economic slowdown after his promise of deep economic and fiscal reforms had enamoured foreign investors.

“India’s macro fundamentals still look quite good. From inflation, current account, to fiscal deficits, there is nothing that looks disastrous by any means,” said David Cornell, chief investment officer of London-based Ocean Dial Asset Management.

“On a structural long-term basis India remains head and shoulders above all other emerging markets.”

Nonetheless, some of the recent shine that saw foreign funds flock into India has worn off.

India’s economy grew 5.7% in the April-June quarter, its slowest pace in more than three years, as the country deals with the lingering impact of last year’s shock cash squeeze and the implementation of a national goods and services tax unveiled in July.

Meanwhile, oil prices are rising sharply – a worry in a country that imports two-thirds of its energy needs.

But investors say none of these risks are yet at alarming levels. Yield-chasing investors continue to lap up Indian debt, helping support the rupee and forcing the central bank late on Thursday to raise investment limits after overseas funds almost fully exhausted their quotas.

“We are less concerned about India. We see this as an opportunity, actually, and we have already been increasing our exposure to the market,” said Kenneth Akintewe, senior investment manager for Aberdeen Asset Management in Singapore.

Fiscal worries

Furthermore, a weaker rupee is not entirely bad news for Asia’s third-largest economy.

The currency’s near 7% gain against the dollar between January and early August had raised alarm within the government as it was seen depressing exports and driving up imports, threatening to hollow out Modi’s signature ‘Make in India’ programme.

To stem the appreciation, the central bank has stepped up dollar purchases. Nomura estimates, the Reserve Bank of India bought on average $6.9 billion of the greenback a month between April-July.

But how the government now deals with the economic slowdown will matter.

Although New Delhi, for now, has stuck to its full-year borrowing target, investors remain concerned that Modi’s government may bust the fiscal deficit target, currently set at 3.2% of gross domestic product for the year ending in March, to pump prime the economy, rather than continuing long-term reforms.

Officials told Reuters last week the government was considering spending up to 500 billion rupees ($7.66 billion), widening the deficit by as much as 3.7% – an outcome that could alarm foreign investors.

“India has gained a lot of credibility over the last few years,” said Ananth Narayan, regional head of financial markets, ASEAN & South Asia at Standard Chartered Bank. “You don’t want to squander away that credibility.”

(Reuters)

‘Victoria and Abdul’ Is an Intriguing Tale of an Unlikely Friendship

The BBC film explores Queen Victoria’s later years when, bored with court life and her role as empress of a distant land, she develops a close friendship with an Indian clerk.

Judi Dench and Ali Fazal in Victoria and Abdul.

New York: Queen Victoria is winning new fans who are seeing sides of her that have not been shown before in popular culture. Early this year, Americans were caught up in Victoria, a British-made TV series on the earliest years of Queen Victoria’s life and reign that, as the biggest period drama in 20 years – second only to Downton Abbey – enticed millions of enchanted viewers.

Victoria starts with a diminutive, neglected teenager who, at 18, in 1837, is crowned queen and rises to become the most powerful woman in the world as Empress of India. Actress Jenna Coleman plays the lead and is such a look-alike that it is easy to see her as an amazingly attractive queen in contrast to later images of a fat, short, dowdy Victoria. Unlike that awful stereotype of a sombre “We-are-not-amused” queen, what we see here is a spirited young monarch in a passionate courtship with her first cousin, Albert, who as the love of her life, became her royal consort. Their intensely physical love becomes the romantic story that is writer Daisy Goodwin’s recreation from her historical research.

A still from British drama series Victoria. Credit: Twitter

Now, a new BBC film, Victoria and Abdul, directed by Stephen Frears (The Queen, Philomena) continues that revised view of the historic Victoria – masterfully played by Judi Dench – at the end of her life, when she was bored with court life and her role as Empress of a distant land. At her golden jubilee, Abdul Karim, a young Indian clerk (Ali Fazal), was designated to bring her a gold mohur and strictly instructed, as her servant, never to look directly at Her Majesty. But, as he holds out the tribute, he locks eyes with her, gazing in rapt wonder. At 81, Victoria is unexpectedly smitten by his good looks and his audacious naturalness. To everyone’s shock, she hires him as her private servant, and then, soon promotes him to be her munshi (teacher); it is known that Victoria spoke many languages and now, in her old age, she takes on Urdu.

In the 1997 film Mrs Brown, director John Madden had explored the rumoured scandalous relationship between Queen Victoria and John Brown, a Scottish servant sent by the court to draw the queen out of her isolation after Albert’s death. Playing a younger Queen Victoria then was a younger Dench. In fact, it was her first starring role in the movies and she was nominated for several awards for that performance.

In this new film, too, Dench’s performance is impeccable: she is so deftly made up that she looks the 81 that Victoria is supposed to be, wrinkles and all. She conveys all the hauteur and boredom of the empress. Unlike her earlier relationship with a servant she fell in love with, her relationship with Abdul is platonic. She writes to him five times a day even though he sits just at the end of the corridor. She loves him for being free and frank with her and for bringing her India – through Urdu poetry, Muslim spirituality, chicken curry, dal and pulao – with childlike simplicity. As an empress of faraway India, she longs for that exposure. Everything from the Quran to mangoes intrigues her and she loves his curry so much that it becomes part of the palace’s rotating menu. Her zest for life is suddenly revived by this relationship which kindles her maternal love – she signs her letters, “your loving mother”.

Judi Dench in a still from Victoria and Abdul.

Abdul travels with the queen to Italy, to Scotland, even sharing the intimate space in small, remote cottages in England, alone with her. There – in the Queen’s summer residence on the Isle of Wight – British journalist Shrabani Basu had first discovered their friendship in some paintings – it became the basis of the book on which Victoria and Abdul is based. When Victoria encourages Abdul to bring over his family from India, a burqa-clad wife and mother-in-law land up at court. Concerned that the young Abdul is childless, Victoria has him examined by her own doctors and, even after hearing he’s got gonorrhoea, she is not fazed.

Judi Dench and Ali Fazal in Victoria and Abdul.

These stories are as true as the outrage she caused among her courtiers and her nine grown children – whom she did not love. None of them could stomach the Queen’s acceptance of a brown-skinned Indian servant who was a Muslim, in such close proximity, one on whom she bestowed unheard-of favours including making him part of her royal household. Her colour-blind acceptance of minorities reminds us of Diana, “princess of the people,” who also scandalised her royal family by rejecting British protocols and first, falling in love with a Pakistani doctor and later, socialising with Dodi Fayad, an Egyptian Muslim.

