Tag: Navdeep Suri

Flirting With Fire: Nanak Singh’s Cautionary Tale About Partition Hatred Resounds Even Today

Yet another translation of a novel by a stalwart of Punjabi letters, done by his grandson Navdeep Suri.

Just like the holocaust seems inexhaustible in its (re) interpretation in literary and cinematic spaces, Partition, the evil twin of Indian independence keeps rearing its head in various genres from time to time. In this context, it is a useful exercise to go back to the writers who experienced the partition and documented it first hand: Amrita Pritam’s oft-quoted dirge Ajj Akha Waris Shah Nu is a lament of the collective consciousness. 

Nanak Singh, from the same generation as Amrita Pritam, a towering presence in the Punjabi world of letters in Amritsar, became witness to the horrors of partition as they were unfolding, and rose as an unwavering, sane voice, documenting the unspeakable. A Game of Fire by Navdeep Suri is a translation of the Punjabi original Agg di Khed by Nanak Singh. Suri is his grandson.

Cover photo of A Game of Fire.

Nanak Singh’s super human oeuvre, at 59 books, which included 38 novels, is singularly extraordinary, especially knowing that he did not have any formal education. His prolific nature can be surmised from the fact that he published  Khooni Vaisakhi (1920), the epic about Jallianwala Bagh massacre (of which he was a survivor) in a year after its occurrence. That it was promptly banned by the British and then its fate largely unknown for a good sixty years and later revived through translation by Suri himself, is a tale for another day. 

The present novel, Agg di Khed, along with its prequel Khoon De Sohile (1948),  that came out months  after Partition speaks volumes about Nanak Singh’s commitment to a promise of steady writing despite the calamitous conditions upending normalcy of life in every way. 

Navdeep Suri has been a career diplomat and happens to be the grandson of Nanak Singh. Deeply influenced by the imposing litterateur in a personal and intellectual capacity, Suri has made it a mission of sorts to translate his works and bring them to a wider audience. Since then he has translated Adh Khideya Phool 1940 ( tr. A Life Incomplete) Khooni Vaisakhi  1920 and Khoon de Sohile 1948 translated as Hymns in Blood.

When reviewing a work of translation, the book has to be seen at both levels: one, at the level of the original and the other as an efficacious translation. The book opens in the city of Amritsar undergoing the pangs of Partition. At the centre of the story is a young man Satnam Singh, given to the promise of communal harmony through his organisation, Unity Council. By and by, his belief in a harmonious social set-up is shattered in the throes of separatist violence rocking the city. Separatist ideology fuelled by nasty newspapers and a grapevine feed a cycle of violence that consumes the regular lives of its denizens. In this brother- kill- brother world, where blood calcifies into boulder, Satnam is faced with a deep existential crisis about his secular beliefs. When he hears chilling accounts of innocent Sikhs and Hindus being lynched and murdered, he is tempted to forego his commitment to the Unity Council and instead join a group of lusty compatriots vowing to avenge the wrongs through violence. He begins to organise clandestine meetings and store illegal explosive materials on shelves that earlier could have easily stored books. 

In the midst of this, a refugee pair, an old man and a young girl, Krishna, find protection in Satnam’s home. The young woman soon wins the trust of the family by her ways and affectionately tending to Satnam’s  baby sister. However, when she finds out about Satnam’s new fangled inclination towards violence, she offers to attend one of the meetings of this new group he has joined. She comes across as quite progressive with her calm, collected manner and waxing eloquent on the virtues of upholding communal harmony. Young men are quite enamoured of her by the end of it. So is Satnam, who hides a soft spot for her, that, despite him addressing her as sister, is not exactly platonic. The eloquence with which she brings these facts to light, without sentimentality or theatrics, imbues her with a silent power. 

