A daring investigative journalism

Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover-Up (2016)

Author: Rana Ayyub

On one hand, she is celebrated as an exceptional journalist at the Washington Post and has received numerous awards for her courageous reporting of breaking news. On the other hand, she is labelled public enemy number one. The Indian courts accuse her of insulting Hindu deities and inciting racial discord, and there is even an ongoing trial concerning the misappropriation of public funds.

For background information, the cover-up in Gujarat referenced in the book pertains to the events that followed the Godhra train burning incident in 2002. In February 2002, 59 Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya lost their lives in a train blaze. Multiple commissions failed to ascertain the true cause of the disaster. The Mehta-Nanavati report was employed to convict 31 Muslims for the train burning.

Communal riots erupted shortly after the fire. For years, the then Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, and his party members faced allegations of orchestrating the riots. Repeated election victories seemed to strengthen public confidence in Modi's non-involvement. Nevertheless, the Western media continued their efforts to undermine Modi and the BJP's reputation, often disparaging them before major general elections through publications such as the BBC and its affiliates.

Following the riot, the police initiated a wave of arrests, and several high-profile police staged encounters occurred in Gujarat between 2003 and 2006. Rumours spread that these deaths were orchestrated by right-wing politicians, specifically Modi and Amit Shah. At one point, Amit Shah was also apprehended for his involvement in the staged encounters.

For approximately eight months, from 2010 to 2011, Rana Ayyub, who was then employed by Tehelka, went undercover as an American documentary maker. She adopted a fictitious Hindu name, Mthali Tyagi, complete with Sanskrit credentials. Accompanied by her purported cameraman, a 19-year-old French student named Mike, she conducted a sinister mission to interview various figures directly involved in the notorious fake encounters, employing her camera and, later, a concealed recording device when they wished to speak off the record.

With her charisma and the Indian public's susceptibility to foreigners, NRIs, and "goras", Ayyub successfully obtained recommendations by conducting counter-references to interview high-ranking police officers, intelligence officers, anti-terrorist squad personnel, former MPs, and even former Commissioners of Police in succession. Many of the interviewees have since retired, and while some were initially somewhat hesitant to open up, they eventually relented.

Rana Ayyub
https://tcij.org/person/rana-ayyub/

Through her research, she uncovers a significant amount of misconduct within the police force. Some individuals were conscientious and performed their duties diligently, without fear or favour. Nevertheless, a culture of subservience to both superiors and politicians prevailed. Rana suggested that police officers exhibited discrimination against their peers from lower castes. The extra-judicial killings carried out under the guise of police encounters were executed with indifference, according to her. Rana Ayyub, in so many words, implies that Modi is the mastermind behind the unrest in Gujarat, with Amit Shah as his trusted aide who carries out all his orders.

As her sting operation draws to a close, Rana Ayyub manages to secure an interview with Narendra Modi himself. However, the book concludes abruptly afterwards, leaving the outcome of the interview unexplored.

Ayyub's audacious attempt to uncover the root of the unrest in Gujarat raises ethical questions about such an operation. Betraying people's trust, exploiting their vulnerability, and inserting oneself into their lives under a false persona may not be moral. However, individuals are unlikely to volunteer information without prompting. This encapsulates the essence of investigative journalism; one cannot solely rely on official statements.

Whatever Ayyub attempted to unleash has evidently yielded no results. As time has shown, Modi must be doing something right. The BJP's successive victories in elections, its popularity, the current state of the economy, and the general mood of its citizens suggest that India is on the right trajectory. One must consider the broader context. However, checks and balances remain essential. 

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

Anything and everything is possible!

Vanvaas (Exile, Hindi; 2024)

Director, Screenplay, Producer: Anil Sharma

Zee5 global

I was watching this Hindi film with my wife. It was a melodramatic production in true Bollywood style, driven by filial piety or at least making children feel extremely guilty for not housing or caring for their parents. Sending elderly parents to specialised institutions to cater to their specific needs has never been part of any Indian dictionary. 

The aged father, a widower who still lives in the memory of his deceased wife, suffers from worsening amnesia. Despite his physical limitations, he remains a proud man with his own ways of doing things, often caustic with his words. He has done well for himself, having built a beautiful house and acquired other properties. He lives with his three adult children, their respective wives, and children. 

The father remains resolute in his role as the head of the extended family and makes vital family decisions. Likely due to their upbringing, the sons keep silent regarding the father's tantrums and peculiarities. The wives consistently voice their complaints about the father's antics, yet no one is willing to budge. 

