Monday 18 November, 2013

India: More than Bollywood and Batsmen

TONY JONES: Good evening and Namaste. This is Q&A live from the kingdom of dreams in Gurgaon, south of the Indian capital, New Delhi. Im Tony Jones and answering your questions tonight: India's best known television interviewer Karan Thapar; former diplomat, author and now Minister for State for Human Resources Development Shashi Tharoor; Australian-born Bollywood star Pallavi Sharda; the managing editor of Indias leading investigative magazine Shoma Chaudhury; outspoken conservative commentator Swapan Dasgupta; and former Australian Test cricketer Stuart MacGill. Please welcome our panel. Well, thank you and, as usual, we're being simulcast on ABC News 24, Australia Network and News Radio. But tonight we're also live across India on DD National, with the Indian public broadcaster Doordarshan, which has just launched a partnership with ABC International. Of course everyone watching in Australia and India can join the Twitter conversation using the #qanda that just appeared on your screen. Well, India and Australia share growing links in migration, trade, a history of British Empire and Commonwealth and a passion for cricket. But what does the future hold for these Indian Ocean neighbours? Tonight's Q&A brings together a distinguished panel of Indians and Australians to face live questions from the citizens of both countries. Our first question tonight is from Jasmeen Malhotra. JASMEEN MALHOTRA: (Indistinct) TONY JONES: We're not quite hearing you, Jasmeen. JASMEEN MALHOTRA: (Indistinct) TONY JONES: Right. Well just get another microphone to you, Jas meen. There we go. Let's try that one.

OZ & INDIAN STEREOTYPES00:01:47

JASMEEN MALHOTRA: Hello. As a person of Indian birth brought up in Australia, I often find that when I'm in Australia, I find myself defending Indians against the stereotype that they're all corrupt and theyre uncivilised and they have no respect for human dignity but when Im in India I find myself defending Australians against the stereotype that we're lazy and were immoral and were racist. Do you think that we will ever be able to look past these stereotypes and work towards a mutually beneficial and respectful partnership? TONY JONES: Pallavi, lets start with you. What do you think? PALLAVI SHARDA: Thanks, Tony. Jasmeen, I think I faced, you know, a similar conundrum to you. I was an Indian of Indian parentage but born in Australia and grew up there and I've now moved back to Mumbai, where I live and my whole life in Australia I felt that I was defending being Indian. For me specifically it was Indian culture. I was an Indian classical dancer and I found that no one really understood what it was that I did every two nights in a week. But I do think that things have changed in Australia, especially over the last five years. I think unfortunately what brought about the change was what happened in 2009, when I feel that there was a bit of misunderstanding between Australians and the incoming Indian students. But now, having gone back to Australia multiple times in the last four years, I feel an increase in communication occurring and, you know, changes that are happening because the political elements of Australia are making an effort to create understanding