Abdul remains close to Victoria through her death. Then, unceremoniously deported by Edward, Prince of Wales, after years of service, he retires with a valuable legacy of land in India, bequeathed by his queen. Her letters to him were burned by court officials wishing to obliterate all traces of that hated relationship, but his Urdu correspondence and journals, recently unearthed in India has been mined by Basu for the book. Beautifully produced, this period film is visually breathtaking: all the paraphernalia of the Raj is here.

But the British press has not been kind to the film. With characteristic political correctness, they have found the film nostalgic: they feel it is talking down to Indians, to Muslims and that it is exploitative. The media in the US, with no connection to the Empire, has been kinder: they have enjoyed Dench – hugely popular in the US – and the dark and sexy newcomer Ali Fazal. US’s love affair with British royalty continues apace. And young Victoria, popularised by the TV series, seen here at the other end of her life, still inspires so much interest it will return for a second season due to public demand.

Vibhuti Patel is a journalist based in New York

Iraq Imposes Air Ban on Kurdistan for Independence Vote

The travel curbs will discourage visits by businessmen and Kurdish expatriates affecting industries, financial services, transport and real estate.

A plane is seen at the Erbil International Airport in Erbil, Iraq September 29, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Azad Lashkari

Erbil,Iraq/Ankara: The last international flight left Erbil airport on Friday as the Baghdad government imposed an air ban on Iraqi Kurdistan in retaliation for an independence vote that has drawn widespread opposition from foreign powers.

Iraq’s Kurds overwhelmingly backed independence in Monday’s referendum, defying neighbouring countries, which fear the vote could lead to renewed conflict in the region.

Foreign airlines suspended flights to Erbil and Sulaimaniya in the autonomous region, obeying a notice from the government in Baghdad, which controls Iraqi air space.

Erbil airport was busier than usual as passengers scrambled to catch the last flights out before the ban went into force at 6 p.m. (1500 GMT) on Friday.

Domestic flights are still allowed, so travellers are expected to travel to Kurdistan mostly via Baghdad’s airport, which will come under strain from the extra traffic.

Maintaining the travel curbs is likely to discourage visits by businessmen and Kurdish expatriates, and affect industries including hotels, financial services, transport and real estate.

More than 400 Kurdish travel and tourism companies are directly affected by the flight ban and 7,000 jobs are at risk in the sector, Erbil-based Rudaw TV said.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), meanwhile, refused to hand over control of its border crossings to the Iraqi government, as demanded by Iraq, Iran and Turkey in retaliation for the independence referendum.

Control of borders

The Iraqi Defence Ministry said it planned to take control of the borders “in coordination” with Iran and Turkey. The statement did not give more detail or indicate whether Iraqi forces were planning to move towards the external border posts controlled by the KRG from the Iranian and Turkish side.

As the crisis unfolded, Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric intervened to oppose the secession of the Kurdistan region, adding to pressure on the Kurds in his first directly political sermon since early last year.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani asked the KRG to “return to the constitutional path” in pursuing self-determination for the Kurdish people, a representative said in a sermon on his behalf.

“Any attempt to make secession an accomplished fact will lead to undesired consequences affecting Kurdish citizens,” the sermon said.

Turkey, which has already threatened economic sanctions and a military response to any security challenges posed by the referendum result in neighbouring northern Iraq, has maintained a drumbeat of opposition to the Kurdish vote.

After talks in Ankara with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the referendum was illegitimate and Russia and Turkey agreed that the territorial integrity of Iraq must be preserved.

Turkey and Russia have strong commercial ties with the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq. But the vote has alarmed Ankara as it battles a separatist insurgency from its own large Kurdish minority.

Oil lifeline

While Turkey has threatened to cut off the Kurds’ oil export lifeline – a pipeline that runs through Turkish territory – it has so far mostly held back from specific action against Iraqi Kurdistan.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Turkey would target only those who had decided to hold the referendum, and would not make civilians pay the price for the vote.

Iran banned the transportation of refined crude oil products by Iranian companies to and from Iraqi Kurdistan.

But a World Bank official said Kurdistan would be able to resist an economic blockade.

“It is self-sufficient in electricity and fuel supply as it has the oil and gas fields, the refineries and the power stations,” the official said.

“It has also the land and the water resources to sustain a basic subsistence, even if borders are shut completely.”

The autonomous region is the closest the Kurds have come to a state in modern times. But although it has flourished while the rest of Iraq was embroiled in civil war, it may struggle to maintain investment if it is blockaded economically.

The US, major European countries and nearby Turkey and Iran opposed the referendum as destabilising at a time when all sides are still fighting ISIS.

Offers to help

Both France and the US said on Friday that Iraq’s territorial integrity must be maintained, but urged Baghdad not to retaliate.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement that “the vote and the results lack legitimacy” before going on to urge “calm and an end to vocal recriminations and threats of reciprocal actions”.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the two sides should remain united in their priority to defeat ISIS and stabilise Iraq, and that any further escalation should be avoided. A source in Macron’s office said Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi had accepted an invitation to come Paris on October 5th for talks on the issue.

The US State Department said Washington was willing to facilitate talks if asked, and the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said the UN had also offered its good offices.

The Iraqi parliament urged the Baghdad government to send troops to take control of oilfields held by Kurdish forces.

Baghdad also told foreign governments to close their diplomatic missions in the Kurdish capital Erbil.

The Kurds consider Monday’s referendum to be an historic step in the generations-old quest for a state of their own, while Iraq considers the vote unconstitutional.

They say the referendum acknowledges their contribution in confronting ISIS after it overwhelmed the Iraqi army.

Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani has said the vote is not binding, but meant to provide a mandate for negotiations with Baghdad and neighbouring countries over peaceful secession from Iraq. Baghdad has rejected talks.

The Kurds were left without a state of their own when the Ottoman Empire collapsed a century ago, and 30 million Kurds now live spread across Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran.

(Reuters)

Three Sanitation Workers Killed After Inhaling Toxic Gas While Cleaning Sewer in Gurugram

The deaths are the latest in a series of similar incidents reflecting the unsafe conditions sanitation worker in the country are made to work in.

Representative image. Credit: PTI

New Delhi: Three sanitation workers were killed and another was injured in Gurugram’s Khandsa on Saturday (September 30 ) after they inhaled poisonous gases while cleaning a sewer, Outlook reported.