Nanak Singh’s sterling human qualities and a solid secular ethos beams through this work. In fact his emphasis on democratic functioning of the Unity Council, sounds quite contemporary. However, as for the delineation of Krishna, it does get mired in the traditional gender roles of her portrayal as a gentle, tending woman, gaining the family’s trust. Plus, how the ideal marriage is seen to operate within the confines of a faith also reinforces a certain irrevocable nature of faith. Which, however, is also turned on the head with Krishna turning out to be a Muslim. In a way, the author smashes pre-conceived notions about the ‘other’ religion in the midst of the conflagration of hatred. There is an all familiar janus-faced tendency: the nameless, faceless horrid violence of the dark alleys, offset by the gentle sacrificing human bonds that hold together a dying, gasping humanity. Similarly, the cycle of violence unleashed on the hapless city where perpetrator becomes victim and vice versa captures the characteristic quality of this brutality. Who was victim, who was perpetrator?

Navdeep Suri’s translated text flows with an ease and heartiness that characterises the original too. Being a grandson of Nanak Singh, he obviously has access to layers between lines. It is by all accounts a decent translation that more than fulfils its purpose: that of carrying forth Nanak’s word under a new sky, from alleys to apartments, inside younger hearts made tough and gentle by turns of history. But Nanak Singh’s heart is in the right place, his words will resound in these new winds that blow today, and perhaps give an answer or two to those who seek clarity. Much like Satnam. 

Sakoon Singh is a novelist and academic based in Chandigarh. 

What the Australian Court Order Asking Indian Ex-Diplomat to Pay A$136,000 to Domestic Help Means

Seema Sherghill arrived in Australia in April 2015, and spent about a year working at the high commissioner’s official residence. ‘Her passport was taken from her, she worked seven days a week, was never permitted to take leave…’

New Delhi: In a judgement that has far-reaching implications about diplomatic immunity and jurisdiction, an Australian federal court gave an ex-parte order asking India’s former high commissioner to Canberra to pay A$136,000 to a former domestic help for compensating her as per Australian standards.

According to a report by ABC News, Seema Sherghill arrived in Australia in April 2015, and spent about a year working at the high commissioner Navdeep Singh Suri’s official residence. She left the house in May 2016 and was granted Australian citizenship in 2021.

Neither the MEA or Suri, who had retired in 2019, took part in the court proceedings in Australia. There is no public statement from the Ministry, so far.

The single bench of Justice Elizabeth Draper observed, as per ABC News, that the “employment conditions bore no resemblance to what one would expect under Australian law”.

“Her passport was taken from her, she worked seven days a week, was never permitted to take leave and was only allowed outside the house for brief periods a day when looking after Mr Suri’s dog.”

The Judge also ruled that the Indian diplomat was ineligible to claim foreign state immunity, because Shergill did not work for the High Commission itself, nor diplomatic immunity, as the engagement of a domestic worker was not an official function of his position. She ordered Suri to pay Sherghill more than A$136,000 plus interest, within 60 days.

Shergill had earlier worked with Suri when he had been the Indian ambassador to Australia. She had travelled to Australia on an official passport with a diplomatic visa.

Devyani Khobragade

In December 2013, an Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade was strip-searched by US security officials on claims by her domestic help that she had not given her adequate compensation. It had led to relations between US and India nose-diving into a sudden crisis, before she finally flew back to India.

The MEA subsequently modified the system of India-based domestic assistants, who were no longer considered ‘personal helps’ but were employed by the Indian government.

As per sources, Shergill refused to sign an undertaking in May 2016 that was required from staff at all Indian diplomatic missions that they would return to India at the end of their three-year tenure. This was a new provision that was introduced in the aftermath of the post-Khobragade affair.

Since refusal to sign the undertaking meant cancellation of her contract and return to India, she was reportedly given several cautionary messages by the embassy officials. When she again refused, a ticket was bought by the High Commission for a flight to Delhi on May 27, 2016.

A day before her flight, she left the premises of the official residence, following which the Indian High Commission filed a ‘missing person’ complaint with the Australian Federal Police, as per informed sources.

ABC News quoted Shergill as stating that she was “responsible for doing everything” at the residence, known as India House.

“When he and his wife were away, instead of my usual chores, Mr Suri or his wife usually would ask me to make large batches of samosas and freeze them, or to clean the silverware,” she said.

She claimed to have worked seven days a week for 17.5 hours per day, with her official duties being cleaning the house, preparing meals and tidying the garden.

While Shergill claimed that she was not allowed to leave the house except to walk the dog, Indian sources claimed that she had remote access to the main gate to allow entry and exit of visitors.