about Indian culture in Australia that goes beyond the stereotype of curry and cricket. And having said that, in India I found myself defending myself as an Australian. And, you know, everyone thinks that Australia is made of racist bigots but that's not the case. Australia is not a homogenous group of people. People are very multiethnic. I grew up with Greeks, Italians, Lebanese people and I was always taught, despite some misunderstanding, to be proud of my Indian culture. So when I come here I find myself being a real ambassador for Australia but against some pressure. So its a tough call but I think things are improving. TONY JONES: Shashi Tharoor, what you I do think? SHASHI THAROOR: Well, I think all stereotypes are essentially about people's superficial knowledge of each other and the more you get to know people, the more those stereotypes get broken down into real people, real emotions, real feelings. I think whats interesting is that we have begun to discover Australia a lot more. The cricket field has certainly helped but beyond that there has been Bollywood discovering Australia, films being made there and we find that Australians are discovering India. Again the intermediary has been cricket. We've seen Steve Waugh going off and working with unfortunate ill children in parts of our country. We have seen a greater engagement. And with that has come a lot more political engagement. I think seven federal ministers and a whole clutch of state ministers have been to India in the last year from Australia and certainly Indians have been travelling to Australia as well. The contact at the governmental level has been excellent, at least with the previous government, and I'm sure it will be with the new one as well. So as we get to know each other better, stereotypes tend to disappear. TONY JONES: Shashi, let me ask you this: do you think the fact that so many Indians speak English means that we have been a little bit lazy in Australia about learning about Indian culture? SHASHI THAROOR: Well, its not that all of our culture is necessary accessible for English. I mean for Bollywood, of course, you don't need any language at all because our films are made to be understood, whether or not you understand whats actually being said in the dialogue. Theyre sort of all larger than life. But I think it's partly distance and partly Australia went through a phase of white Australia, theres no point denying that, during which Indians were, by and large, excluded. Some were slipped through the net. Its only really since the late '60s that Australia has embraced its own multiculturalism and thereby been interested in other Asian cultures. So I think to some degree you have made a move from where you were and we ourselves frankly - I mean weve had our sort of Eurasian community, the Anglo Indians as we call them, migrating to Australia from a long time back. I had classmates in school who went off to Australia. One even played hockey for Australia. But thereafter, the Indian rediscovery of Australia is again a more recent phenomenon. TONY JONES: Let me put it to Karan. Do you think about Australia at all? Do you have any kind of engagement with the Australian culture or Australian politics? KARAN THAPAR: You know, your question is a provocative one. Do I think about Australia at all? The honest answer is most of the time Im afraid I don't think about Australia. My contact with the outside world has really been on the other side of the planet with England, where I studied. But increasingly in the last two years I've visited your country. Ive grown to know it a little. I cant say I understand it completely. Ive grown to like it enormously and Ive begun to realise something else, that just as the stereotypes that applied in England to Indians in that country in the '70s when I first went there have broken down substantially and changed so too, with time understanding and an increasing interchange of people, the same will happen in Australia. And if you look back, four years ago there was a crisis in India when it seemed that Australian was turning racist. You were attacking Indian students and there was an enormous outrage in the Indian press. It transpired on investigation that some of the instances and incidents that had been brought up that were thought the most horrific

actually were things that Indians were doing to themselves. And it was misunderstood by us. That issue has completely disappeared. No one today, when they talk about Australia, would actually bring that to the forefront. It is true that Australia is still thought of by most Indians in terms of kangaroos and cricket but the great outdoors, the terrific holiday opportunity that you offer, uranium is something that we badly need, the increasing tourism between the two is going to, over a period of time, break down the stereotypes and lead to greater understanding and maybe... SHASHI THAROOR: And students. KARAN THAPAR: And students. SHASHI THAROOR: Students. KARAN THAPAR: And 10 years down the road, the position and the way in which you think of Indians, and we think of Australians will be more similar to what has happened to Indians in England today. TONY JONES: Lets hear from Shoma. What do you think? And the question really was about mutual stereotyping, wasnt it? I mean do you think both sides are guilty of this? SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Well, certainly I am guilty of it because when I think of Australians I do think of them being racist and thats not just because of what they've done to Indian students, you know which is the kind of media focus that we brought to it in India. But also I think of what Australians have done to their own Aboriginal communities and the fact that today the big political discourse is about the boat people and how Australians are absolutely catatonic with hysteria about letting in boat people into this country, which is made essentially of boat people, you know, and the fact that this is an immigrant country that has, you know - thats been made out of people fleeing their own home countries but is so hostile to others coming in now does make me feel that (indistinct)... TONY JONES: I'm going to have to throw that to Stuart MacGill as an Australian representative on the panel. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: And I have to say that I am somebody, perhaps the only person on this panel, who absolutely doesn't watch cricket but I do know from the kind of surround sound that when an Australian team is playing an Indian team, that there is usually a kind of hostility that is not true of other teams. TONY JONES: Well, he is a leg spinner, if that means anything to you, but we don't expect political spin from him. STUART MACGILL: Absolutely not and I think Tony has probably thrown to me because he heard me sort of giggling behind you, Shoma. I'm very, very sorry. The big thing for me is that I, unfortunately like a lot of Australians, have found politicians certainly focusing a lot on, you know, people arriving in Australia by illegal means but certainly my friends and - you know, I live in Sydney. Big city in Australia. Not the biggest comparatively of course around the world but we don't concern ourselves about that. We do have very, very strong feelings about human rights. We do welcome people from all races because it's not just, you know, cricket, kangaroos and uranium, as I've found out. We love our food, wine and cross-pollination of cultures as well. So I think it has definitely been a political issue but maybe not a real issue. TONY JONES: Let's hear from Swapan in the middle there. SWAPAN DASGUPTA: Well, you know, it is very easy to get very indignant about certain perceived

