That is how the ride goes…

Tokyo Vice (Miniseries)

2 Seasons, 18 Episodes

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/tokyo_vice

I don't know why, but watching this miniseries reminded me of President Xi Jinping's recent visit to Southeast Asian countries. Everyone had much to say about Xi in private regarding the CCP's megalomaniac and imposing projects. Still, when the big Don landed in their backyard, leaders from these minion nations decided to hide their tails behind their hind legs and play dead. No one can blame them. This is the effect a powerful nation has on smaller ones. It happened in ancient times and continues to happen now. Might is right.

When the majestic fleet of the Ming Dynasty emperor came to the Malaccan shores in the 1400s, the Sultan had no choice but to send his emissaries to China with gifts. When the Siamese King showed displeasure, another entourage would go there with gifts and beautiful princesses to solidify international relations.

Intertwined with physical might are the potent forces of wealth and political office, with a recent addition being the capacity to influence public opinion. The power of propaganda cannot be overstated. In this modern world, where news travels faster than both light and sound combined, those who control the news literally control the revolutions of the planet!

This miniseries is based on Jake Adelstein's book of the same name, subtitled "An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan." Jake worked as an apprentice journalist at Yomiuri Shimbun, one of Japan's premier newspapers. He studied Japanese Literature at Sophia University in Tokyo, a Jesuit-sponsored institution. He was the newspaper's first non-Japanese reporter.

The book narrates his observations as an American looking at the working culture, working environment and his experiences reporting on criminal cases around Tokyo. He shadowed a police officer and was exposed to the down low of the running of the yakuza activities and the precarious understanding that they and the police foster. The yakuza are a necessary evil in Japanese society. Peace is maintained when different gangs have a sense to respect each other's boundaries and not to step on each other's toes.

The yakuza have intricate connections in all layers of society, including the police, politicians, and the media. What is reported in the press for general consumption is generally agreed upon by all factions above. Those in power justify suppressing the truth by citing national security and the need to maintain public order.

A similar scenario also occurs in Malaysia. Many of my schoolmates, who have since retired from active journalism, have much to say about the murmurs surrounding major breaking news that erupts frequently. Fearing the repercussions of breaching the disclosure clauses in their employment contracts, they would remain silent during conversations. Having interacted with them since childhood, I could see that their words were on the tip of their tongues, eager to burst out, but did not.

Jake's report about a well-known yakuza boss allegedly making a deal with the FBI in exchange for a liver transplant in the USA landed him in a great deal of trouble. Intertwined in the plot is another gaijin (a foreigner in Japanese), the American daughter of an evangelist who flees home to start a new life as a hostess, a modern version of a geisha. In this context, a hostess is someone who serves drinks, engages in conversation, and sits at tables in a bar or high-end restaurant. It is strictly non-contact entertainment. They make money through patrons' tips and from the owners of the establishment based on the number of drinks clients purchase.

I am grateful to SA for recommending this engaging miniseries to me. It helped me understand the subtle balance between vice, criminal activities, police work, and conducting business in the modern world. Much like a peacekeeping conduit, politicians play the role of middlemen, striking a balance between allowing gangsters to operate and keeping the police guessing their next move. They aim for a win-win situation where the bad guys (the yakuza, in this instance) exert their control over the public, politicians continue to disguise themselves while profiting, and the general public believes that their lives are improving. In reality, people are being taken advantage of while everyone else gets richer at the expense of the general public.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The Fourth Estate has vested interest

Richard Jewell (2019)
Director: Clint Eastwood

The press and the print media are often referred to as the 'Fourth Estate' or 'Fourth Power' for a reason. It is supposed to act as an extension of the arms of governance after the legislation, execution and the judiciary branch of Government of rule via indirect public influence. 

It traditionally played the role of the eye of the public to create a check and balance system of the ruling Government. Over the years, we have noticed that it is no longer working towards the well-being of the common man, but rather have the welfare of the financiers at heart. With financiers having vested interest in how a piece of particular news should be presented, the truth is somehow lost in the rabble-rousing. The same message can be displayed by different stations leaving totally different impressions on the public.

So, leave to the public to assess what is right and which is fake, you say. History has proven time and again that people are fickle-minded. Like Pavlov's dog, they can be easily conditioned by their masters. Their opinion changes anywhere the wind blows. With access to social media to opine their two-cents worth literally at their fingertips, arranging a trial by media is an easy task.