Implications

Sources pointed out that the court judgment was based on the premise that Seema Shergill was employed in a private capacity in non-diplomatic household, which was inaccurate. They pointed out that she travelled on an official passport and that the Australian government had given her a diplomatic visa and identity card to show that she was in service at the High Commission of India.

Indian sources claimed that India-based diplomats and staff are paid salaries as per Indian scales and that this judgement was seemingly in violation of the Vienna Conventions of Diplomatic and Consular Relations. There was also concern, according to Indian sources, that the order would lead to service staff in Indian missions abroad to also seek compensation as per the local laws, as well as encourage others to take the path towards citizenship.

Podcast: We Have Forgotten the Horrors of Partition, This Book Reminds Us of it

Author Nanak Singh’s grandson Naveep Suri has translated ‘Khoon de Sohile’, a novel about how a peaceful village is torn asunder because of communal hatred.

In 1948, a year after the violent Partition of India, Punjabi writer Nanak Singh wrote Khoon de Sohile, a novel about how a peaceful village is torn asunder because of communal hatred.

Now, almost 75 years later, his grandson Navdeep Suri has translated the novel as Hymns of Blood. In a podcast interview with Sidharth Bhatia, Suri, a former Indian diplomat, says that the book shows how “there are no winners” in such situations.

“It is depressing to see what kind of issues we talk about today.”

He points out that in Amritsar, where Nanak Singh was based and where Suri grew up, there were a lot of Muslims visible at one time. “But the city has completely lost its Muslim identity,” he says. Yet, interestingly, Punjab, which suffered the most during that period, “has moved on, but other parts of the country haven’t”.

A Guide to What Australia’s Federal Elections Mean for India

The Indian diaspora, now over 720,000, has become the fastest-growing immigrant community in Australia, overtaking the Chinese-origin community as the largest overseas-born group.

New Delhi: Today, May 21, Australians will be voting to elect their next government – and possibly a new prime minister – at the end of a campaign which has seen high-pitched exchanges between the candidates over the state of the economy, climate change and the country’s largest trade partner, China.

With Australia having compulsory voting, more than 17 million voters are expected to exercise their choice to select members of the 151-seat House of Representatives and 40 Senate seats. The prime minister will belong to the party or coalition, which gets at least 76 seats in the House of Representatives.

According to the Australian constitution, there is no fixed term for the House of Representatives, but it has a maximum duration of three years.

The last parliament began on July 2, 2019, and was prorogued on April 11, 2022.

Who are the candidates?

Prime Minister Scott Morrison wants to be re-elected and is the main campaign face for the three-party centre-right Liberal-National Coalition. He is being challenged by the veteran politician of the centre-left Australia Labor Party (ALP), Anthony Albanese.

Having succeeded Malcolm Turnbull in 2018, Scott Morrison has taken credit for Australia’s strict COVID-19 closed-border policy and one of the lowest death rates worldwide. He has also projected his record in international diplomacy and defence as his key strengths.

Scott Morrison, Australian Prime Minister. Photo: PTI/File

However, with the top issues for voters being rising prices, economic growth and climate change, Morrison is perceived to be batting from a weaker pitch.

Fifty-nine-year-old Albanese is one of Australia’s veteran politicians, having been a member of parliament for 25 years. In this election, he has attempted to move beyond his centre-left image to appeal to a larger conservative population. He reportedly claimed to be “not woke”, taking a softer position on climate change and a tougher stance against China.

Is there a front-runner?

During the six-week campaign period, opinion polls have consistently shown Labor in the lead. But, the gap has narrowed in the last leg of the campaign, with observers terming it too close to call.

According to a Guardian poll published on Tuesday, Labor has a two-point lead over the Coalition, a much narrower margin than when the party was ahead by four points two weeks ago. Similarly, the Sydney Morning Herald has published that Labor’s lead has shrunk from eight to two points within a fortnight.

The final Newspoll of the campaign showed that Labour had maintained the two-point lead on Friday.

With betting being legal, betting agencies declared Anthony Albanese the favourite to win the election and become Prime Minister, as per news.com.au. The report also reminded that the betting agency, Sportsbet, had to hand out A$5.2 million in 2019 when it called the election in favour of Labour before the results came out.