ills and I think no country in any sense is perfect and Australia, I think, and I really discovered Australia two years ago when I first went there. Its my only visit and the first thing that struck me about Australia was how large it was and its a sense that you don't get when you look at the map and you look at one sort of land mass tuck add way somewhere in the corner. It's huge. And given the fact that it's huge and the fact that it's so diverse, you go to Sydney or you go to Melbourne, the two cities I visited and I found they could be as cosmopolitan as anywhere else. Therefore to go on and on, harping about Australia and have a sort of what - I think one of your former prime ministers, John Howard, used to call the black band theory of history - you know, constantly apologising for ills, et cetera, I think it's beyond that. I think there is new Australia... TONY JONES: He would probably - John Howard would probably accuse Shoma of that (indistinct)... SWAPAN DASGUPTA: Yes. I think - well, I think that's quite true. You know, John Howard would sort of - would sort of think of Shoma as one of those who is responsible for the ills of the world, if not Australia. TONY JONES: We better let Shoma respond to that SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Yeah. No, you asked me if there is a stereotype and I said, yes, theres a stereotype. That's not necessarily what I personally feel; the entire spectrum of what I feel Australia. I mean I haven't visited - Im not as fortunate as Swapan but I have just visited Sydney and, yes, the physical beauty of the place strikes you, the cosmopolitanism of the cities strikes you and, as I said, this is a country thats absolutely made by people coming from the different corners of the globe. But as much as I would require first to be self-reflective, I'm sure Australians themselves want to be selfreflective of their ills and that we don't need to put a diplomatic bandage over that. TONY JONES: Im sure that is true. This is Q&A. Its live from India. We've been working with oursay.org and Graham Varney to recruit questioners from rural and regional India. Our next question is from Sonya from Tehri in Uttarakhand in the north of India. She sent her question as a voice mail. (INDIAN LANGUAGE VOICE MAIL PLAYED)

INDIAN STUDENTS00:12:00
TONY JONES: All right. Well, so for our English speakers Sonya asked: what has been done to protect the safety of Indian students in Australia. It is an important question, Pallavi. What do you say? PALLAVI SHARDA: I'm always first, aren't I, Tony? Look, I think that there was definitely a racket going on as far as the way education was being sold to Indians a few years ago and I think one of the important things to recognise is that Indian students were considered commodities. Education was considered an export and we were losing out on the human element of the fact that these are Indian people coming to live in our country and I think that since then and at the time, as Mr Thapar said, that perhaps the Indian media did sensationalise slightly what was happening in Australia but it brought to attention the fact that Indian students were disgruntled about the level of education they were receiving, about the attitudes of some of the local people and since then I have gone back and seen an increase in communication. Ive seen cultural events being put on by the Government of Victoria specifically, because I'm from Melbourne. I've seen - Ive seen dialogue happening on a community level, people getting together expressing what Diwali is about and I know those things seem tokenistic at first glance but I think that's the start of increased communication and over the years - my parents have been in Australia for 30 years, I was born there, and I think its be en an incredibly open place. If you want to communicate and talk about your culture, that's a very welcome thing.

TONY JONES: Shashi, what do you think: does the Government here believe that that episode is now behind us, really? SHASHI THAROOR: Oh, yes. In fact, even at the time we thought that the media hail was getting a little hysterical unnecessarily about it. There were incidents. We were concerned. Our embassy and our consulates were reacting on the spot, working with the state authorities, the local police, community organisations. But in terms of absolute numbers, I think there were a grand total of 23 incidents, of which seven involved serious injury and I think Australian diplomats were arguing that there were probably as many incidents in the same period of time involving Australian tourists in India that didn't get a fraction of the media attention. But the Indian Government was anxious that the Australian Government show themselves to be responsive, show themselves to be conscious that there is a problem and that they are taking action and they did and I think that after a while the media vultures moved onto the next prey and Australia has - you know, it lost a lot of Indian students for a year or two and then it slowly started climbing back up again. TONY JONES: Again, we here obviously from regional India there is still concerns out there but one of the interesting things, of course, is that the largest group of people migrating to Australia now are Indians? SHASHI THAROOR: Well, I mean, you know, I was Minister of State for External Affairs when all this was happening and I got lots of very anxious student delegations, student unions, parents' groups coming and saying, Why isn't the government doing more to bash Australia on the head in ret urn?" And our answer was, Look, were engaging with them. Theyre taking this seriously. I must say Australia responded very well. They sent a lot of ministers to India to explain what they were doing. The then Deputy Prime Minister, later Prime Minister, Julia Gillard was one of them. There was a there was a serious attempt made to show India that Australia was not what these media stereotypes were suggesting. TONY JONES: Well hear from Stuart on this. STUART MACGILL: At the time - I'm a member of the Sydney University Cricket Club and at the time one of the first grade members of our club was an Indian student, Kevin Dasai, and I remember discussing with all of the guys at Sydney Uni because, unfortunately, whilst I was playing cricket there I wasn't a student - that's beyond me - but I was concerned that we were being misrepresented internationally and it warms me to hear that universities all over Australia are considering that, you know, Indian students would be not just of a financial value to their university communities, but it makes it a richer place. I'm glad to hear that everybody is still coming back (indistinct). TONY JONES: It is a rich place. Stuart, do you think that our cricket team, whilst supposedly great ambassadors for Australia in India, is not really representing Australia in one respect and that is it's a very Anglo-centric team. There aren't many - not much evidence in that team of cultural diversity? STUART MACGILL: Well, of course, recently we've had a player of Pakistani descent, Fawad Ahmed, playing for Australia, making his debut for Australia. SHASHI THAROOR: An India has played Australia A, Sandhu. STUART MACGILL: Sandhu, exactly, and also Stuart Clarke, who recently played for Australia, his family is actually of Indian descent. And, you know, there are a lot more players around just beneath the surface that you probably haven't heard of yet. Expect to see a great deal more in the future.