The deaths are the latest in a series of similar incidents reflecting the unsafe conditions sanitation worker in the country are made to work in.

According to Indian Express, earlier this month, three workers had died while they were ‘inspecting’ a sewer blockage in Noida’s Sector 110.

On August 20, a sanitation worker had died while two others took ill after they inhaled poisonous gas while cleaning a sewer at a city government-run hospital in central Delhi.

On August 12, two brothers had died of suffocation while cleaning a septic pit at a shopping mall in East Delhi’s Anand Vihar, and just six days before that, three had died after inhaling toxic gases while they were cleaning a sewer in Lajpat Nagar. Four others died on July 15 after they entered a water harvesting tank in Ghitorni.

Even though manual scavenging was banned in 1993, over 80 people have died in the drains and manholes of Delhi alone since 1994.

The Delhi Jal Board, according to the Indian Express report, has approved setting up of 93 decentralised sewage treatment plants and Rs 10 lakh compensation to kin of victims of sewer deaths since 1993.

(With agency inputs)

Backstory: If Journalists Are Under Threat How Can Journalism Be Safe?

A fortnightly column from The Wire’s public editor.

On October 2, celebrated as the birth anniversary of a journalist – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi – media persons across India will be on a protest against the rising attacks on them, under the slogan, “You can kill but you can’t stop us”. The words they have chosen to define their action are recognition that the threat to their lives and well-being arise from the stories they have done, are doing and could do in the future; stories that someone, somewhere do not want going public.

There is also an important promise to the country here: that the labours of independent journalists will carry on, no matter the threat. The viciousness of those who seek to target journalists in this way is only matched by their cowardice – striking under the cover of night, stinging under the veil of anonymity.

Journalists are meant to be “objective”, and a recent piece in The Wire, ‘Is the Indian Media Failing to Perform a Necessary ‘Activist’ Role?’ (September 22) unpacks what that means in an age of proliferating media platforms, while arguing powerfully for why the times require journalists to be activists. The fact, however, is that media professionals within formal organisations have very little agency to play that role, even if they wish to, given the structures of power in which they operate. Even journalists who don’t self-define themselves as activists and try hard to be “objective” find themselves under attack the moment they focus on anything that goes against the interests of the ruling establishment. What is demanded of them is a stance that negates the very raison d’etre of their profession of being the independent eyewitness. Only total submission to the “greater good” of the nation as defined by the ruling powers will do.

In an earlier day, journalists who ventured to defy the establishment would be met by denials delivered by bumbling public relations officers of the government, or may perhaps have had to respond to rejoinders by ideologues of the ruling party. They may have been reprimanded by bosses, forced to apologise, or suffered transfers to some other beat. A few may have even lost their jobs. Today, censure for journalistic “deviance” is brutal and immediate. It has also become weaponised, as testified by the three bullets in the body of Lankesh, or the savage knife wounds on Shantanu Bhowmick’s person.

This is a scenario so dire that it should have sounded sirens at the highest levels of government and the offices of media managements across the country. Instead, we have a remarkable quiescence. The writing on the wall is large enough even for the chronically short-sighted, yet nothing registers. Forget ensuring the arrest of the assassins and assaulters, there has not even been a statement of condemnation from the prime minister or his government.

Could this reticence be driven by the understanding that those who are mounting the campaign of terror against journalists have the support of this government and the media managements that identify with it? That if you, as a journalist, happen to criticise the government and the ruling ideological apparatus, anything that happens to you is your responsibility alone? These are not idle presumptions if we are to go by Alt News’ expose that blew the cover of those threatening a senior media person, ‘Anonymous Threat to NDTV’s Ravish Traced to Exporter Followed by Prime Minister Modi’ (September 27). The same journalist has felt impelled to issue a touching public statement asking the PM a question: will I lose my job? The trolls who are attacking him, who say they want him dead, are claiming that he will be out of work soon, which is why he “as an ordinary citizen and quite insignificant, but also a vigilant and committed journalist” poses such a question to the prime minister.

There is, of course, nothing more mind-numbing than cold-blooded murder, or the threat of it – and journalists are now receiving messages that the fate of Lankesh will be visited upon them – but there are other innumerable shades of everyday intimidation that these professionals face, some of which have been underlined by a range of reports and analyses carried by The Wire. The scrapping of stories by management, very often at the behest of the government, is one such. The piece, ‘Times of India Takes Down a Story the BJP Finds Embarrassing, Again’ (September 26), highlighted the classic web of influence that links editorial decision makers within media organisations to those in power. Nothing discourages more enterprising, “independent”, “objective” journalists who file their stories in good faith and then be made to wait interminably for them to be cleared by some boss sitting in the head office, often only to learn that their efforts have been binned without explanation.

The system is completely opaque and leaves no fingerprints. It could dismantle, often permanently, a journalist’s innate ability to critically engage with the news subject and lays the ground for self-censorship. In such circumstances, only those stories that are likely to pass muster will then see the light of day. Jayant Sinha’s classic rejoinder to his father, which read like an ad for the Modi government, could be the general template.

When this web of influence develops holes or is not perceived to work; when editors refuse to fall in line, there could be another form of intimidation: the issuing of marching orders. This has telling demonstration effects. No one quite knows the real context in which The Hindustan Times’ former editor-in-chief, Bobby Ghosh, packed his bags and left, apart from the protagonist himself and his boss. But all circumstantial evidence carefully culled in The Wire analysis, ‘Hindustan Times Editor’s Exit Preceded by Meeting Between Modi, Newspaper Owner’ (September 25), would indicate this was a good, old-fashioned sacking.

Then there is the ever-present threat of physical assault while in the field, designed to intimidate, influence or stop coverage (‘The National Project for Instilling Fear Has Reached Completion’, June 26). What is striking is the new impunity that is being demonstrated by the police in their attitude to journalists, an impunity that seems to be driven by the certain knowledge that they will be protected by their political masters. The recent thrashing administered by the local police on the senior journalist of Kerala Kaumudi, Sajeev Gopalan, was to avenge an expose he had done on them, but often police repression appears to have the sanction of those higher up the chain of command. The way the Varanasi police inexplicably set upon media persons covering the recent Banaras Hindu University protests, leading to the hospitalisation of some of them, and the notices that the Mumbai crime branch issued to over 20 journalists in Maharashtra for their Facebook posts (‘Journalists Cry Foul After Police Summon Several of Them in Fake Facebook Profile Investigation’, September 23) indicate that “disciplining” media persons has now become part of policing.

