Book review: "The Last Jews of Kerala" by Edna Fernandes

This is a fascinating and touching account of the dying Jewish community in Kerala, India. The book is well researched and skilfully written by Edna Fernandes, who is a British Indian journalist, pointing a spotlight on a community largely unknown to the rest of the world. The author explores the racial divide in the community between the White and Black Jews, the major landmarks in their history and what the future holds. The author’s direct meetings and conversations with members of the community adds a true sense of authenticity, which makes the book so much more interesting.

The Black or Malabari Jews trace their ancestry to the days of King Solomon in biblical times when Jewish traders would come to Kerala in search of spices, sandalwood and other exotic commodities. The White or Paradesi Jews came during the Inquisition in Europe. Unlike many other Jewish communities in the western world, the Jews never suffered persecution in Kerala. In fact, they were a privileged community with special favours bestowed upon them by princely rulers during the ages.

The divide between Black Jews and White Jews came about due to a fight for pre-eminence in Cochini society, resulting in a “Jewish apartheid in India that would last four centuries and eventually lead to the decline and fall of both Black and White.” The Paradesi Jews linked their skin colour to religious purity, alleging that the Malabari Jews were the offspring of slave converts. As Fernandes explains, this undermined the standing of Black Jews: “In caste-based India, where the concept of religious purity is prominent, the taint of slavery eventually undermined the Malabaris’ standing in the royal court of Cochin. Loss of status and economic influence was only part of the cost they had to bear. Dubbed the sons of slaves, the Black Jews were then barred from marrying the White Jews, barred from the Paradesi Synagogue, barred from forming their own place of worship in their homes.”

All this went against the tenets of Judaism, in which the link between justice and shalom are inviolable. As news of this discrimination reached overseas, foreign rabbis such as Rabbi ibn Zimra ruled that the Black Jews “did have the right to intermarry and enter the synagogue as equals, provided all the proper conversion rituals had taken place.” However, the Paradesi leaders did not listen and carried on with their discrimination. “If the segregation was ever challenged by the Blacks, the Whites would call upon the raja or local colonial powers to intervene on their behalf and quell any resistance.”

Eventually it took the bold efforts of a low-born, brilliant lawyer from Ernakulam, A. B. Salem, known as the “Jewish Gandhi”, to bring about change. Inspired by Gandhi’s non-violent methods of protest in the fight for Indian Independence, he applied similar tactics with the Paradesi community. One day he refused to sit in the antechamber designated for the Blacks and strode into the Paradesi Synagogue, dragging his sons behind him. Being a top lawyer, writer and knowing Gandhi and Nehru the Paradesi elders were powerless to stop this man. “Blessed with formidable patience as well as intellect, he relentlessly chipped away at the edifice of prejudice, piece by piece, until it came tumbling down.” Finally, within a few years of the creation of the state of Israel, the last taboo was broken when Balfour, the second son of A. B. Salem, fell in love and married Seema ‘Baby’ Koder, a beautiful White Jewess.

Fernandes briefly describes the other Jewish communities in India including the Bene Israel, who are based in Mumbai, and the Baghdadi Jews, who have now all but disappeared. “While British rule lasted, the educated Bene Israel did well. By the 1940s the community had reached a peak of 25,000 people in India. The Bene Israel were like the Cochinis in that they, too, differentiated between light and dark-skinned Jews, mirroring the indigenous society, which also put a premium on fairness.” However, the Bene Israel still number around 5,000 today which is evidence of their ability to put aside their differences unlike the Cochinis.

Faced with an uncertain future and the lure of Zionism many of the Jews of Cochin, and India, migrated to Israel after Indian Independence and the creation of the Jewish state. Fernandes visits a few Cochini Jews in Israel, most of whom have settled in the Negev, where the dry, barren, desert landscape contrasts with green, verdant Kerala. Despite the harshness of the land many of them have settled well, doing well in horticulture and agriculture. “After fifty years, the Cochini Jewish way of life was thriving in the Middle East just as it was dying in southern India. The community here took every opportunity to push things forward to the next generation. They were ruthless in their in their pragmatism, as one would expect of a desert people. If they could not marry a Cochini, they would marry another Jew and show them the Kerala Jewish life. It was better than the alternative.”