In fact, the 2019 results have been haunting the ALP, which had been comfortably in the lead throughout the campaign, as per all opinion polls. Scott Morrison had even termed the results as a “miracle” victory.

Labor was the largest single party in the 2019 elections with 68 seats, but not enough to gain a majority. Instead, the Liberal-National Coalition managed to scrape through with the required number of seats to form the government. 

A review of the 2019 opinion polls concluded that the sample was likely “skewed towards the more politically engaged and better educated voters”, which led to Labor voters being overrepresented.

A campaign sign for Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese is seen at the entrance to an Australian Electoral Commission early voting centre ahead of the national election, in the Central Business District of Sydney, Australia, May 17, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Loren Elliott/File Photo

While Australia has traditionally been a two-party state, several smaller parties like the Greens and United Australia Party may do well as opinion polls show that voters are looking beyond the mainstream choices.

The new phenomenon in this election has been the so-called ‘Teal independents’ – a group of 22 loosely-tied candidates, mostly women and funded by a political action group Climate 200, set up by the son of Australia’s first billionaire Simon Holmes à Court.

As per Channel 9 news, the ‘Teal independents’ are not functioning as a political party but “seem to converge on two specific policies: the call for a federal integrity commission and a greater emphasis on tackling climate change”.

What happens if there is a hung parliament?

In Australia’s political history since World War II, there has never been a hung parliament except once. The 2010 elections saw both the Labor and the Liberal-National Coalition winning 72 seats each. After over two weeks of negotiation, Labor formed a minority government with the outside support of three independents and one Greens lawmaker.

There is no indication of how the ‘Teal independents’, some of whom might win, would support the government. However, given their platform for more action to combat climate change, it is unlikely they would find it easy to back a Scott Morrison-led Coalition, which is largely climate change-sceptic.

Do Australian Indian voters matter?

The Indian diaspora, now over 720,000, has become the fastest-growing immigrant community in Australia, overtaking the Chinese-origin community as the largest overseas-born group. With the numerical rise of the diaspora, it also means that Hinduism and Punjabi have become Australia’s fastest growing religion and language, respectively.

An online survey of 617 Indian-origin Australian registered voters, analysed by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, found them to be significantly leaning toward the Labor party. While 43 per cent identified with ALP, the Coalition garnered only 26 per cent. Surprisingly, five per cent selected the right-wing One Nation party, which has a stringent anti-immigration platform.

When asked about their voting preference in the elections, 40% said that they would vote for ALP, while 25% stated a choice for the Coalition.

Do relations with India really matter to Indo-Australian voters?

In an opinion piece published in March, the publisher of one of Australia’s largest ethnic media outlets, Indian Link, claimed that India’s relations with Australia have primarily come into play due to the fact that political parties are actively wooing the diaspora in a tight election. 

“With a potential vote bank of over 400,000 Indian voters, a large number of them in marginal seats such as Parramatta and Reid, these voters are well connected to their country of origin and would like to see a closer bond between these two nations,” wrote the author in the article titled, “Coalition or Labor: Who would be better for India?”

However, according to the previously-cited online survey of Indo-Australian voters, their top three policy priorities are primarily in line with the majority of voters – healthcare, economy and climate change. Relations with India do not even figure in the ‘top 10 priorities’ list – but the survey analysts cautioned that this does not mean that this issue is insignificant.

“That is not to say [that] they view this issue as unimportant, but Australia-India ties seem to be only one motivating factor among many others”.

The oft-cited political canon is that the Liberal party has given more attention to India, while the Labor party has traditionally been seen as friendlier towards China in the past. The exception to this conventional wisdom is the Julia Gillard government, which pushed to remove obstacles to the sale of uranium to India in 2011. Incidentally, Albanese was among the Labor leaders opposed to the move, citing nuclear proliferation concerns and the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

IAEA experts, charged with reviewing Japan’s plans for the Fukushima nuclear facility, leave Unit 4 in 2013. IAEA/Flickr, CC BY 4.0

IAEA experts, charged with reviewing Japan’s plans for the Fukushima nuclear facility, leave Unit 4 in 2013. IAEA/Flickr, CC BY 4.0

In the current Australian election campaign, the Coalition has attempted to paint Labour as China’s ‘favoured’ party, even though Labor’s policies toward Beijing are not much different from the conservative Coalition.