The question is that if journalists are forced to function under a blanket of fear and anxiety, can journalism be safe? And if journalism is not safe, can democracy be safe?

Speculative stories: useful?

George Harrison termed gossip as the “devil’s radio”, and just as gossip is often the grist for animated personal conversations, speculation adds a certain zing to media content. But should responsible news platforms purvey speculative stories? The question crossed my mind when I came across The Wire story, ‘As Speculation Mounts Over NDTV Takeover, Here’s a Look at Top Suitor Ajay Singh’ (September 22).

This had followed a rash of news reports indicating that Ajay Singh, owner of a low-cost airline, was indeed going to be NDTV’s next supremo. NDTV officially denied this. Despite that, the temptation to go ahead with this shining nugget of news was far too great for The Wire editorial team to resist having a go at it. The Wire report was, of course, safely contoured and claimed only to add to the sum of human knowledge on Singh. Should it have been done? Is such information on this man at all useful if there is no deal after all? I would say that it would have been better to have waited for further developments, before rushing with this story.

Alan Kurdi redux

Nothing in the media defending the argument that the Rohingya crisis is a humanitarian one worked more powerfully for me than the Reuters story and photography carried in The Wire on September 18 (‘Images Capture Rohingya Grief as an Infant Dies Crossing the Myanmar Border’). The baby’s tiny, inert form in the hands of its distraught mother seemed to embody a reprimand to the world on its ineffectual, unconscionable, handling of the greatest humanitarian crisis of today. It brought to mind the innumerable innocents who have died in situations of conflicts even before they have lived. How can anyone forget the inert form of Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi that washed up on a beach? The Rohingya story was from a news agency, but the very fact that it made it to The Wire, and not widely elsewhere in India, reflects an alert and thinking news desk.

Reader feedback

K. Desai, a chartered accountant, is a fan of Vinod Dua and follows his comments assiduously. On Dua’s response to GST, he writes that two aspects have not been highlighted adequately: On the profit margin that can be involved in big-ticket items, any negotiation that is carried out subsequent to a final agreement is of no value. There are many car companies that offer high-end cars at 0% interest in India. No one imagines that the sale is without profit. Profit in capital goods items is very high and one need not even wait for interest to accrue. Normally each item is defined and negotiated in any big contract but in this case, no one is even discussing it. Two, any big-ticket capital goods purchase needs a thorough comparison of products available.

Some compliments

Sudeep Chakravarti found the piece ‘Times of India Takes Down a Story the BJP Finds Embarrassing, Again’ (September 26, 2017) courageous. “You guys are on fire,” he writes.

Karan Thapar thought the article, ‘Modi Government Affidavit on Rohingya Refugees Reverses India’s Long-Held Stand on Non-Refoulement’ ( September 21), was superb. He was particularly pleased to find references to former diplomat and now a minister in the Modi government, Hardeep Puri’s statements on refugees made in the UN, expressing apprehensions that the international refugee law framework was threatened by “increasing xenophobic tendencies, violations of the principle of non-refoulement and new barriers in traditional countries of resettlement”.

Another piece on the Rohingya issue, ‘Despair and Desolation: Life in a Rohingya Refugee Camp in Delhi’, has encouraged Marcus Shaw, the director of admissions, Woodstock School, Mussoorie, to consider offering a scholarship to a bright Rohingya boy or girl to study in the school. He is now looking for organisations working with refugees to help him identify such a candidate.

Sticking points

Anup Singh is upset that “all the articles on your website has anti-Modi theme some way or the other”, and asks The Wire not to be a mouthpiece for Modi critics. He enjoins the portal to “add some positive articles – not everything he does is bad for the nation.”

Singh, however, doesn’t seem to be a careful reader. Besides generating innumerable pieces on subjects other than Modi, The Wire has also noted governmental steps undertaken to stem slowdown (‘Centre Considers Extra Spending of Rs 500 Billion to Halt Economic Slowdown’, September 23) and has carried positive stories as well: two examples, ‘Modi May Have Repackaged 23 UPA Schemes, But Most Are Working Better Now’ (September 13) and ‘Critics, India’s Bullet Train Project Could Be the Path to the Future’ (September 15).

Another reader found the piece, ‘What’s So Neat About Tamil Nadu’s Education Strategy?’ (September 8) badly wanting since it made no reference to any official policy document.

Anjan Basu is disturbed by the verbal abuse that has been building up in the sections on readers’ comments. He writes: “The worst aspect of this abuse is its openly personal tone, as though the reader is determined to settle some old scores with a writer, or even a fellow commenter. I have hesitated for long to formally lodge a protest against it, but it looks as though things are pretty much getting out of hand. I hate to name names, but do be so good as to look up some of the comments a reader who goes by the name of ‘Windwheel’ posted recently on the contributions of such well-known writers as P. Sainath and Prof. Ashwani Seth.”

Basu also points out how he himself has been a particularly favoured target. “She/he jumps at every single comment I happen to post on any item here (which includes) perfectly gratuitous jibes.” He wants to know if The Wire is finding it difficult to keep up with its responsibilities to moderate or screen readers’ comments, given rising volumes. He urges it to find a more efficient way to filter out personal attacks and venom from these comments.

Write to publiceditor@cms.thewire.in

In Sinha’s Criticism of Modi’s Economic Policies, an Echo of Discontent Among RSS Foot Soldiers

In trying to appease its constituents, the RSS has not only insulated Modi from economic accountability but has also absorbed opposition criticisms against the government.

The senior Sinha’s opposition is, at best, an exercise to regulate the equations between the BJP and the RSS at a time when the latter has been forced to appease its constituents. Credit: PTI

New Delhi: The last two days will go down as a unique marker in the three-and-a-half years of the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. Until now, the establishment has displayed great speed in brushing aside all criticism against it irrespective of where it came from. Be it a series of brickbats it has had to face over demonetisation, increasing incidents of hate crimes under this government, partisan judicial appointments, or more recently, over its apparently hasty implementation of the goods and services tax (GST), the Modi government has refrained from responding to these concerns with even a semblance of transparency or accountability.

However, the alacrity with which the Bharatiya Janata Party machinery has responded to a scathing commentary on the Modi government’s economic performance, written by one of its own veteran leaders Yashwant Sinha, is a sign that all may not be well within the Sangh parivar.