For some Cochinis, however, Israel wasn’t the paradise they had envisaged. Not only was it a “void of loneliness and rejection,” the constant conflict between the Jews and Muslims in the Holy Land was a far cry from their peaceful co-existence in Kerala. As Fernandes explains, the Malabari immigrants “sensed an echo of their own tragedy in the Palestinians.” “They too knew what it was to be usurped in their historical narrative, to face separation. In Kerala, division led to destruction. Perhaps their fear was of the cycle repeating itself.” One such person is seventy-eight year old Abraham Eliavoo, who came not for Zionism but the love of his faith, yet he wanted to return to Kerala to die there because he could not reconcile faith with conflict. “In the end, it was an age-old tolerance that drew him.”

The book is a touching and compelling tale of the Jews of Kerala whose existence, stretching back thousands of years, certainly looks bleak despite a prosperous past. There are some wonderful conversations with various people, as well as descriptions of the Paradesi Synagogue in Mattancheri and places such as Cranganore, Cochin, Chennamangalam, Parul, the Negev and Jerusalem which are important for the Cochinis. In the twilight of their existence in Kerala, at least, there is a belated bonhomie between the Black and White Jews, the latter depending on the former for life support. But as the last few Paradesi Jews come to the end of their lives, and a despondent resignation hangs over them, they will be questioning whether their own attitudes led to their plight, for without justice there can be no shalom.

The rise of the BNP

Nick Griffin, the leader of the far right British National Party (BNP), appeared on the Question Time programme on BBC television last Thursday. His appearance had raised a great deal of controversy, before and after the programme. Some people, like Welsh Secretary Peter Hain, a veteran anti-Apartheid campaigner, were totally opposed to Mr Griffin’s appearance on the programme, because they feared that by giving him such a prestigious platform his party would gain a certain amount of credibility. However, opinion polls showed that the majority of the public were in favour of Mr Griffin appearing on the show because, after all, the BNP was a political party and had done well in the European elections in June, getting nearly a million votes.

Hundreds of anti-fascist protestors, most of them white, vented their disgust and anger outside BBC TV Centre in west London before the show began. The Question Time panel, carefully selected beforehand, included Tory MP Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, black playwright Bonnie Greer, Justice Secretary Jack Straw and Liberal Democrat MP Chris Huhne. The chair of the show, David Dimbleby, had obviously been primed not to give Griffin an easy time. The reaction to Griffin from the panel and audience was generally hostile. He was exposed for the racist, homophobic, anti-Islamic, Nazi sympathising bigot he is, and his performance wasn’t very convincing as he squirmed under intense scrutiny. Question Time attracted nearly eight million viewers, three times the usual number.

Many newspapers were quick to trounce Mr Griffin’s performance the next day, and claimed many people would be deterred to vote BNP in the future. However, a recent opinion poll conducted by YouGov found that 22% of people would “seriously consider” voting for the BNP, which seems to indicate a surge in support for the party following the show. It’s difficult to say how seriously this poll can be taken but in my opinion Mr Griffin’s appearance on Question Time has been a major publicity coup for the BNP. Extremists of all hues thrive on publicity, and whenever they get it they misuse it to propagate their fears and bigoted ideas. The more publicity they get, the greater the chances of psychological success.

In other countries, the appearance of a politician or spokesperson from the political far right may not irk much of a hue or cry. In India, for instance, it is quite common for members of the extremist Hindu nationalist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to appear in the mainstream media. However, in those countries, there is a greater acceptance of views deemed to be at the far right of public opinion. In Britain the precursors of the BNP, such as the National Front, enjoyed considerable support in the 1970s and early 1980s, and then subsided. It seems the far right are resurging once more. I believe there are three main factors leading to this increased support: immigration, Islamic extremism and the growing British underclass.

Since Labour came to power in 1997, levels of immigration into Britain have increased significantly. Last year there was a net immigration of 118,000 to Britain, down from 290,000 in 2007, which is almost a tenfold increase on the figure when I came in 1979 as a young boy, even though at that time there was a far greater outcry over immigration. I believe, generally, Britain has benefitted to a considerable extent economically from immigration but the pace of change in many cities and towns has been too fast for many white Britons. Already public services, such as schools and social housing, are under considerable strain due to an increasing population. For a largely homogenous country like Britain, immigration also presents challenges regarding integration of people from many different ethnic and religious backgrounds.