With much space for any new government in Canberra to reconcile with Beijing, it is natural that the next Australian government will continue to build ties with the other Asian giant, India.

India’s former high commissioner to Australia, Navdeep Suri, said that there was “enough momentum in the relationship to make it bipartisan”.

Also read: Citing Indian High Commission Interference, 13 Academics Resign From Australia India Institute

Campaign promises and views stated while canvassing for Indian votes

Even as Prime Minister Scott Morrison continued with his Indian culinary adventure, he has also attempted to curry favour with the Indian voters by campaign appearances making at religious associations – like his rival – to seek votes from the community. 

The Guardian reported that during his address at the Hindu Council of Australia last week, Morrison, donning saffron scarves, described his ‘chummy’ partnership with Indian PM Narendra Modi as “Scomodi”.

The questions at the event seemed to revolve around whether a religious discrimination bill will discriminate against Hindus, to the swastika symbol being banned by a state government for its Nazi connotations.

He was also asked about the tensions within the Indian community, which had flared up due to the farmers’ movement in India. “Whatever conflicts they have in their home countries have no place in Australia … We don’t have transfer of hatreds. They can stay away, they have no part in the Australia I lead,” he said, as quoted by the Guardian.

Earlier in the month, Labor leader Anthony Albanese took part in another event organised by the Hindu Council of Australia in Sydney, where he talked about improving ties with India. 

Labor leader Anthony Albanese in a Hindu Council of Australia event. Photo: Facebook Live screengrab

He stated that his government would be pushing for a more “comprehensive” free trade agreement with India. “We certainly would continue to support the comprehensive economic dialogue agreement. We think that it isn’t comprehensive enough,” he said.

The Morrison government had pushed India to complete an interim Free Trade Agreement by March, even though there was no investment protection chapter. It was politically crucial for Morrison to be able to tout the India deal, signed on April 2, as among his key achievements, hyping it up for his rural agricultural base. 

Australian officials are confident that it will be signed in the second phase of the negotiations, but India, so far, has been reluctant to move beyond its stated position on dispute arbitration.

Incidentally, Australia’s national broadcaster, ABC reported on the controversy over Albanese and Morrison donning saffron scarves, which featured the banyan tree logo of the far-right Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

The two leaders also made promises related to care for the elderly – a topic seen as culturally close to the Indian community. 

The Labor party has committed A$6 million to provide “assisted living” for South Asian seniors, Indian Link reported.

Morrison criticised Labor’s promises on elderly care, raising questions about its implementation. He also cited large government funds invested in implementing recommendations of the aged care royal commission, and a programme to gather data about elderly care demand that he says will benefit the Hindu community.

The Labor leader has claimed that he has a long association with India, bringing up his six-week backpack trip during his younger days. Albanese had also led a parliamentary delegation to New Delhi in 2018. When Indian external affairs minister S Jaishankar visited Australia this year, he met with the veteran Australian politician.

Just like the overall direction of relations with India will not change even if there is a new prime minister at the helm, Canberra’s representative in New Delhi will also remain in place whatever the election results. In fact, Albanese has repeatedly mentioned Australia’s high commissioner to India, Barry O’Farrell as an exemplary model of a political appointee for a sensitive diplomatic posting.

India Welcomes ‘Normalisation’ of Israel-UAE Ties, Reiterates Support for ‘Palestinian Cause’

The Palestinian leadership were quick to condemn the agreement as a “betrayal”, with Palestine president Mahmoud Abbas recalling the ambassador to UAE.

New Delhi: A day after US President Donald Trump made the surprise announcement, India has welcomed the ‘full normalisation’ of ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, an agreement brokered by in exchange for Tel Aviv suspending its annexation of Palestinian territories.

On Thursday, the White House released a joint statement signed by the three countries, which stated that Gulf kingdom will work towards establishing diplomatic links with Israel. Due to this “diplomatic breakthrough”, Israel has agreed to “suspend” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to declare sovereignty over West Bank.