SWAPAN DASGUPTA: You know, may I just add I think it is going to be a very, very sad day for cricket if we're going to assess the cricket team in terms of its ethnic composition. TONY JONES: That's true. I have actually seen that case made by a study in Australia, which is why I made the point. SWAPAN DASGUPTA: Yeah. TONY JONES: Lets go to another question, which is actually about cricket. More specifically about Sachin Tendulkar. It's from Pavan Gandok.

TENDULKAR AND INDIA00:17:23

PAVAN GANDHOK: My question is as actually as much about Sachin Tendulkar as about India's relevance to the world, because there has been a fascinating parallel over the past 20 years in the coincidence of the emergence of India on the world stage and Sachins reign in cricket but the question is that now that he has retired, what does the future foretell for not only the Indian cricket team but equally for India's relevance on the global stage? Do the panellists think there is a next peak to be scaled, or is there a situation of a slow but steady inevitable decline from where we are here? TONY JONES: All right. Let's start with Shashi, because you've actually written about this. SHASHI THAROOR: I have. TONY JONES: Youve written about Tendulkar's rise coming with the rise of India. SHASHI THAROOR: I have indeed and it's true. You know, India was, when Sachin made his debut, still a fairly protected economy growing at the fabled Hindu rate of growth at 3%. It was still marginal to most world discussions of economic might and so on and then, as Sachin rose India rose and we had Sachin, the icon of the newly emerging India. And now Sachin's career is over, India has emerged and a man who taught India that we could actually be the world's best at something, that we could have the world's best at something, is leaving at a time when winning is the new normal, where he has left behind a bunch of young players who, frankly, are striding the cricket field with a swagger that might not have been conceivable at the time that Sachin Tendulkar made his debut. So in some ways he has perfectly captured this emergence of Indian confidence. TONY JONES: Let me... SHASHI THAROOR: And one last thought is the economics. TONY JONES: Yep. Go ahead. SHASHI THAROOR: I mean, you know, we've gone from being relatively unimportant in international cricketing circles to being the gorilla on the beach. We have 90% of the cricket world's revenues come from India because of Indian television audiences and India displaces, as a friend of mine put it, as much weight on the International Cricket Council as the America does in the UN Security Council. TONY JONES: Yeah, indeed. SHASHI THAROOR: So thats... TONY JONES: Let's talk for a moment about Sachin Tendulkar. Anyone who has been here, as I