The question of exposing too much 'truth' to the public domain and having a trial by media has been popping quite rampantly in Malaysia after the change of Government. Traditionally, in Malaysia, the Fourth Estate has been functioning more like a Fourth Branch of the Government, working well as a propaganda machine of the ruling Government. The old Government is feeling the heat as many of their shenanigans out in the open. They cry foul citing loss of sovereignty of the nation as we go on a rampage washing dirty linen in public. 

One thing people forget is that foreign investors come to our country not because we are trustworthy and virtuous. They come here precisely for the opposite reasons. Our leaders are easy to be bought over, and everything has a price.

The modern society talks about the need for a free press and freedom of information. The film shows one of the dangers of the unabated flow of information.

Richard Jewell is a timid man who lives with his mother and goes on by working as a security officer. It was 1996 and Atlanta was hosting the Centennial Olympics. During the tour of his duty as a security helper in a stadium, he notices an unattended bag. He alerted the police officers who confirmed that it contained a bomb. Jewell helped to evacuate the public from danger, prevent a catastrophe. He is hailed as a hero, and his pictures are plastered on all newspaper. Three days later, everything takes a 180-degree turn. He is reported to be a possible prime suspect as the bomber in the bombing. News leaks that FBI thought that Jewell fit the profile of a lone attacker - single white male, living with his mother, fascinated with guns who clamours a law enforcement career.

The rest of the movie is to shows the humiliation, public scrutiny and trial by media that Jewell and his mother endure. Under the name of national security and the thirst for the round-the-clock instant information, people's life is turned topsy-turvy.

The film created controversy when it suggested that the journalist, Kathy Scruggs, who leaked the information about the FBI investigations on Jewell being the possible suspect obtained it by providing sexual favours.

The saga affected Jewell and Scruggs profoundly. Both had premature deaths. Jewell succumbed to heart ailments, and Scruggs went on to be bogged with depression. She died on morphine overdose. The possibility of suicide was also considered.

Jewell's name did get cleared by FBI after all. In his time, he sued many newspapers and news networks including CNN. He got a fat compensation but, it seems, the bulk of it went to the lawyers' fees. 

That is the bane of modern living - create a molehill out of nothing, make a big deal out of it, talk about principle and doing the 'right' thing but basically doing nothing but create a whole lot of mess. In comes the lawyers (or maybe bankers too) as the knights in shining armours.  They prolong the confusion, build up anxiety and leave with a load of money, giving the impression of saving the day. To those affected, nothing really changes.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Thick as thieves?

The Post (2017)

The ongoing saga involving the former seemingly unassailable Prime Minister of Malaysia and its sovereign fund is a stark reminder that the world is ruled by an unholy union of politicians who conned the public, bankers who finance the whole fiasco, lawmakers who put a legal jargon to all these. Trailing them are a thick band of thieves, yeomen, hyenas and a slew of servants who would die or kill for their cause under the banner of nationalism. Depending on the setting, servants of God would get their hands dirty in the cookie jar to give a divine seal to all these shenanigans. 

In an environment of each wanting to fend for himself, in a world where 'The Truth' does not always prevail, and victors decide justice, the losers are the general public. Repeatedly the laypeople fall prey to the 'powers' of the day's sweet promises. In pursuit of happiness, they sacrifice my sweat, blood and tears.

They say we, the people, choose our leaders and the fate of our country. The politicians are at our mercy and not the other way around. But, increasingly, opposers to the status quo are cowed into submission by fear of harm and lost opportunities. The ongoing 1MDB trial opened the putrid cane of worms where civil servants are treated as lapdogs and rubber stamps for the ruling party. Amongst all these traitors emerge a lowly administrative officer, Nor Salwani Muhammad, who had the foresight to slip a recording device in her superior's pencil box to record certain vital proceedings.

I don't know him!

In a civil society, the last bastion of hope seems to be the media, the third force of resistance. Even that is a threat in many authoritarian societies. Press is no longer the purveyor of the truth but increasingly become mouthpieces of their financial masters.