The senior Sinha’s article has naturally come as a shot in the arm for opposition leaders who say that his criticism of the government has vindicated their own standpoint. However, what was more noteworthy was the way senior ministers like Ravi Shankar Prasad, Piyush Goyal, Rajnath Singh and many other national-level leaders of the saffron party rallied behind the government in the face of this sudden attack from one of their own.

Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, who was the primary target of Yashwant’s strident attack, went a step ahead and insinuated, in the style and fashion of Modi’s supporters on social media, that the 80-year-old politician was actually hankering for a job after having been denied a ministerial berth in the cabinet in 2014.

The first detailed rejoinder to the former Union finance minister’s critique came from none other than his son, Jayant Sinha, who in an earlier cabinet reshuffle was moved from the minister of state for finance portfolio to civil aviation. BJP-backed MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar, too, put himself in the ring saying that the senior Sinha’s criticisms are “dictated by his antipathy to the government” and not sound economic thinking.

Although the junior Sinha has denied that the BJP machinery goaded him to write a response to his father’s criticisms and that he wrote his artucke out of his own free will, most political observers would agree that what now appears to be a father-son duel isn’t what it looks like from the periphery.

Crux of Yashwant Sinha’s criticism

Nothing that Yashwant wrote about was new. The criticisms he raised have been flagged by economists and opposition leaders. However, the crux of Sinha’s argument, while taking aim at Jaitley for allegedly messing up the economy, rested on three categorical points – demonetisation, which he called an “unmitigated economic disaster”, the flawed and hasty implementation of GST and the government’s lackadaisical attitude in bringing big loan defaulters to task or its failure to control the ever-escalating non-performing assets (NPAs) of banks.

Also read: Arun Jaitley May Be the Fall Guy, But Modi Is Truly to Blame for India’s Economic Slowdown

While he also touched upon various other problems like agrarian distress, a non-functioning manufacturing and construction sector and dwindling private (not foreign) investment, his main concerns were that of the crisis that the small and medium enterprises (SME) were facing at the moment because of these three reasons.

“The SME sector is suffering from an unprecedented existential crisis. The input tax credit demand under the GST is a whopping Rs 65,000 crore against a collection of Rs 95,000 crore. The government has asked the income tax department to chase those who have made large claims. Cash flow problems have already arisen for many companies specially in the SME sector. But this is the style of functioning of the finance ministry now,” he said.

He went on to say, “We protested against raid raj when we were in opposition. Today it has become the order of the day. Post demonetisation, the income tax department has been charged with the responsibility of investigating lakhs of cases involving the fate of millions of people. The Enforcement Directorate and the CBI also have their plates full. Instilling fear in the minds of the people is the name of the new game.”

In other words, Sinha articulated the current sentiments of that section of the Indian business community which forms the backbone of the SME sector. This community has always relied on cash flows, informal distribution and labour networks, and easy credit systems, all of which took a hit because of demonetisation and the hasty implementation of GST.

Interestingly, this community, which largely is composed of people belonging to the Hindu bania caste group, form the backbone of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Although the leadership of the RSS has historically been occupied by Brahmins from Maharashtra, the foot soldiers have always been the banias, who seem to have lost their grip on their regional economies in the past few months.

Political observers would agree that the senior Sinha’s criticisms represented a dominant view within the RSS. His point of view came at a time when RSS offshoots like the Bhartiya Majdoor Sangh, Swadeshi Jagran Manch and other trader organisations are also taking potshots at the government. “The RSS leadership is facing great resistance from the business community on issues of demonetisation and GST. It has also given clear signals to the BJP but the government has not moved on those fronts,” a mid-level RSS leader based in Indore told The Wire on the condition of anonymity.

“These policy decisions have brought several traditional business families on the verge of ruins. While this is the case, the sentiment that the Modi government is inclined to serving only the interests of big Indian corporates like Ambanis and Adanis has been growing among the small and medium businessmen. After all, the Modi government’s unilateral initiatives to formalise the economy give a clear edge to the big-moneyed capitalist class. Precisely for these reasons, our supporters have been asking us why there is no action against companies which have not paid back their loans or why this government has not acted against the names which appeared in the Panama papers,” the RSS leader added.

The failure or inability shown by the government to unearth black money from big corporates – which was one of the big promises this government made – has been the most common concern within the Indian business communities, the RSS leader said.

On the governance front, too, a BJP leader from the Barabanki unit of Uttar Pradesh told The Wire that the government has failed to crack down on corruption too. “When the Yogi (Adityanath) government came to power, the government officials cut down on their commissions out of fear but from the second month of this government, one has to bribe double the amount of money to get even a block-level work done. There is widespread resentment against the BJP governments both at the Centre and the state.” Incidentally, the leader also happens to be a trader operating in the grain market of his district.

In this context, the senior Sinha’s claim that his views articulate “the sentiments of a large number of people in the BJP and elsewhere who are not speaking up out of fear,” reflects the RSS’s way of responding to its supporters from within the business communities which have historically aligned themselves with the parivar.

Hindutva politics has, until now, kept the Sangh parivar united but a clear conflict of interest between the Modi government and the RSS on economic issues has foregrounded its fault lines. For the RSS to remain relevant on the ground, it has to articulate the interests of its foot soldiers. Sinha’s article did exactly the same.

But to read its impact beyond this may be misleading as the RSS has not initiated any full-scale resistance to the Modi government and does not plan to do so in the future. Why would Sinha take aim only at Jaitley, who is widely known to have never been in the good books of the RSS, and not prime minister Modi, who has been taking all the credit for the economic measures taken during the NDA regime?

Within the high-optics political strategy of the Sangh parivar, the senior Sinha’s opposition is, at best, an exercise to regulate equations between the BJP and the RSS at a time when the latter has been forced to appease its constituents. While doing so, however, the RSS has not only tried to insulate Modi from criticism as the 2019 election nears but also absorb similar resentment the opposition parties have been showing against the Union government.

Civil Liberties Body to Contest Trump’s New Travel Ban in Court

The newest travel ban is still a Muslim ban at its core, and engages in unlawful discrimination based on national origin” said the ACLU’s director

FILE PHOTO: An American Civil Liberties Union legal observer watches a flight arrivals board, as dozens of pro-immigration demonstrators greeted international passengers arriving at Dulles International Airport, to protest President Donald Trump’s executive order barring visitors, refugees and immigrants from certain countries to the United States, in Chantilly, Virginia, in suburban Washington, U.S., January 29, 2017. Credit:Reuters/Mike Theiler/File Photo

Washington: The American Civil Liberties Union on Friday launched the first legal challenge to President Donald Trump’s new restrictions on people entering the US from eight countries.