have, over the past few days watching the kind of reverence for this man, it's almost god-like. He is sort of like a demigod here. Youve actually written that you think he could make use of that. He has been made a member of parliament. Hes been appointed to the parliament effectively but you believe he might end up or could use that position as a sort of bully pulpit? SHASHI THAROOR: He could if he wanted to. Everyone says that his nature is not such that he is likely to be tempted to do that but he has enormous moral authority and any issue on which he chooses to intervene, people will listen to him. Theres no question there. Somebody who has occupied so much mind space and heart space in the Indian imagination for 24 years, if he opens his mouth on a matter of public interest, I'm sure well all listen. Whether we agree or not or some ag ree or not, he will get a hearing. He will be able to wane in a way that very few people will be able to in (indistinct)... TONY JONES: Let's hear from Karan on that. I mean, do you think it's even conceivable that he would use that kind of power in a political way? KARAN THAPAR: I doubt if hed use it in a political way because my instinct tells me he deliberately avoids political controversies and to use power in a political way is to invite controversy upon yourself and I think he will seek to avoid that, but he will certainly use it to promote causes that are close to him: sports, sports training, provision of sports facilities. He will certainly use it perhaps on moral issues, where someone like Sachin's voice, whether it's on the treatment of women, whether it's on upliftment of deprived classes, whether it's on provision of healthcare or education for those who don't have it, there, I think, his voice will be heard, because I think those are issues that he will feel he can raise beneficially without entering controversy, but I suspect he will avoid controversy at all costs. TONY JONES: I will go to SHOMA CHAUDHURY: (Indistinct_ TONY JONES: I will got Stuart. Ill come to you in a second. Stuart is sort of jumping around there. He wants to make some point. STUART MACGILL: Yeah. Look, Tony, look, I think that one of the reasons that Sachin was such a big deal to Indian people in a cricketing sense is because everybody here remembers him as a schoolboy. He started playing cricket the way that everybody in this country started playing cricket. He was making hundreds, I might add, at that time and very shortly after was playing for India. But he has straddled the period of time when India has become, in cricketing terms, the economic super power. What I would love to see him doing, post cricket, is I would love to see him, I guess, recapturing the hearts and minds of the kids who are playing in the sand lots behind hotels, out on the streets. Cricket shouldn't be just a game for the wealthy. It shouldn't just be about IPL franchises. I would love to see Sachin now decide that one of the things thats closest to his heart is those little boys that are out there playing - boys and girls out there playing cricket because it's a game for the people. TONY JONES: Well, another great sub-continental player, Imran Khan, actually has gone into politics in Pakistan. Could you even imagine that happening with Sachin Tendulkar? STUART MACGILL: Well, Imran was very, very comfortable being the captain, of course, and leading movements right from a very early age. You know, as my fellow panellists have said it appears evident that Sachin likes to calm the waters, you know, behind the stage, if you like. TONY JONES: Alright. Let's hear from Shoma on this. You were going to jump in before and I know that you are not a cricket fan.

SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Yeah, no. TONY JONES: But you must be aware obviously of this almost god-like reverence for Sachin Tendulkar? SHOMA CHAUDHURY: I am and I have to say that, you know, whats Sachin have to say that watching Sachin on the field is god-like, as you said, but in public life I think hes - and a lot of our public icons, given the amount of adulation they get, are extremely disappointing as public figures and I don't expect Sachin to go into politics at all. It's not part of his temperament but Id be extremely... TONY JONES: He already has a seat in Parliament. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Yeah, but I would be extremely, extremely taken aback and pleasantly taken aback if he espouses even two of the causes that Karan has spoken of because the fact is that he has never used his pre-eminent position to speak up on any issue in this country and I don't mean that it has to be any controversial political issue. He has not used his eminence for anything, you know, and not even for sport. So, as I said, I would be very pleasantly taken aback if he does that and Id be very pleasantly taken aback if many public figures in our country, who are adulated like gods, I would name (indistinct), as one of them, who would use that eminence for anything. But so far we have not had them (indistinct) kind of public figure in our country. KARAN THAPAR: Tony, there is an interesting contrast between Imran Khan and Sachin. If you recall when he won the World Cup in Australia in 92, Imran delivered a speech that became instantly controversial, both in Pakistan and with his team there on the field, because he forgot to thank them. He spoke purely about his personal ambition, which was to build a hospital for cancer in his mother's name. Sachin, in contrast, when he delivered a speech which he said hadnt even been scripted or thought up, made a point of thanking practically everyone who featured in his life, not just his family members, not just his children, but his coach, his team and others who had played a role and that, I think, is an important distinction to draw. Sachin is very conscious of what he needs to return and what he owes. At least that's the impression he has given me as an outsider. Imran, on the other hand, is a man who is determined about what he needs to do and how he is going to get there but quite happy to forget those who have helped him to get to that position. TONY JONES: Lets hear from... SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Unfortunately he didn't pay the taxes on one of his luxury cars, you know. I think that says something about Sachin. TONY JONES: Swapan? SWAPAN DASGUPTA: You know, I mean, thats the one fascinating thing which marks the rise of Sachin, and Ill take off from where Shashi left off. I think, to a very large extent, the boom in Indian cricket also corresponded with what I may call the Australianisation of Indian cricket. It became far more aggressive. It became far more competitive and we abandoned the sort of game of the lordly amateur, which was what the game in the '60s and the 50s was all about. Now, that has had two consequences. One, it suddenly made cricket very, very appealing as a way of life to those kids who want to get onto the IPL bandwagon, et cetera. But at the same time it has ended cricket, the lovely amateur game which a lot of people enjoyed it and I think that's one of the not very desirable consequences of Australianisation. STUART MACGILL: Well, thats...