So, when the family made a pilgrimage to Varanasi, the six adults decided to lose their father in the crowd. Without his amnesia medication, they thought he would be unable to communicate with passers-by and would not find his way back, ultimately fading away.

Just so you know, there are options for end-of-life care in Varanasi. Facilities exist for individuals diagnosed with terminal illnesses to spend their remaining days in that town, be cremated, and have their ashes immersed in the Ganga River afterwards. After all, the Kashi-Visvanath temple there is believed to be the abode of Lord Shiva. Spending one's remaining time in His presence would make perfect sense. 

In true poetic justice, the father is eventually returned to his family home by the compassionate vagabonds of Varanasi. The children had already sold their family home and were in the process of liquidating another property. 

My wife, still convinced that goodness is very much alive and flourishing on Earth, refuses to believe that any child would possess the gumption to essentially ‘kill off a parent'. In a group of six children, none would ever agree to stoop so low as to bite the hand that brought them into the world. She maintains that the plot is one-dimensional and strays significantly from reality. 

We are aware of the numerous social experiments and observations that clearly demonstrate human behaviour to be highly erratic. Hannah Arendt's insights during the Nuremberg Trials have highlighted the banality of evil in civil service, which extended into warfare. Closer to home, a Malaysian conglomerate concealed child abuse and money laundering beneath the facade of a flourishing global Islamic business model.

The Stanford experiments have demonstrated how readily humans fit comfortably into their assigned duties and soon become oblivious to their nefarious actions in the name of executing their responsibilities. Even regarding our own flesh and blood, evidence of fratricide is plentiful. Siblings once killed each other for the coveted throne; now, they murder one another for the familial loom.

Human history has made anything possible. However, civilisational progress and the imposition of values through religion and legislation mean little when people are desperate.

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

Mushroom cloud in peacetime?

Like clockwork, not even dust had settled after the Earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale hit Myanmar; numerous announcements have emerged over the new social media outlets of well-meaning organisations offering services to collect donations for its victims. 

We have had all these so many times before. The earliest of these must surely be the Great Tsunami of Boxing Day 2004, which measured 9.1. The world saw a plethora of bodies going hyperdrive, bending backwards, trying to extract money from the well-meaning but unassumingly naive public. The collection, it seemed, was quite overwhelming. Ten years down the line, a documentary was made about the towns hit by the tsunami. It revealed that only one pledged housing project saw living daylight amongst all the broken promises; that too by the personal effort by an individual, the world-famous singer Ricky Martin.

The same thing happened in Haiti following its devastating 2010 hurricane. The Clinton Foundation jumped in to help its victims and help the island nation get back on its feet. Ten years after the storm, an assessment revealed no sustained improvement to its infrastructure. The only viable projects that seem to have been successfully developed were those that benefited the Foundation and the local cronies.

The latest donation drive to hit the nation is to help the victims of the recent Putra Heights gas pipe explosion. Even though footage coming out of the disaster area is scary, so far, no deaths have been reported; only property damage and bodily injuries have been reported. 

A third-person account provides scant information about the event. Firstly, very few Malaysians knew that we had a methane gas pipe gridline running under or near our houses. We had thought this only happened in Western countries. The line was apparently for industrial purposes. 

As in the case of MH370, the head does not know what the tail is doing. At least, that is the impression I get listening to the official press release of the committee appointed to investigate the disaster. The appointees of the sc-called panel expert to investigate the mishap remain opaque. Their representative does not exude brilliance or confidence that every rock will be turned to reveal the truth. I wonder if the services of academics were called for to get to the root of the explosion. Maybe everyone in power wants the whole fiasco to remain an unsolvable enigma so that none of their shenanigans in cutting corners does not come into the open.   The pressmen at the press meet were no better. Forget investigative journalism; they did not even ask the right questions. Instead of hurling difficult questions at the officious, they squawk random and meaningless questions that a primary student would squeal just to please his teacher.

One netizen pointed out that a leading political party started a donation drive to help the victims. Unfortunately, he also noticed that the given account was that of the political party, not a dedicated account set up for relief.

There are many examples of charity foundation abuse. A charity in the UK started during COVID-19 by the relatives of a 90-something war veteran who wanted to record his progress in recovering from a hip fracture. People were smitten by this nonagenarian, and they donated to his Captain Tom Foundation in droves. Soon, its assets became enormous, so enormous that unnecessary maintenance started showing up in its accounts. The veteran also wrote an autobiography, the proceeds of which went into charity but were taken out for personal use. Long story short, the old man died, The Captain Tom Foundation was investigated, and his daughter Hannah and her husband, who initially helped to establish the charity, were found to have benefitted from its mismanagement and blurring of private and charitable interests. The foundation is now defunct.