In the press briefing, Trump described the agreement as a “truly historic moment”, comparing it to the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty. Once the pact is implemented, UAE will become the third Arab country to recognise Israel, after Egypt and Jordan.

UAE foreign minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan called India’s external affairs minister S. Jaishankar on Friday afternoon to brief him about the new deal with Israel.

Also read: ‘A Betrayal’: Israel-UAE Deal Leaves Palestinians Surprised, Dismayed

Articulating India’s position, MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said, “India has consistently supported peace, stability and development in West Asia, which is its extended neighbourhood. In that context, we welcome the full normalisation of ties between UAE and Israel. Both nations are key strategic partners of India”.

He added that India continued with its “traditional support for the Palestinian cause”. “We hope to see early resumption of direct negotiations to find an acceptable two-state solution,” said Srivastava.

The Palestinian leadership were quick to condemn the agreement as a “betrayal”, with Palestine president Mahmoud Abbas recalling the ambassador to UAE.

“The Palestinian leadership considers this step to blow up the Arab Peace Initiative and the decisions of the Arab and Islamic summits, and international legitimacy, as an aggression against the Palestinian people, and as neglecting Palestinian rights and sacred things, especially Jerusalem and the independent Palestinian state on the borders of June 4, 1967,” said the statement, which called on Arab League to denounce the pact.

India’s statement on the agreement is not surprising as all the three nations signing the statement have become close partners of the Modi government.

When contacted, there was no response from the Palestine embassy in New Delhi to India, on the agreement.

Deal not entirely a ‘surprise’

Retired Indian foreign service officer Navdeep Suri, who had been India’s ambassador to UAE till September 2019, told The Wire that the trends towards the normalisation of ties between Israel and UAE had been clearly discernible in the last couple of years. The two countries were “driven by their joint antipathy towards Iran,” Suri said.

In July 2015, Iran and a group of six nations led by the US reached a deal to limit Iran’s nuclear weapons programme in exchange for lifting of economic sanctions. Five months later, Israel was opening its first ever diplomatic mission in a Gulf nation, with a representative posted at the Abu Dhabi headquarters of International Renewable Energy Agency. At that time, Israel had claimed that this was neither a consulate nor a mission, but the presence of an Israeli diplomat in UAE gave out an unmistakable signal.

Suri also recalled the visit of the Israel sports minister Miri Regev in October 2018, ostensibly to attend a judo tournament. She visited the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi and wrote in the guest book in Hebrew. “The fact that Emirati media was covering her visit and publishing her photographs indicated that the rapprochement was in the offing,” he said.

There were more signs of active Arab-Israeli backchannel links, with Emirati officials publicly laying ground of an imminent change.

“Many, many years ago, when there was an Arab decision not to have contact with Israel, that was a very, very wrong decision, looking back,” UAE minister of state for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash told Abu Dhabi based daily The National in March 2019.

He forecast, according to the newspaper report, a “strategic shift” in relations between Israel and Arab nations.

Despite the clear willingness of Emirati leadership, it took more than a year for UAE to formalise its already extensive links with Israel.

Role of US election

The timing, believes Suri, was clearly due to the forthcoming presidential election in November. “Both Israel and the Emiratis want to help Trump politically. They want him back in the White House,” he said

UAE’s aversion of the previous Barack Obama administration had been publicly articulated after Trump’s surprising win in 2016. In remarks published in the official news agency in November 2016, Gargash described the Obama administration’s tenure as “eight years of weakened American engagement in the region, which many feel has created a disconcerting vacuum”.

Even if Trump loses the elections, UAE is not likely to face any major diplomatic repercussions. The Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden, who had been vice-president in the Obama administration, welcomed the agreement as a “historic step to bridge the deep divides of the Middle East”.

Meanwhile, Trump with an eye at branding the agreement as a diplomatic victory in the election campaign, stated that the pact will be called “Abraham accord” as Abraham was “father of all three great faiths”.