The Washington Post is usually associated with the Watergate Scandal and Nixon's subsequent resignation as the US President. In 1966, an American State Department military analyst felt that the USA was misleading the public by convincing them that the war in Vietnam was proceeding well when, in reality, things were pretty bleak. The thought of the unassuming public sending their youngsters to be slaughtered in tropics pricked his conscience. The analyst decided to go public with documents that would prove the hypocrisy of three decades of US administration (post WW2) that had been hoodwinking the American public.

Even though it was first exposed to the New York Times, the filmmakers decided to tell the story from the viewpoint of the Washington Post who was struggling with a lady leading the helm as its publisher. The Post was the second newspaper that was approached to publish after the AG office shut down publications of the New York Times for articles deemed threatening national security.

The Post, a political thriller, shows the trials and tribulations of the journalists trying to fight for free speech, The First Amendment. After the mumbo-jumbo of legal threat and repercussions from the Nixon administration, the Supreme Court decided to allow printing of the controversial news. Its justification was that the papers worked for the governed, not the governor!

Lesson learnt: The citizens decide the path of the country. Its leaders should lead their subjects towards this end. They serve the public, not themselves or some uncertain promise of the future. It is difficult, however, when the people are lulled and stupefied by years of indoctrination and self-aggrandisement.

https://www.malaysiakini.com/columns/503023

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

What is what anymore!

First, they said, "Seeing is believing. Don't believe anything until and unless you see it with your very own eyes!" Then it was, "Don't believe everything that you see! The mind can play tricks on you!" They showed two arrows of the same length with one everted ends and the other with inverted ones to prove their point of view. Remember the pool of water when you are stranded on a desert only to realise that you have plunged yourself into a sand dune when you thought you had reached a wadi, an oasis. You knew he meant more than what you heard him say the world is a mirage, a Maya, a smokescreen coordinated by the puppet master.

Then they said that a responsible and noble band of brothers wants to set the record straight. They want to record news as it is, from the field as it happens unbiased. You were promised truth right from the horses' mouth. They wanted history to be written as it should be. You thought you knew everything and you were happy.

Then someone thought that a lie oft repeated becomes the truth. They succeeded in hoodwinking a whole nation to toe the line. Then it was exposed. You thought the truth will always prevail. Goodness is superior to the dark forces of lie and falsity. How naïve you were!

Surprise surprise. The news that you have been ingesting, that you thought not to be anything else but the gospel truth, starts receiving brickbats. People say that their news is skewed to fulfil their paymasters' political agendas. It turns out to be lopsidedly favouring one party over the other. They say their news is fake!

Then yet party decided to churn out news which they claim to be the honest truth only to be debunked by their opponents who claim that the news to trash the fake news to also fake as it turns out. You, as a consumer, stay confused, deciding to mind your business and convince yourself that you are in the age of propaganda. And you are let as confused, not any wiser or smarter than you were before! You only know what others want you to know.

We must be darn rich!

Curi-curi Malaysia (2017)

Stories behind the stories

Author: R Nadeswaran

We had the first taste of the product of years of national neglect in critical thinking after the MH370 debacle. We cringed every time a local journalist asked questions during the daily press conference. Their questions appeared so scripted. It looked as if they were told to ask questions that the politicians wanted to tell the world. The difficult questions were asked by the foreign correspondents, to which, the powers-that-be chose not to answer under the cloak of not wanting to jeopardise the then on-going investigations. Sadly, investigations have ended but we are still felt in the dark about the whereabouts of the plane and the passengers of the ill-fated flight. Citizen Nades (@R Nadeswaran) belongs to that type of reporters who ask the incisive questions that get leaders hot under their collars.

This book is a collection of the many expose' carried out by this favourite Malaysian journalist extraordinaire. It is a very depressing account of all the monies from the national coffers that have been going the gutter over the years, carried out under the very noses of the people who were given the mandate to lead the nation. Looking at the various mishandling of funds, it can only be concluded that we are indeed a very rich country.

The feverish spending by the tourism ministry with nothing to show but lavish entertainment bills, failed restaurant businesses with unaccounted expenses, failed centralised taxi venture, the elusive Sport Training facility in Brickendonberry, a shady flower show in Chelsea that did nothing to showcase our national flora and flora are some of the unanswered questions put forward by the author. The modus operandi in most cases is the same. There would be big plans to built or buy something. On paper, everything would look just dandy. National pride and need to showcase what we have to the world would be the persuasive rhetoric. Then the big built up to the launch. Soon everything would turn pear shaped and fingers would start waggling. Things would be swept under carpet, and soon the whole enterprise would be sold again at an exorbitant loss to the national treasury, no skin off the perpetrators. It works all the time and we, as a nation, like what an ex-PM said, 'easily forget!'