The civil rights group said in a statement that it will seek to amend an existing lawsuit in Maryland federal court that was filed against Trump’s previous March 6th ban.

In a letter filed with US District Court Judge Theodore Chuang, the ACLU said the new proposal announced on Sunday violates the US Constitution as well as federal immigration law.

Trump’s new ban places indefinite restrictions on travel to the US for citizens from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad and North Korea. Certain government officials from Venezuela will also be barred.

The ACLU will seek an injunction that would block visa and entry restrictions on those affected.

Challengers of Trump’s immigration restrictions have said the bans are aimed at following through on a pledge he made on the campaign trail in 2016 to block Muslims from entering the country.

“President Trump’s newest travel ban is still a Muslim ban at its core, and it certainly engages in discrimination based on national origin, which is unlawful,” said the ACLU’s executive director, Anthony Romero.

“We’ll see President Trump in court – again,” he added.

The new ban, Trump’s third, could affect tens of thousands of potential immigrants and visitors. Trump has argued that the restrictions fulfil his campaign pledge to tighten immigration and security.

“The Department of Justice will continue to vigorously defend the president’s inherent authority to keep this country safe,” said Justice Department spokesman Ian Prior.

The ACLU represents several nonprofit groups, including the International Refugee Assistance Project as well as individuals who say they would be affected by the ban, which goes into effect on October 18th.

Chuang was one of two district court judges who blocked Trump’s second travel ban, saying “it is likely that its primary purpose remains the effectuation of the proposed Muslim ban”.

Legal experts say the new ban is likely on more solid footing than the previous bans, in part because it was implemented following a detailed review by federal agencies.

Trump’s first travel ban aimed at seven Muslim-majority countries, issued soon after he took office in January, was blocked by courts following chaotic scenes at airports.

The second ban, targeting six countries, was blocked by lower courts and partially revived by the Supreme Court in June.

(Reuters)

Remembering Tom Alter, the Foreign-Looking Actor Who Was a Complete Indian

The Padma Shri awardee may have been “of American origin” but his ability to recite shairi in impeccable Urdu coupled with his memorable roles in several Hindustani and Urdu plays reflect that Alter was, in fact, a native.

The Padma Shri awardee may have been “of American origin” but his ability to recite shairi in impeccable Urdu coupled with his memorable roles in several Hindustani and Urdu plays reflect that Alter was, in fact, a native.

Noted actor Tom Alter. Credit: Twitter

A scene in Satyajit Ray’s Shatranj Ke Khiladi best exemplifies the kind of person Tom Alter was. In it, General Outram (Richard Attenborough), sent to Lucknow by the East India Company as resident – with the ultimate aim of taking over Avadh – is asking his young aide-de-camp Captain Weston about the ruler, Wajid Ali Shah.

Outram is sceptical about a king who prays five times a day, flies kites, dresses up as a Hindu god and dances with girls writes poetry. “I am not a poetry man myself”, he says and asks Weston to recite some of the King’s verses, which he does, in flawless Urdu. It is clear that Weston is more sympathetic, and may have even gone native.

In real life, Alter could recite shairi in impeccable Urdu. Many were impressed at this obviously foreign-looking man who could speak in Hindustani and Urdu and perhaps thought he had gone native. But Alter, in fact, was native – he was born in India and had gone to school and then the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) here. Alter may have been “of American origin” but was as Indian as you could get.

His grandparents had come to India 100 years ago – possibly in 1916 – as missionaries and had gone to Chennai – then Madras – and then to Sialkot. After Partition his father moved to Rajpur near Dehradun and Alter went to Woodstock in Mussoorie. A short stint in Yale followed, after which he was back, teaching in a school.

Alter always used to say that he was so taken by Rajesh Khanna when he saw Aradhana for the first time that he decided to become an actor. He trained at the FTII, graduating in 1974, an oddity in an industry that sought out chocolate-faced heroes and then, angry young men. He was obviously neither.

That USP went in his favour and every time there was a need for a white supporting actor – usually in a villainish role – he was the first choice. Ray’s Shatranj Ke Khiladi was a big break, but he became a widely known name only after Manoj Kumar’s Kranti, where he played an English officer. Ironically, many of these roles demanded he spoke pidgin Hindi.

The offers kept coming, but Alter never got a really meaty role that could exploit his talents to the fullest. They all wanted him to play the token foreigner, with names like Gilbert Wilson, Juan Carlos, Arnie Camblee, Frank and Dr Taubman. Television was a bit more satisfying, with serials like Zabaan Sambhalke and Khamosh Sa Afsana, in which he played Husain baba. The theatre, which was colour blind, became another avenue – he was in landmark productions such as ‘Waiting for Godot’, directed by his good friend Naseeruddin Shah for their company Motley, jointly formed with Benjamin Gilani. He acted in many Hindustani and Urdu plays, such as ‘Ghalib in Delhi’, in which he played the great poet.

But his abiding love was cricket. He had coached his young students in cricket after returning from the US in the 1960s and regularly played for a Bollywood team. In the 1980s turned to writing on the sport with an astute eye for and appreciation of the game. In 1989, he was the first person to interview a very young Sachin Tendulkar on video. His articles on cricket appeared in a variety of publications and his son Jamie is a sports editor with the Times of India. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2008.

Alter wrote several books and was recently contemplating writing about his family history. He had also planned to direct a film, a murder mystery and was keen to get old timers Sharmila Tagore and Manoj Kumar in it.

Saudi Arabia Lifting the Driving Ban on Women Has Little to Do With Empowerment

The move does not address the onerous burden Saudi women carry on account of the male guardianship system and is instead intended only to shore up the stature of the crown prince.

A Saudi woman speaks on the phone as another woman walks past her in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Credit: Reuters/Faisal Al Nasser

On September 26, a royal decree personally signed by Saudi monarch Salman bin Abdulaziz directed the interior minister to initiate action to enable women in the kingdom to drive motor vehicles in the country. The decree noted that the majority of the Saudi Arabia’s Council of Senior Ulema had agreed that “the original Islamic ruling in regards to women driving is to allow it”. It also said that those who opposed this view did so on the basis of “excuses that are baseless and have no predominance of thought”. The king directed that an inter-ministerial committee work on the implementation of this decree and submit its recommendations within one month and that full implementation take place from June 2018.