U.S. President Donald Trump receives applause after announcing that Israel and the United Arab Emirates have reached a peace deal that will lead to full normalization of diplomatic relations between the two Middle Eastern nations in an agreement that Trump helped broker, at White House in Washington, U.S., August 13, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque

West Asian reaction

In West Asia, all the Arab countries, except for Saudi Arabia, swiftly welcomed the agreement. Oman, which hosted Netanyahu on an official visit in 2018, backed UAE’s initiative to normalise ties with Israel, with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi also tweeting his appreciation.

On the other side of the aisle, Iran described the deal as an act of “strategic stupidity”.

Joining Tehran, Turkey stated that “history and the conscience of the region’s peoples will not forget and never forgive this hypocritical behaviour of the UAE, betraying the Palestinian cause for the sake of its narrow interests”. Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan said that he was considering snapping ties with UAE.

However, Saudi Arabia, which had led the Arab world against Iran, remained conspicuously silent, largely reflecting the domestic criticism of the deal among its citizens. According to Reuters, the Arabic hashtag “Gulfis_Against_Normalisation” was trending in third place on twitter in Saudi Arabia

Among the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, UK, France and China also cheered the pact. Russia, which has balancing its ties between Israel and Iran, is the only P-5 to not issue a statement, even 24 hours after President Trump announced the agreement in Washington.

Within Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Gardens Lies An Indian Space for Australian Creativity

The Indian architect Bijoy Jain-designed bamboo structure will be the site for cultural events, including performances by Indian dance troupes, a street magic show and even a discussion about jugaad over the next few months.

The Indian architect Bijoy Jain-designed bamboo structure will be the site for cultural events, including performances by Indian dance troupes, a street magic show and even a discussion about jugaad over the next few months.

Bijoy Jain-designed Pavilion. Credit: John Gollings

Bijoy Jain-designed Pavilion. Credit: John Gollings

Melbourne: Under the shadow of steel sky scrapers, a corner of Queen Victoria Gardens in Australia’s second largest city underwent an early spring annual ritual – not of trees shedding their winter plumage, but one that has become a seasonal routine only in the last two years.

For the third year, as spring made its appearance, a small area was fenced in and a digger appeared for ground breaking. Thousands of bamboo poles and karvi panels from India were bound together and a low slung roof emerged, the silhouette of which was framed by the brilliant hues of the urban oasis.

The finished MPavilion, which was unveiled earlier this week, brought an Indian flavour to Melbourne’s creative scene.

MPavilion designed by Indian architect Bijoy Jain. Credit: John Gollings

MPavilion designed by Indian architect Bijoy Jain. Credit: John Gollings

Four years ago, Australian retail tycoon and philanthropist Naomi Milgrom began an arts project inspired by London’s Serpentine Galleries in collaboration with the city and the state governments.

Each year for the project, Milgrom commissions a temporary pavilion from renowned architects to be built in Queen Victoria Gardens. Throughout summer, the open structure becomes the nucleus of cultural events. As the season turns, the pavilion is ‘gifted’ to the city, which then dismantles and rebuilds it at a new, permanent site.

The last two commissioned pieces were a combination of high tech materials and technology. Australian architect Sean Godsell built a rectangular frame with aluminium panels that opened and closed depending on sunlight. The structure now sits in the garden of the Hellenic Museum in Melbourne.

In 2015, UK’s Amanda Levete also strode the hi-tech path to designed a canopy of petals made from composite materials with stems made from carbon fibre. It now resides at the corner of a busy street in Melbourne’s central business district.

For 2016, Milgrom chose Studio Mumbai’s Bijoy Jain, who has became the first Indian to design a structure for a public space in Australia.

During the design process, Jain visited Melbourne twice to view the site. “For me, what’s important is that it is a kind of structure that is agile, adaptive to its surroundings and that this idea of temporality is expressed more in the sense of freedom [and] that it defaults to having a sense of mobility to it, so that you can transfer it from place to place in relationship to sense of time. So for me, that is really what is of interest – in that it is fragile, temporary and has a sense of gravitas,” Jain said.

He had termed his designing process as something that explores “the connection to one’s self.”

“So the process of model making, or a drawing that you would have seen, are not that different to a term called riyaz where every morning you train your vocal cords,” he explained.

According to MPavilion’s creative director Robert Buckingham, the search for an architect began with a purpose of looking at Asian creativity. “We were looking for an architect with significant international reputation [who also has] a way of designing which is different. Bijoy’s approach is very intuitive [and] collaborative, so his method of working is very different from other architects, especially Australian architects,” he said.