Islamic extremists have been operating from these shores for a few decades now, but it is only after 9/11 when people really began to take note of them. The terrorist attacks of 7 July 2005 in London and subsequent thwarted attacks by British intelligence services sent shivers down the backs of many people living here. Extremists such as Anjem Choudhary brazenly call for the Queen and all Brits to convert to Islam, and want to see “the flag of Allah above 10 Downing Street” and bring about “a pure Islamic State with Sharia Law in Britain”. These extremists are a small but very noisy crowd who get a disproportional amount of media attention, but what alarms people, quite rightly, is how their views go relatively unchallenged. I’m sure there are some white people who see Nick Griffin as a countervailing force against Islamic extremism in this country.

In Britain, as well as much of Western Europe, the state is expected to support many of the most disadvantaged members of society by providing benefits. What has emerged as a result is a British underclass that lives off the mainstream society but does not participate in it. In this subgroup of people, levels of illegitimacy, educational underachievement, crime, alcohol abuse and voluntary unemployment are rife. Well intentioned as they may be, it seems social policies to support these people have only removed incentives for change. It is this group of people that are most hostile to immigrants and drawn by the politics of the BNP. I believe for too long successive governments have shown a patronising attitude to the British underclass.

Dealing with immigration is relatively straight forward, by having firmer border controls, which is something the government initiated last year with the introduction of the Australian-style points system. Dealing with Islamic extremism and the British underclass are more challenging and complex issues. It would be a mistake to dismiss the recent success of the BNP as a flash in the pan. Society is changing and policy makers need to take note. Of course there are some people who are genuinely racist and they will always vote for the BNP. But by dealing effectively with these three main issues I’ve outlined here, I think the wings of the far right can once again be clipped.

The Iraq War, oil and the Nobel Peace Prize

Yesterday, a service was held in St Paul’s Cathedral, London, to mark the end of combat operations in Iraq, which was attended by the Queen, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, his wife Sarah, and former Prime Minister Tony Blair, as well other members of the military and government. The event was an opportunity to honour the dead British servicemen and reflect on a highly controversial war, with questions on whether it was worth it resurfacing once again. The cost of the war, in both human and financial terms, was huge. It is arguable whether the war has made Iraq and the rest of the world a safer place, which was allegedly the aim of the intervention.

The father of one dead British soldier, Lance-Corporal Shaun Brierley, refused to shake hands with former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Later Peter Brierley said, "I believe Tony Blair is a war criminal. I can't bear to be in the same room as him. I can't believe he has been allowed to come to this reception. I believe he has got the blood of my son and all of the other men and women who died out there on his hand.” Tony Blair, who took this country to war, investing his allegiance with former President George W Bush, a failed oil man with a “tendency to concoct favourable facts” (Dilip Hiro), believed the world had changed irrevocably after 9/11 and pre-emptive action was necessary to make it a safer place.

The main reason given for the war was to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) which Saddam Hussein was allegedly concealing from the rest of the world. We all know that was hype now. Other reasons for the war were to “liberate” Iraqis from a genocidal dictator; to bring democracy to the country and the wider Middle East; and punish Saddam Hussein who, together with Al Qaeda, was responsible for 9/11. Many people succumbed to the anti-Iraq hype, but many others protested against it, believing that force was not the best solution. Despite the protests, Bush and Blair went ahead with their invasion.

As the dust settles, it becomes increasingly obvious that oil was the main reason behind the war. Even life-long Republican and former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, said so. The US was becoming increasingly dependent on Irqai oil after the Clinton administration introduced the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) in 1996, which banned trade with Iran; and realising his growing clout, Saddam Hussein threatened to postpone plans to raise Iraq’s output if the US held up Iraq’s contracts for food, medicine and economic infrastructure before the UN Sanctions Committee. This pushed up oil prices and forced Clinton to take the unprecedented step of releasing 1 million barrels per day for thirty days from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve during peacetime.

After George W Bush took office in January 2001, at the first meeting of National Security Council (NSC) at the White House, the number one item on the agenda was Iraq, and the next NSC meeting was devoted exclusively to Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld advocated “going after Saddam,” and said, “Imagine what Iraq will look like without Saddam and with a regime that’s aligned with US interests. It would change everything in the region and beyond. It would demonstrate what US policy is all about.” Among the documents later sent to NSC members, was one prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which had mapped Iraq’s oil fields and exploration areas, and listed American companies likely to be interested in participating in Iraq’s oil industry.