Over at the local front, again, a front is put forward with an ambitious plan to educate our future generations about the local fauna and flora via the Paya Indah Wetlands. After so many years, nothing came of it and the companies entrusted to develop it have gone bust.

Citizen Nades is also credited for discrediting the Selangor State Government on the extravagance of the then Chief Minister, Dr Khir Toyo, and a local 'taiko' turned assemblyman who misused his powers to obtain approvals for businesses and land permits.

In some cases, Nades can be self-assured that justice was meted but in most, the jury is still out. Perhaps, the works done by civic-minded people like him would eventually pay off in the long run. Only time will tell. Anyway, that is the hallmark of a civil society - to tell one's shortcomings, rectify the system, insert check and balances and hope that it would bring the whole nation to greater heights in the future.

Today's news, tomorrow's thrash!

Ace in the Hole (a.k.a The Big Carnival; 1951)
Director: Billy Wilder

This must be one of the first movies that take a swipe at the evil of the media and the way they exploit the situation with only one intention on their mind, for financial gains. That is all. The apparent concern and empathy is all just show. Even though the media helps to showcase to the world, it has its own personal agenda. Put in Kirk Douglas, a smirk journalist with an attitude problem and some punchy line and you have it- a blockbuster which is eternally carved in the annals of time as a great film.

Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas), lands in an Albuquerque newspaper office after thrown out disgracefully of many papers back in the East. He is dreaming of a break which would put him at par with a Pulitzer winner. He dreams on.

He is sent to cover a rattlesnake show. En route to the venue, at a stopover for petrol, Chuck and his rookie photographer hear about a cave-in at an Indian reservation site. The owner of the petrol station, Leo, is trapped. The reservation area is filled with stories of curse and superstitions. Grabbing their chance,  Chuck and his assistant report the story and hog the headlines for the next few days. They manage to garner the attention of people from miles away.
Leo's wife, Lorraine, is a bored ex-waitress at a nightclub joint which is tied down by an unfulfilling marriage. She cannot wait to scoot off from all these and be in the midst of the bright of the city once again. She thinks that this is her chance, but Chuck talks her into staying put and act as an anxious wife at least for the media.

As Leo lays trapped in ruins, the popularity of the run-down town soars.
A corrupt power crazy Sheriff uses this opportunity to improve his chances for re-election. Actually, the idea was given by Chuck!

Lorraine is not complaining either. Her small cafe had not ever seen so much business. Somebody even starts collecting money at the reservation site. Scores of busloads and trainloads of people join in the fracas while Leo stays trapped and is slowly dying. Even the circus comes to town! A rescue fund is launched.

On the sly, Chuck gets exclusive rights to visit Leo in the cave and the rights to the story. He holds his office at ransom and throws his weight around. To drag on the story, he manages to convince the unsure rescue worker the longer way to get the victim, just so that the rescue mission and the story stays on longer!
As the story goes on and Leo's life is in a limbo hanging by a thread, he sees the love that Leo has for his wife and how his wife does not care a damn about him. Chuck realises his own mistake and tries to make amends...

A gripping tale which was based on real events.
The lesson that one can learn at the end is that no one actually cares what turns out for others. All they are interested in is their own agenda. And churning money and making a business out of everything in spite of your misery while appearing to sympathise and empathise to your predicament. Beware, it may be fake. People who seem too good to be true may not just be!

Quotable quote...
It's a good story today. Tomorrow, it'll be yesterday's news and they'll wrap a fish in it.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Who killed Jean Perera Sinappa?

Dokumentari : Jean Perera The Beauty Queen Murder 

http://www.finas.gov.my/index.phpmod=vgallery&sub=video&category=5&album=25

Why I Killed Gandhi

http://www.sanskritimagazine.com/india/why-i-killed-gandhi/

By Sanskriti on February 2, 2014

Nathuram Godse’s Final Address to the Court

Nathuram Godse was arrested immediately after he assassinated Gandhiji, based on a F. I. R. filed by Nandlal Mehta at the Tughlak Road Police station at Delhi . The trial, which was held in camera, began on May 27, 1948 and concluded on February 10, 1949. He was sentenced to death. 