Thus, in a few short sentences, the king ended several decades of a Saudi tradition for which the country had been condemned the world over.

In Saudi Arabia itself, the royal announcement was accompanied by reports quoting Saudi religious scholars emphatically stating that driving by women was not against Sharia. The secretary-general of the World Muslim League, Sheikh Mohammed Al-Issa, a member of the Ulema Council, asserted that women had the legitimate right to drive, one which could not be denied to them by an “isolated group”. The king, he noted approvingly, had based his decision on Sharia law. Islam did not forbid women from driving; the government was very keen to promote Islamic values, “on which it had built its existence”, the venerable sheikh concluded.

First responses

Numerous distinguished commentators rushed to praise the king and his son, crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, for their courage and zeal for reform. Maha Akeel said the Saudi national day this year (on 23 September) had an “extra drive” to it, applauding the removal of a major source of global criticism against her country. Some of the reasons advanced earlier by clerics to uphold the ban had made Saudi Arabia “the laughing stock of the world,” she recalled. (One such reason was that driving would damage women’s ovaries, making them infertile.)

Another commentator, Frank Kane, described the decision as a “game-changer” and felt it was part of realising the country’s ‘Vision 2030’ strategy of diversifying the economy and boosting private sector employment. Driving would increase women’s employment, at present at just 15%, and national productivity (as women were better-educated and more work-oriented than Saudi men). Again, the improvement in the country’s image would improve global investment, while car manufacturers would enjoy a bonanza. The only sector suffering a setback would be the taxi and limousine services. Kane quoted a report saying that the initiative would boost national GDP by 0.4%.

Abdul Rehman Al-Rashid, the veteran Saudi journalist, saw the reform as the end of “the mother of all battles” and “the beginning of a new era”; we are now witnessing “a new modern kingdom” taking its place among “civilised nations on a broader scale”. The initiative had great political and social significance, Al Rashid said, in that it signalled that the government was committed to reform and change, and would not tolerate opposition from any source in this endeavour.

The remarks of religious scholars that driving by women was not against Sharia evoked derisive comments from residents in the kingdom. One asked whether Sharia had now changed, or whether the clergy had so far been following the wrong Sharia. Another said that the scholars had been told the correct Sharia, which they were now dutifully repeating. One said simply: “Scholars for dollars.”

Women activists

There are reports from Saudi sources that full credit for this move should be exclusively ascribed to the king and the crown prince, ignoring the nearly 30 years of activism by courageous women in the country and the retribution they have had to regularly suffer at the hands of the clergy and the religious police.

The Atlantic has interviewed the Saudi activist, Hala Al-Dosari, who said that as the decree was being announced by the king, several women activists in the country were instructed on telephone not to make any comment to the media on the decision, positive or negative. When a lady asked what would happen if she praised the decision, she was told: “Measures will be taken against you.” Al-Dosari believes that the decision has little to do with women’s emancipation; it is about “consolidating political power” by removing the activists from the discourse, she asserts.

Also read: The Driving Ban Was Not the Biggest Impediment to Saudi Women

Al-Dosari has history on her side. The first organised protest against the ban on women driving took place in Riyadh in 1990, when over 40 professionally-qualified women took to the streets in the driving seats of their vehicles. They were all arrested, kept in custody for a day and then released to their male guardians. Those employed were suspended from service for nearly two years. A woman from this group told this writer wryly: “Twenty minutes of driving, 20 months of unemployment!”

Twenty years later, in June 2011, about 30-40 women again went on a driving demonstration in Riyadh and Jeddah, though only a few were arrested. However, this effort split Saudi society when several men said on Facebook they would beat up those behind the wheels of their cars. Some observers noted at the time that while the rest of the Arab world was debating major issues of political reform in the context of the Arab Spring agitations, the public discussions in the kingdom were about women driving.

Female driver Azza Al Shmasani alights from her car. Credit: Reuters/Fahad Shadeed

The London-based Saudi anthropologist and political commentator, Madawi al-Rasheed, has pointed out that women have been agitating publicly on various issues in Saudi Arabia since 2005 when teachers took up the non-regularisation of their employment contracts with their educational institutions. These low-key demonstrations expanded rapidly to different parts of the country, with several women activists being detained and questioned by security forces and religious police. To avoid arrest, the tactics they followed were to praise the king (King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz) and criticise the officials.

The ‘Masculine State’

In her book, A Most Masculine State: Gender, Politics, and Religion in Saudi Arabia, al-Rasheed has placed the ‘women’s question’ in Saudi Arabia in its proper political context. She has noted that Saudi Arabia is unique among states in the Arab world in defining the Saudi state by shaping the religious tenets of Wahhabiyya (the reformist doctrine enunciated by the 18th-century religious scholar, Sheikh Mohammed ibn Abdul al-Wahhab) into a “quasi-nationalist project”.

On this basis, the Al-Saud (the Saudi royal family) seeks to construct a homogenous nation, whose avowed end is “the restoration of the pious religious community”. To achieve this end, the Saudi state conflates the state (i.e., the royal family), the ‘religious nationalism’ of Wahhabiyya, and the social and cultural patriarchy that has come from the pre-Islamic traditions of the kingdom’s heartland of Najd, the home of the Al-Saud, which keeps women under the authority of their male relatives. Women, al-Rasheed points out, are central to this project “as icons for the authenticity of the nation and compliance with God’s law.”

This project has some important implications. Drawing from religious nationalism and tribal tradition, the subordination and exclusion of women in public life is institutionalised, giving the kingdom its unique character in the modern comity of nations.

In practical terms, this has meant an insistence on the hijab and niqab (head and face covering) for Saudi women in public, prohibition on the mixing of opposite sexes not linked legitimately and restrictions on the free movement of women. The first requirement has transformed women into what writers Paul Aarts and Carolien Roelants have described as “anonymous black ghosts who sneak around the white marble shopping centres”.

The last two requirements have led to severe limitations on the employment of women and the ban on their driving their own vehicles. As the Saudi writer, Saad Sowayan has said: “A woman for the fundamentalists is but a body in which resides only lust and the devil.” A Saudi professional has described them as “the dead meat”.

Royal opportunism

But, there is another aspect of the Saudi project: in the national scenario, the political leadership, the royal family, is the supreme authority, and can and does decide on national issues, even when certain sections of the religious establishment oppose those positions. Indeed, such royal decisions are frequently applauded by the clergy and justified on grounds of Sharia. Thus, based on the exigencies of their own interest and to use women-related matters for or against the clergy and/or other sources of dissent, the Al-Saud have moved frequently from upholding conservative positions relating to women to espousing progressive policies.