According to a BBC Newsnight report, the Pentagon planners, influenced by neoconservatives, devised a super secret plan, which involved the sale of all Iraqi oil fields to private companies with a view to increasing output well above the normal OPEC quota for Iraq in order to destroy OPEC. Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi exile and a front runner to replace Saddam, told The Washington Post in 2002, "American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil." In public, however, the justification for the war was Iraq’s WMD and Saddam’s alleged connections with Al Qaeda.

The plan to exploit Iraq’s plentiful oil resources, however, didn’t go as smoothly as planned. The Bush administration realized it would violate the Geneva Convention on War, which bars an occupying power from altering the fundamental structure of the occupied territory’s economy, by denationalizing Iraq’s oil industry; and the highly revered Shiite leader Grand Ayatollah Sistani, as well as other Shiite clerics, held that minerals belong to the “community,” meaning the state. The subsequent insurgency reduced Iraq’s oil output due to frequent attacks on oil pipelines and facilities, and Bush had to approach the US Congress for $2.1 billion to safeguard Iraq’s oil infrastructure. The new Iraqi constitution, endorsed by referendum in October 2005, finally dimmed the prospect of oil privatisation, stating that hydrocarbons are “national Iraqi property.” An auction for Iraq's new oil contracts was held last June, but many major Western companies withdrew their bids at the last minute because of controversial legislation setting terms for foreign investment in the country's oil sector, and for distributing its revenues.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who has always been critical about the war, delivered a stinging attack from the pulpit yesterday, even mentioning the evil hand of Satan: "The invisible enemy may be hiding in the temptation to look for shortcuts in the search for justice – letting ends justify means, letting others rather than oneself carry the cost, denying the difficulties or the failures so as to present a good public face." He said it is better if world leaders be patient and be guided by truth: "St Paul tells us to wrap ourselves around with the truth, to be defended by justice and to be impatient only for peace. These are not remote ideals for a religious minority. They are essential advice for those caught up in the anxious, fast-changing world of modern military operations, with the intense, even harsh, scrutiny they get from observers and commentators worldwide." For a man who has often been criticised for his indecisiveness, these were firm words indeed and I admire his courage for such a firm stand.

I was very surprised yesterday that President Barack Obama, who has not been in office for even a year, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Despite his rhetoric about nuclear non-proliferation the prize seemed premature as he has achieved so little. But the Nobel Peace Prize is more than a prize - it is also a statement, and this one is a damning indictment of the policies of the previous Bush administration, which involved the use of unilateral, pre-emptive action with little regard for diplomacy, human rights and ground reality. It remains to be seen if Obama can live to the expectations of the Nobel Peace Prize committee. So far he has made a number of corrective changes to US foreign policy, many of which are welcome, but I think even he will struggle to completely change US foreign policy.

Book review: "No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam" by Reza Aslan

I have just finished reading Reza Aslan’s book “No God but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam”. I enjoyed it very much. Written in a lucid, precise and highly readable style, Aslan describes how Islam came into being in Arabia, which up to that time had a polytheistic religious culture. The ancient Arabs worshipped many Gods including the God of the Jews and the Christians. Then came Muhammad - the founder of Islam – who, after receiving the Revelation at Mt Hira in 610AD, preached a message of absolute monotheism and declared “there is no God but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger.” Aslan narrates the lives of Muhammad and his Companions who established the first Muslim community (“Ummah”) in Medina, their battles with the powerful Quraysh tribe and their eventual victory, and the subsequent evolution of Islam after Muhammad’s death.

Aslan knows his subject very well. It does often read like an unapologetic defence of Islam, which he acquiesces in the introduction, yet he is critical of the rise in Islamic extremism (Islamism) in recent times and sets out some ideas for reform at the end of the book. The diversity of Islam owes to “dozens of conflicting ideas about everything from how to interpret the Prophet’s words and deeds to who should do the interpreting, from whom to choose as leader of the community to how the community should be led.” These arguments often led to conflict, but also gave birth to various sects. Apart from the main Sunni or “orthodox” branch of Islam are the Shia and Sufi sects, both of which came into being as reactionary movements. Aslan goes into some detail about Sufism, the eclectic mystical tradition within Islam.