An appeal to the Punjab High Court, then in session at Simla, did not find favour and the sentence was upheld. The statement that you are about to read is the last made by Godse before the Court on the May 5, 1949.

Such was the power and eloquence of this statement that one of the judges, G. D. Khosla, later wrote, “I have, however, no doubt that had the audience of that day been constituted into a jury and entrusted with the task of deciding Godse’s appeal, they would have brought a verdict of ‘not Guilty’ by an overwhelming majority”

WHY I KILLED GANDHI

Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joined RSS wing of anti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus were of equal status as to rights, social and religious and should be considered high or low on merit alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste or profession.

I used publicly to take part in organized anti-caste dinners in which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars and Bhangis participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company of each other. I have read the speeches and writings of Ravana, Chanakiya, Dadabhai Naoroji, Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of India and some prominent countries like England , France , America and Russia . Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism and Marxism. But above all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed more to the molding of the thought and action of the Indian people during the last thirty years or so, than any other single factor has done.

All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my first duty to serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen. To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (300 million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and the well-being of all India , one fifth of human race. This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sanghtanist ideology and programme, which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve the national independence of Hindustan , my Motherland, and enable her to render true service to humanity as well.

Since the year 1920, that is, after the demise of Lokamanya Tilak, Gandhiji’s influence in the Congress first increased and then became supreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in their intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence which he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible or enlightened person could object to those slogans. In fact there is nothing new or original in them.. They are implicit in every constitutional public movement. But it is nothing but a mere dream if you imagine that the bulk of mankind is, or can ever become, capable of scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day.

In fact, honour, duty and love of one’s own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and, if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. [In the Ramayana] Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita.. [In the Mahabharata], Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and relations including the revered Bhishma because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human action.

In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India . It was absolutely essentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. In condemning history’s towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his self-conceit. He was, paradoxical as it may appear, a violent pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen for ever for the freedom they brought to them.

The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very good in South Africa to uphold the rights and well-being of the Indian community there. But when he finally returned to India he developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry on his own way.

Against such an attitude there can be no halfway house. Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to be content with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision, or it had to carry on without him. He alone was the Judge of everyone and every thing; he was the master brain guiding the civil disobedience movement; no other could know the technique of that movement. He alone knew when to begin and when to withdraw it. The movement might succeed or fail, it might bring untold disaster and political reverses but that could make no difference to the Mahatma’s infallibility. ‘A Satyagrahi can never fail’ was his formula for declaring his own infallibility and nobody except himself knew what a Satyagrahi is. Thus, the Mahatma became the judge and jury in his own cause. These childish insanities and obstinacies, coupled with a most severe austerity of life, ceaseless work and lofty character made Gandhi formidable and irresistible.

Many people thought that his politics were irrational but they had either to withdraw from the Congress or place their intelligence at his feet to do with as he liked. In a position of such absolute irresponsibility Gandhi was guilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, disaster after disaster. Gandhi’s pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in his perverse attitude on the question of the national language of India . It is quite obvious that Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted as the premier language. In the beginning of his career in India , Gandhi gave a great impetus to Hindi but as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a champion of what is called Hindustani.. Everybody in India knows that there is no language called Hindustani; it has no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect, it is spoken, but not written. It is a bastard tongue and cross-breed between Hindi and Urdu, and not even the Mahatma’s sophistry could make it popular. But in his desire to please the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani alone should be the national language of India . His blind followers, of course, supported him and the so-called hybrid language began to be used. The charm and purity of the Hindi language was to be prostituted to please the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense of the Hindus.

From August 1946 onwards the private armies of the Muslim League began a massacre of the Hindus. The then Viceroy, Lord Wavell, though distressed at what was happening, would not use his powers under the Government of India Act of 1935 to prevent the rape, murder and arson. The Hindu blood began to flow from Bengal to Karachi with some retaliation by the Hindus. The Interim Government formed in September was sabotaged by its Muslim League members right from its inception, but the more they became disloyal and treasonable to the government of which they were a part, the greater was Gandhi’s infatuation for them. Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bring about a settlement and he was succeeded by Lord Mountbatten. King Log was followed by King Stork. The Congress which had boasted of its nationalism and socialism secretly accepted Pakistan literally at the point of the bayonet and abjectly surrendered to Jinnah. India was vivisected and one-third of the Indian territory became foreign land to us from August 15, 1947.