TONY JONES: No, Im going to interrupt... STUART MACGILL: That's exactly what I was actually saying. I completely agree with you and I hope we can reclaim that to some degree but it's not Australia's fault. TONY JONES: Stuart, Im going to interrupt you because weve got one more question on cricket. This one is from Rajesh Khatana and Im sure Stuart will want to respond to this.

TENDULKAR OR BRADMAN00:26:33
RAJESH KHATANA: When we come to the greatest batsman of the world, Sachin Tendulkar or Don Bradman, so please tell me who is the greatest between of them? TONY JONES: Stuart MacGill, who is the greatest: Don Bradman or Sachin Tendulkar? TONY JONES: Don Bradman or Sachin Tendulkar? I think it would be unfair of me to comment on Don's prowess considering I wasn't alive when he played. However, I think historically they certainly had the same expectations placed on them by the weight of society. Don Bradman did a lot to improve people's, I guess, self-esteem in the way they looked at their nation at a time in Australia when we really needed it and, you know, we've heard from the minister that that's much the same of Sachin here, Rajesh, and I hope that post-cricket Sachin enjoys a very successful post-cricketing career in a way that takes him to new and exciting places and maybe he can inspire India again in a completely different area. TONY JONES: Stuart, just briefly, who was then, to put it another way, who was the greatest batsman you ever bowled against, because you did bowl against Tendulkar? STUART MACGILL: Yes. Okay. Yes, well, look, I did get to bowl to Sachin. In 2003 I played against India in Australia. Just for political sake, the series was two-all. We decided to do that just for Q&A tonight way back then. I bowled to Sachin in Adelaide and fortunately picked him up, so I got Sachin Tendulkar out once. He did repay the favour a couple of tests later with 241 not out. Note to self, never get Sachin Tendulkar out, it doesn't pay. But I'm now, Tony, on the trust at the SCG. Sachin Tendulkar is the first overseas player to ever be granted honorary life membership of the SCG and it was probably because of me, because of my bowling. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: You did see that he hasn't answered the question. TONY JONES: He hasn't answered the question. STUART MACGILL: The best bowler - the best batsman I bowled to, the most difficult batsman to get out, was probably Sachin Tendulkar but I apologise, India, if you are a spin bowler, the person you don't want to be bowling to is either Brian Lara or Latchman. TONY JONES: Okay. Well it is time to move along. We will leave that one hanging in the air. You might get lynched on your way out. You are watching Q&A live from India. Our next question comes from Bharti Yadav.

RAPE00:27:15
BHARTI YADAV: Yeah, hi. Good evening to everyone. Being an Indian girl, the issue of increasing number of rapes is really panicking for me, for myself, and not for me, for each girl, for each Indian girl,