Muhammad was a very different kind of figure from Jesus Christ (whom he greatly revered), yet he strove to bring about radical religious, social and economic change in pre-Islamic Arabia. Aslan makes some interesting comparisons between Islam and Christianity, although his knowledge of the former is much better than of the latter. He says Christianity is an ‘orthodoxic’ religion; it is principally concerned with one’s beliefs in God while Islam, like Judaism, is an ‘orthopraxic’ religion, where it is one’s actions that makes one an observant follower. The five pillars of Islam are: “salat,” or ritual prayer (performed five times a day); “zakat,” or the paying of alms; fast (“sawn” in Arabic) during the month of Ramadan when Muslims believe the Quran was first revealed to Muhammad; the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca; and the “shahadah,” or profession of faith, which initiates every convert to Islam. Only the last pillar requires belief rather than action. Unlike Christianity, Islam is a communal religion; it abhors monasticism and reclusive individualism. The Quran also categorically derides celibacy as being against God’s command to be “fruitful and multiply.”

Aslan traces the roots of modern day Islamic fundamentalism to the influence of people such as Shah Wali Allah (d. 1762) as well as the experiences of the colonial period. Shah Wali Allah’s emphasis on orthodoxy, to strip Sufism of its “foreign” influences (e.g. Neoplatonism, Persian mysticism, Hindu Vedantism) and restore it to a former unadulterated form of Islamic mysticism, sparked a number of “puritan” movements in India like the Deobandi School. What angered political reformers, such as Jamāl-al-dīn al-Afghānī (1838-97) and Hassan al-Banna (1906-49), was the hypocrisy the British showed in preaching the values of the Enlightenment while cruelly pillaging the natural resources of their conquered lands and suppressing appeals for liberation. Al-Banna formed the Muslim Brotherhood, which was conceived to be an Islamic social movement “to present Islam as an all encompassing religious, political, social, economic, and cultural system.” Later, the movement underwent a more radical transformation under the influence of Sayyid Qutb (1906-66), who asserted the new ideology of Islamism which “called for the creation of an Islamic state in which the socio-political order would be defined solely according to Muslim values,” and he envisioned this process to be a “cataclysmic, revolutionary event.”

The book describes how the puritanical, fundamentalist sect of Islam known as Wahhabism became established in what is today Saudi Arabia. Thanks to oil money and Saudi evangelism, Wahhabism has now infiltrated every corner of the Muslim world, and it is the ideology of al-Qaeda. Aslan says that despite 9/11 and subsequent terrorist acts against western targets, “what is taking place now in the Muslim world is an internal conflict between Muslims, not an external battle between Islam and the West. The West is merely a bystander – an unwary yet complicit casualty of a rivalry that is raging in Islam over who will write the next chapter in its story.” This is not the “clash of civilisations” but a war within Islam between scores of first- and second-generation Muslim immigrants, indoctrinated in the democratic ideals of their new homes, and the bigotry and fanaticism of those who have replaced Muhammad.

Being a young boy who fled to America with his family during the Iranian Revolution, Aslan is able to narrate the events of that historic period well and how Iran was transformed into “a fascist country run by a corrupt clerical oligarchy committed to snuffing out any attempts at democratic reform.” Yet he says that democracy in the Middle East is possible because “it is pluralism, not secularism, that defines democracy,” and Islam has had a long commitment to religious pluralism. If America, which is “unapologetically founded on a Judeo-Christian – and more precisely Protestant – moral framework,” it should be possible to have Islamic democracy through a path of secularization.

Aslan compares the current conflict in Islam to the cataclysmic events of the Reformation in Christianity. The book ends with the sentences: “The Islamic Reformation is already here. We are all living in it.” What is happening in Islam, says Aslan, is an internal conflict about who will write the next chapter in its story. It’s an alluring thought and I sense his passion about his own faith makes him believe that this is the case. The book does have its biases, but for anyone who wants a fairly balanced introduction to Islam I recommend this book.

Will Delhi be ready for the 2010 Commonwealth Games?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

India trip 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maharajah begs for its survival

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

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

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

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

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

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

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