Thus, in the 1960s, the Saudi leadership promoted women’s education to project a modern image internationally against the wishes of the clergy. However, after 1979, the kingdom backed conservative policies to burnish its Islamic credentials in the face of challenges from the Iranian revolution and the takeover of the Mecca mosque by Islamic zealots who questioned the Al-Saud’s commitment to Islam. Later, after the events of 9/11, when the kingdom came under external pressure to reform, the king pursued a reformist programme that included increased participation of women in national affairs.

Following the early events of the Arab Spring, the king quickly announced that 30 women would sit in the national assembly and participate in future municipal elections. As Al-Dosari has said: “This is the problem with women’s rights in Saudi Arabia – it’s always used by the political system as a negotiation card, more so than being about empowerment.”

Thus, the recent decree permitting women to drive should be viewed in the specific background in which the decision has been taken.

Crown prince’s compulsions

The pressure to make a dramatic gesture in favour of reform has come from both domestic and external sources. At home, the king and the crown prince are facing serious difficulties. The 31-year old crown prince has ousted two senior and distinguished crown princes to claw his way to the top and position himself for the throne. There are widespread rumours in the kingdom that this final elevation is imminent, perhaps even later this year or early next year.

This is may not be a cakewalk as the last ousted crown prince, Mohammed bin Naif, was removed on the feeble ground that he was taking painkillers which had impaired his judgement. This is the one prince who was actually in the line of fire of terrorists and known both for firmness and compassion when dealing with radicals. He is said to enjoy considerable popularity; perhaps, this is why he is believed to be under house arrest.

Also read: The Change in Saudi Arabia’s Royal Succession Portends Darker Times for the Region

To complicate the scenario, crown prince Mohammed bin Salman has also projected himself as the architect of two major national transformation projects, the Vision 2030 and the National Transformation Program 2020, which seek to effect drastic changes in the Saudi economic order with very ambitious, time-bound targets that many observers see as unrealistic. Some of the targets in the NTP are under review at present.

More seriously, the crown prince is personally associated with military conflicts involving his country in Syria and Yemen, in neither of which is there any sign of success, despite the billions of dollars spent so far and widespread death destruction wreaked by Saudi and Saudi-sponsored forces. In fact, in Yemen, the kingdom has faced accusations of human rights abuses and for causing a humanitarian crisis affecting millions of indigent Yemeni women and children.

Prince Muhammad Bin Salman. Credit: Reuters/Joshua Roberts

More recently, the confrontation with Qatar, said to have been pre-planned through a cyber attack, has caused much anguish across the Gulf Arab countries, with a small fraternal nation seen as being subjected to a humiliating blockade.

The external pressure on the crown prince is the need to keep the solid relationship the prince has developed with President Trump and his family intact and possibly improved.

Thus, the lifting of the ban on women driving serves several purposes for the prince. It projects him as modern and liberal, a true leader of the youth of his country, which has 70% people below the age of 30 years. It also confirms his commitment to his transformation plans in which the youth are to be important partners in the building of a new nation.

The prince has further endeared himself with the young by taking on the Wahhabi clergy: he has forced it to reverse a firmly-held and cherished position and then allowed it to be lampooned in the national media it for its “flexible” position on Sharia.

With the Saudi ambassador’s simultaneous press conference in Washington, the announcement of the change was orchestrated to appeal to Trump and the US public. As intended, Trump has responded positively, affirming that the Trump-Al Saud alliance is in place. This has enabled the prince to maintain tough positions against Qatar and Iran while retaining his links with Israel, an important part of the Trump “doctrine” for West Asia.

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud shakes hands with US President Donald Trump. Credit: Reuters

Prognosis

The dramatic lifting of the ban on women driving is intended only to shore up the stature of the crown prince, affirm his fitness to take over from his father in the near future and rule his country for several decades. Though the announcement has been accompanied by cacophonous applause from different sides, it is obviously an organised, state-directed effort: real thinking on the ground has not yet come through and it is not certain that the game-plan will proceed with the smoothness the prince hopes for.

The lifting of the driving ban does little to address the onerous burden Saudi women carry on account of the wilaya or guardianship system, in terms of which every woman is subject to a legal male guardian, father, husband or son, whose permission is required for her to marry, get divorced, travel abroad, open a bank account, get employment, or undergo medical surgery. Even with regard to the driving ban being lifted, some observers are sceptical, given that it will come into force only nine months hence and details of its implementation are yet to be spelt out.

Again, while it is true that establishment ulema in the kingdom are generally subservient to the Al Saud and have robustly sung the praises of the king and his son, the fact remains that over the last nearly 30 years the kingdom has nurtured a dissident ulema: referred to generally as part of the country’s Sahwa (“Awakening”) movement, they are learned, enlightened, well-versed in regional and global politics and political activists (with some influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood) and not readily cowed down by coercion from the royal family.

Several of them were arrested on the eve of the royal announcement. The commentator, al-Rashid, in his hagiographic article referred to above, has described these dissidents thus: “This class is an extremist one, with bad intentions opposed to every step or project, because it wants Saudi Arabia to remain a crippled, bleak and paralysed state until it fails.” He then asserted that they would not be “allowed to stop the wheel from turning”, possibly a reference to the wheel of progress.

The Sahwa dissidents are a multifarious group; while some might have opposed the lifting of the driving ban, others would have supported it. They have certainly not been detained on the driving issue but for their demand for all-round reform in their country, particularly participatory government. The prince has scored no major victory by cowing down and even humiliating the establishment ulema; he has nothing to fear from them. The Sahwa ulema, on the other hand, is likely to be more formidable opponents, many of whom will not be won over through incarceration.

Thus, the lifting of the driving ban is just one more royal exercise to manipulate the country’s “women’s question” for short-term political advantage. It excludes any indication of a real change in the country. This will only happen, as al-Rasheed says, in a participatory democracy in which Saudi citizens actively determine policy, scrutinise government accounts and actions and are partners in governing themselves.

This is not on the crown prince’s agenda, just as it has not been considered by the Al Saud over the last hundred years.

Talmiz Ahmad, a former diplomat, holds the Ram Sathe Chair for International Studies, Symbiosis International University, Pune and is Consulting Editor, The Wire.