A mushroom cloud in peacetime

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Extraordinarily Simple!

Marty (1955)

Director: Dilbert Mann

https://boredanddangerousblog.wordpress.com/
2016/05/24/movie-review-marty-1955/

Ernest Borgnine was a regular fixture during my terrestrial TV days growing up. He often played the villain in numerous Western films and portrayed a tough soldier in combat movies. The last I recall watching him, he was a smiling, gap-toothed, confident character in ‘Airwolf’.

The 1950s saw Borgnine thrive in Hollywood; however, his opportunities to appear as a leading man sadly diminished as he began to gain weight in the middle and lose it at the top. Then came the audition for ‘Marty’, and he was cast as the hero. 

The 1950s also witnessed movie moguls amassing fortunes from their productions. Simultaneously, tax authorities were hot on their trail, occasionally imposing charges on megastars of up to 94% if they earned more than $ 200,000. Consequently, many looked for loopholes to avoid taxes. Some worked less, while others established shell companies for dubious ventures. 

Burt Lancaster, a self-made man, had precisely that on his mind when he ventured alongside his agent, Harold Hect, to adapt a TV play into a feature film. No one was optimistic that such a monochrome endeavour with a mundane story about an elderly man searching for a wife would make an impact at the box office. This was during a period when studios were thriving with their extravagant films featuring biblical narratives, lavish sets, and vibrant, colourful scenes. 

Lancaster and Hect wanted the film to fail. They did not want it completed; rather, they sought to write it off as a loss.

 

However, the tax authorities were shrewder. They ruled that films must be finished and screened at least once to be considered a failure. Consequently, the producers had no option but to show it in a single cinema in New York with very little publicity. 

The film, largely shot outdoors around New York, attracted the local populace to the cinema. Before long, people were queuing down the block for tickets. Someone decided to send it to Cannes as America’s representative. Hollywood had never won anything at Cannes prior to that. Lo and behold, Marty won the 1955 Palme d’Or, and the rest is history. At the Oscars, it went on to win four Academy Awards, including one for Ernest Borgnine. 

 

Marty became extraordinary due to its simplicity. The storyline resonated with the times when turning 29 made a woman an old maid, a 35-year-old man old, and family values were a high priority. The conversations were mundane and self-deprecating, intensifying the emotional depth of the characters and drawing us closer to their daily lives than in the mid-1950s.

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

So much for women empowerment

Suzhal 2: The Vortex
Season 2, 8 episodes

https://www.indiatoday.in/entertainment/ott/story/
suzhal-the-vortex-season-2-trailer-kathir-takes-on-
gripping-murder-mystery-with-aishwarya-rajesh-
2682271-2025-02-19

This is not a continuation of the previous season, even though the main characters resume their roles, but with a new mystery to solve. While the accused remains behind bars awaiting trial, her defence lawyer, a vocal activist, is shot in the head. While the police are investigating along the lines of suicide, new evidence emerges indicating that the lawyer must be part of a paedophile ring racket. Just then, eight young teenage college girls turn up at various police stations, admitting to having killed the lawyer.

In the background is a month-long local temple celebration honouring eight local deities. At the temple, the activist lawyer, a devout believer, had stopped some toes when running the temple celebrations. 

Further investigations suggest that a well-executed kidnapping and transport of young girls to international waters using local fishing boats may indeed be occurring. Additionally, the unhealthy liaison of a school principal with this entire affair adds intrigue. It is quite an interesting series, filled with plot twists, mind-boggling dead ends, and infectious emotions, set against a backdrop of symbolism that venerates the feminine power of the Universe, namely Amman/Sakti.

It is perhaps quite startling to see that in a country which worships feminine powers and has millions of temples in her honour, some of the members of the society treat their female counterparts. Even ancient Indian history abounds with tales of brave female consorts and queens who led armies against invaders. Literature is aplenty with the works of female writers and thinkers. In contemporary times, the brutal rape-killings of young women do not speak much of their civilisational development. And the existence of colonies, infamous centres of flesh trade in most big cities targeting impoverished females, is nothing to be proud of.

https://www.riflerangeboy.com/2022/07/like-whirlwind-story-swirls.html

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

Psychological noir thriller!

Level Cross (Malayalam; 2024)
Director: Arfaz Ayub

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27328373/

Thanks, SD, again, for the recommendation. 