Milgrom describes Jain as “one of the world’s most fascinating architects.”

“As an architect, Bijoy thinks like an artist. His buildings are realised around a central idea, and are then fleshed out through an extensive process of collaboration, and always, careful consideration of the surrounding environment.”

Mpavilion founder Naomi Milgrom and Indian architect Bijoy Jain. Credit: John Gollings

Mpavilion founder Naomi Milgrom and Indian architect Bijoy Jain. Credit: John Gollings

Jain began with a small model, then made it into a full-size model, and in that fluid development, the design evolved. “In Mumbai, he made a full-scale model and then worked with the builders to further refine and change it,” Buckingham explained.

During the time the model was being built and modified in India, Australian engineers and builders travelled to Mumbai to also work on the design in order to learn the techniques required to construct it in Melbourne.

One of the engineers was Robert Irwin, a specialist in setting up temporary structures for galleries or special events. “I had a structural background, but no bamboo background,” he told The Wire before the inauguration.

He made two trips to Mumbai. The second time was when he and his colleagues went “hands on,” which included a number of engineering tests.

In an earlier update for MPavilion, Jain recounted that at Studio Mumbai, seven different types of natural fibre ropes were tested before Abaca fibres were chosen, for they were thin, but strong.

According to Irwin, the distinct part of working with bamboo, ropes and wooden pins is that it is “considerably more time consuming”.

“The beauty of this structure is hard to tell how much work went into it. If you sat there, you will see joints and connections, points where everything is coming together,” he said.

Bijoy Jain-designed MPavilion under construction in mid-September. Credit: Devirupa Mitra

Bijoy Jain-designed MPavilion under construction in mid-September. Credit: Devirupa Mitra

According to their calculations, over 26 kilometres of rope was used to lash together bamboo, which if set in line, would be as long as 7 kilometres. The bamboo was sourced from the northeastern states of Bihar and Karnataka. Slatted panels made of karvi stick were also tested and manufactured in Mumbai before being shipped to Australia.

After going through a few weeks over high seas, the panels safely arrived in Australia in late August. It took a few more nail biting days before customs cleared all the construction material for the work to begin in earnest at the site.

Bijoy Jain-designed MPavilion under construction in mid-September. Credit: Devirupa Mitra

Bijoy Jain-designed MPavilion under construction in mid-September. Credit: Devirupa Mitra

At the end, everything tied up well. The entrance to the pavilion was through a towering, detached bamboo gateway – which the architect likens to a tazia – standing astride on a couple of rocks. The floor is made of bluestone that was sourced from local quarries. The pavilion roof has an opening in the middle, under which a gold-leafed bore well acts as the line between the earth, water and sky.

Aerial view of MPavilion. Credit: John Gollings

Aerial view of MPavilion. Credit: John Gollings

The pavilion was thrown open at a ceremony attended by the Indian High Commissioner to Australia Navdeep Suri and the main protagonists of the project, Milgrom and Jain, on October 4.

For the next four months the enclosed space under the handmade canopy will become the location for music concerts, talks and workshops. Then, just like its two predecessors, it will be moved to a permanent location to become a part of the urban art landmarks of the city.

Side exterior of MPavilion. Credit: John Gollings

Side exterior of MPavilion. Credit: John Gollings

A whole calendar of events has already been drawn to use the MPavilion space, with many of them having an Indian spice, aligning itself seamlessly with the ongoing Australia-wide Confluence Festival of India, the Melbourne Festival, as well as the new Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts.

This month, performances by Indian Tabla maestro Aneesh Pradhan, local Indian dance troupes, puppet theatres and even an Indian street magic show, will find a platform under its roof. A discussion about jugaad in early November would explore whether it was a ‘form of agency’ or a ‘symptom of marginalisation.’

Milgrom, who first envisioned the entire project, believes that the “handcrafted” MPavilion will be a “calming and thoughtful space” which will “inspire” the people of Melbourne. “As a utopian space for the creative industry and community, MPavilion continues to challenge the way we see and engage with the world by encouraging design debate and cultural exchange.”