Lord Mountbatten came to be described in Congress circles as the greatest Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had. The official date for handing over power was fixed for June 30, 1948, but Mountbatten with his ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisected India ten months in advance. This is what Gandhi had achieved after thirty years of undisputed dictatorship and this is what Congress party calls ‘freedom’ and ‘peaceful transfer of power’. The Hindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state was established with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they have called ‘freedom won by them with sacrifice’ – whose sacrifice? When top leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country – which we consider a deity of worship – my mind was filled with direful anger.

One of the conditions imposed by Gandhi for his breaking of the fast unto death related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Hindu refugees. But when Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to violent attacks he did not so much as utter a single word to protest and censure the Pakistan Government or the Muslims concerned. Gandhi was shrewd enough to know that while undertaking a fast unto death, had he imposed for its break some condition on the Muslims in Pakistan , there would have been found hardly any Muslims who could have shown some grief if the fast had ended in his death. It was for this reason that he purposely avoided imposing any condition on the Muslims. He was fully aware of from the experience that Jinnah was not at all perturbed or influenced by his fast and the Muslim League hardly attached any value to the inner voice of Gandhi.

Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so, he had failed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled before Jinnah’s iron will and proved to be powerless. Briefly speaking, I thought to myself and foresaw I shall be totally ruined, and the only thing I could expect from the people would be nothing but hatred and that I shall have lost all my honour, even more valuable than my life, if I were to kill Gandhiji. But at the same time I felt that the Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be proved practical, able to retaliate, and would be powerful with armed forces. No doubt, my own future would be totally ruined, but the nation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan . People may even call me and dub me as devoid of any sense or foolish, but the nation would be free to follow the course founded on the reason which I consider to be necessary for sound nation-building.

After having fully considered the question, I took the final decision in the matter, but I did not speak about it to anyone whatsoever. I took courage in both my hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, on the prayer-grounds of Birla House. I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus. There was no legal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book and for this reason I fired those fatal shots. I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but I do say that I had no respect for the present government owing to their policy which was unfairly favourable towards the Muslims. But at the same time I could clearly see that the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi.

I have to say with great regret that Prime Minister Nehru quite forgets that his preachings and deeds are at times at variances with each other when he talks about India as a secular state in season and out of season, because it is significant to note that Nehru has played a leading role in the establishment of the theocratic state of Pakistan, and his job was made easier by Gandhi’s persistent policy of appeasement towards the Muslims. I now stand before the court to accept the full share of my responsibility for what I have done and the judge would, of course, pass against me such orders of sentence as may be considered proper. But I would like to add that I do not desire any mercy to be shown to me, nor do I wish that anyone else should beg for mercy on my behalf. My confidence about the moral side of my action has not been shaken even by the criticism levelled against it on all sides. I have no doubt that honest writers of history will weigh my act and find the true value thereof some day in future.

Rifle Range Flats

http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Community/2013/11/23/The-first-lowcost-highrise-flats-built-in-the-country-were-in-Penang.aspx

Community

Published: Saturday November 23, 2013 MYT 12:00:00 AM
Updated: Saturday November 23, 2013 MYT 12:01:14 PM

The first low-cost high-rise flats built in the country were in Penang

BY WONG CHUN WAI

Big complex: There are nine blocks spread over 16.7ha with 3,888 units

THE Rifle Range Flats is one of the most densely populated areas in Penang.
Penangites can tell you if you choose to park your car near the flats in the evening, the chances of your car being blocked by other cars is almost 100%.
The likelihood is that the unsuspecting motorist would never be able to get his stuck vehicle out.
The best way would be to return in the morning when the other cars have left.
That’s how sardine-packed the area is.
The almost non-existent parking bays at the flats is simply because the architects of the country’s first high-rise, low cost flats never imagined that the dwellers would be able to afford a car as low-wage earners.
They probably never believed that the living standards of Penangites living at the mostly single-room flats, would improve.