This time around, it is a mind-bending psychological noir thriller quite atypical of what is often seen in most Indian movies. Minus the psychedelic multiple eye-catching costumes, ornaments and landscape, we land ourselves in a monochromatic desert-like location. It is set in a God-forsaken train crossing quite far from human civilisation. The gate at the crossing is manned by a single individual who stays in his quarters just by its side. There is no human contact for miles and miles away. His only conversation with the outside world is the phone call announcing the passing of the next train. Conversations on the telephone can only be made one way. The only excitement around there was the sound of the speeding train.

One day, he finds a pretty unconscious woman in the form of Amala Paul stranded near the crossing, apparently after falling off a moving train. So starts a human interaction for this gatekeeper in years. He carries the lady to his quarters. She comes around to narrate her sob story. She used to be a psychiatrist who fell in love with her patient. After marriage, she found him to be a cocaine-snorting abusive husband who had killed his first wife. According to her, she jumped off the train to escape her husband's tyranny.

The sympathetic guard promises to protect her. When a call announces the next train, the lady forbids him from asking someone to help her reach civilisation.

The lady then discovers, while cleaning the quarters, some newspaper clippings of a mass murderer and another railway ID card with the guard's name but a different face. The lady puts two and two together and concludes that the guard is the mass murderer and has assumed the name of the real guard that he must have killed. She suddenly starts seeing him from the angle that she could be his next victim.  

femme fatale in red hue?

The following day, as the lady sets off to fetch water from a distant well, the husband appears at the doorstep, inquiring about his missing wife. He provides a contradictory account of the earlier story. The wife is the one suffering from mental illness, exhibiting violent behaviour and battling drug addiction. He is simply taking her to another town for treatment. 

The guard tries to get rid of the husband but fails. The husband sees his wife's garment.

Next is a three-way showdown to determine who will come out on top. It was 'game theory' on full display. Who is telling the truth, and who are the mad killer(s)?

This tense, high-strung thriller is reminiscent of a western film where life is cheap, or a scene in 'The Deer Hunter’ where American prisoners are forced to play Russian roulette. A good film, sans masala, draws the audience to the edge of their seats.

P.S. The movie was shot in Tunisia, hence the desert-like background in the movie, not Rajasthan.

Best film quote:  "God doesn't care about us anymore!"

Could have done better?

Adolescence (2025)
Miniseries (4 episodes)

https://kinocheck.com/show/s23/adolescence

This miniseries has everyone buzzing. It is likely regarded as the most surreal creation to grace screens since 16-year-old Linda Blair portrayed Regan MacNeil in the 1973 film, The Exorcist. This is Netflix's latest blockbuster offering. The subject matter is undeniably dark, involving a 13-year-old student murdering a fellow female student as a result of cyberbullying. 

The miniseries features the filming of each episode in a single shot. While it may feel sluggish at times, this approach enhances the story's immersion as the case unfolds.

The essence of the story begins with a police raid to apprehend a teenager suspected of murdering another teenager. From that moment, it evolves into a police procedural drama as the legal system processes the accused. It showcases the overwhelming emotions experienced by everyone involved: the police officers, the supportive staff, the lawyer, the social worker, and the psychologists. For most of them, it is their first encounter with a young person embroiled in such a heinous crime. This situation is a devastating blow to the accused's parents and sister, who struggle to comprehend the idea that their beloved son could commit such an act.

As the series progresses, we learn more about the family dynamics and the atmosphere within the school. Much has changed since our own school days. Children now possess a private portal to the outside world, a realm filled with malevolence and deceit that threatens to ruin their futures. No matter how much strict discipline and guidance are instilled in them, they lead lives of their own. Cyberspace offers a secluded environment where anything goes. The thin line separating decency from insanity becomes increasingly blurred. What was once considered taboo has now gone mainstream. Children are vulnerable; they possess the illusion of agency and believe they can make their own choices. They misuse privacy for all the wrong reasons, constructing an impenetrable barrier around themselves. The adults' words of wisdom can sound harsh, digging them deeper into the abyss. With alien neologisms like incel (involuntary celibacy) culture, the manosphere featuring harmful gender ideologies, and themes such as the '80-20 rule', schoolchildren are lost in their quagmire of finding a place in their universe.

When the proverbial excrement hits the fan, everyone will be in for a shock. They will ask, "How did our innocent little child transform into such a monster?" Parents will start to question where they went wrong. Could they have done better? These parents faced greater hardships from their own upbringing and external pressures, yet they turned out fine. Why can't their offspring, with all the modern conveniences at their disposal, manage to be resilient and not easily triggered? No one seems to understand.