Close to the shops: There are a large number of hawkers, coffee shops and even a wet market on the ground floor of the flats.

According to blogger Lim Thian Leong, there are nine blocks of 17-storey buildings within an area of 16.7ha, with every floor consisting of 20 units of single bedrooms and four two bedroom units.
With a total of 3,888 units within the flats, the average size of a unit is merely 340 sq ft!
It is not unusual for the rest of the family members to sleep in the living room while the parents take up the only room in the flat.
Because of its high density, the flats remain a politician’s delight, or nightmare, depending on the crowds you can command come election time.
Almost all the big guns (pun intended) show up at Rifle Range during the last leg of the campaign.
Rifle Range Road or Jalan Padang Tembak is one of the main roads connecting Air Itam and George Town.
Popularly known as pak cheng poh, in Hokkein, is so named because the area used to be a shooting range, according to writer-photographer Timothy Lye.
“It was once an open space used as a shooting range by the police and the military.
“The namesake shooting range located next to the Batu Gantong Cemetery made way for the low-cost flats,” he wrote.
The flats were built by the late Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu when the then opposition Gerakan party swept into power in 1969.
Through the Penang Development Corporation, the Rifle Range flats, designed by a German firm, was built.
Faced with the problems of housing needs for the poor, more flats were then constructed in other areas.
When he took over Penang, unemployment was running at 16% but he created plenty of jobs through the setting up of the Penang Free Trade Zone in Bayan Lepas.

Taking a breather: A motorcyclist resting on his motorcycle on the ground floor of the flats.

But according to Farouk Gulsara, in his blog posting, in 1964, the national Ministry of Housing and Local Government had already identified two pilot projects in order to try out the industrialised building or prefabrication system (known as IBS).
The first of these projects was in Kuala Lumpur along Jalan Tun Razak (Jalan Pekeliling).
The second pilot project was set in Penang, consisting the construction of six blocks of 17-storey flats and three blocks of 18-storey flats comprising 3,699 units and 66 shop lots along Rifle Range Road.
“The project in Penang was awarded to Hochtief/Chee Seng using the French Estiot System and took 27 months to complete, inclusive of the time taken in setting up the precast factories.
“When Rifle Range Flats were completed in the early 1970s, they were the tallest buildings in Penang.
“None of the units were big ‑ on average they were approximately 36 sq m for intermediate one bedroom units and 38.7 sq m. for two bedroom end units.
“Nonetheless, they provided housing for many hardcore poor. “
The Rifle Range Flats area where Dr Lim chose as a site for the construction of the buildings was not the more preferred choice for residence.
Located next to the Batu Gantong cemetery, it is said that the ground where the flats now stands used to be the burial plot for the mass burying of those massacred by the Japanese during the Occupation.
As a child growing up in nearby Jalan Kampung Melayu, I used to cycle to the flats to meet up with friends.

Spot of colour: A resident walking by a unit where the owner decided to add some colour to the home.

Even in the late 1970s, there were still cow herds along Boundary Road, which I had to cycle past to reach Rifle Range.
News reports of residents jumping to their death, or more precisely, committing suicide, were regular and when I finally joined The Star as a reporter in the 1980s, the suicides still did not stop, with residents often bringing up stories of those who were buried underneath!
The suicides there were the subject of a book by anthropologist Jean Elizabeth De Bernardi The Way That Lives in the Hearts: Chinese Popular Spirits and Mediumswhere a medium purportedly claimed that the spirits had to take away 16 lives although at the time of research, there were already 20 victims.
Her cynical research assistant concluded that it was more likely that the victims had taken their lives because they had no work or money.
But less talked about is actually the large number of hawkers and coffeeshops, located at the ground floors of the flats.
There is also a wet market nearby.
As a child, my brother Wong Chun Fong, and I would to go the market every Saturday morning to buy the economy fried bee hoon and the Penang style pan cake, ban chang kuih, made from flour and sprinkled with sugar and groundnuts.
Nothing much has really changed in Rifle Range Flats today.
There would likely be new occupants, as those who have fared better in their lives moved out.
It has remained crowded with a host of social problems from drugs, thefts to gangsterism but the majority of the people are law-abiding, helpful and friendly people.
Despite the density of the area, Rifle Range has remained home to thousands and thousands of Penangites.