the number of rapes, they are increasing tremendously, contrary to tradition in India, where this issue was very rare and was serious. So what, according to you, have contributed to this increasing trend? TONY JONES: Okay, let's start with Shoma? SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Well, Bharti, I don't think that rape is on the increase. What is on the increase is that women are speaking out and I think that that's a really positive thing. We are an extremely misogynistic society, though we dont see it like that. You know, from the moment of birth to moment of death a woman has many more impediments to her life cycle than a man does. You know, from the very hurdle of being born we have the largest feticide numbers that you can think of anywhere in the world and, you know, you go through the whole thing the dowry, the acid attacks, discrimination in terms of whether you get to school or you dont get to school, higher levels of malnutrition, you name it and the only thing I say about India, we do a lot of journalism based on women's issues, is that everything you say about India, the opposite is also true and it is extremely fortunate for many women to be born in India, because you have many opportunities. You have many freedoms but, by and large, I would say we are an extremely misogynistic society and I think its a misconception that traditional Indian society was more, you know, liberal or more just where women were concerned. That's absolutely not true. What we suffered under was a conspiracy of silence and women are speaking up now. The media is more focused on it and that's why you have a sense of increase. But even as I say this I think for me personally, both as a woman and a journalist, the best sign is that, in unrecorded ways, I think the little rebellions going on in every family in every alleyway in rural India, in little towns and big cities and nor is this violence the domain of the poor and not of the rich. It cut across class, gender, religion and what you do have is a million rebellions going on where women are asserting themselves and their autonomy over their own body and I think that's what's going to change India so. TONY JONES: Pallavi. PALLAVI SHARDA: Shoma, I agree 100% with you. I think in the time that I have lived in India, what I've seen most blatantly is this notion of shame and blame, that women feel very reluctant to talk about the fact that theyve been victimised in this way or they have been assaulted sexually and what Ive seen is the rise of intra-familial sexual assault as well, which is very disturbing because sexuality is repressed in this country to a large degree. People cannot express themselves. Women find it very difficult to find self-determination. They always have to be robed a certain way. There is this attempt to modernise in urban centres, vis--vis this attempt to maintain tradition and they're left in no man's land. It's very, very difficult. So I think, you know, the fact that India has risen out of apathy in the last one year, or at least I've seen that change, is a positive sign but we need to just concentrate on giving women the confidence to report as much as they can.

BOLLYWOOD & RAPE00:29:13

TONY JONES: Okay. Before we go onto the other panellists, we have got a web question specifically for you from Anand Gururajan from Oakley in Victoria: Bollywood films are well-known for the sexualisation of women and I'm wondering whether Pallavi could comment on the link between this and the increased level of abuse of women in India? PALLAVI SHARDA: That's an argument that has been made many times and I know that Bollywood is known to objectify women. There is a notion of an item number where a woman might be scantily clad, dancing away and trying to tantalise the men around her. You know, and I think Shoma has written about this. Its the notion of the goddess or the slut, and sometimes what is trying to be projected is this notion of devi or a goddess but its being translated in different ways. So there is a line there that is being traversed all the time and it's often giving licence to many people to be voyeuristic in relation to women and that's something, I think its a responsibility of an actor or a perform er to be careful

about. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Tony, may I just say something? TONY JONES: Yeah. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: You know, I think this issue about Bollywood is really important because it's not that cinema has to always be always politically correct. It's not that, as many have argued, that, you know, all dancers and all sexual scenes, in fact, theres even a move now that no rape or no violence against women should be shown in Indian cinema and I would be horrified if we were to infantilise ourselves in that way. So I don't think that you have to censor this. I think the onus of it lies in the director's eye in the way the camera presents these things and so it's not that you shouldn't have this. Its not that you shouldn't have dancing. Its not that you shouldnt have titillation but that the director's eye and his moral voice or her moral voice should be very clear. It should be presented as something that you don't necessarily want to emulate, whereas right now Hindi cinema presents titillation and Eve-teasing as being what women live to - you know, live for. TONY JONES: What is Eve - Eve-teasing is not a concept we will be familiar with. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: You know, Eve-teasing is - well, Eve-teasing is a very old-fashioned word. It is to basically say that women present themselves for male - cheap male teasing, you know, and that they are quite happy to walk down the street and a man whose attentions they don't want will lavish the woman with that attention and ultimately, at the end of the film, she and he will get together. You know, so it kind of legitimises an unwanted attention from the man on the street and Im saying all of that is part of our society and it should certainly be a part of our cinema. What right now is really dubious is the way in which the camera and director's eye works itself out in our cinema. TONY JONES: Let's hear from Karan down the end and what is the responsibility for men here and particularly in the way they bring up their sons? KARAN THAPAR: Absolutely and I think theres an aspect of rape in India that is either overlooked and, worst still, quite often ignored, and that is the simple fact that rape happens because men rape. And I don't mean that to be simply a glib statement of fact. What I'm trying to suggest is the way in which we bring up our men, our boys. We are inculcating them from childhood the belief that boys are gods. We bring them up as little princes, at the same time as treating their sisters as theyre a curse and it is the attitudes that are engendered from childhood that work their way through teenage into young adulthood into maturity that give men the belief that women are a commodity, that theyre a play thing, that they are there as sexual objects, that somehow the family will (indistinct) and you have corroborative attitudes that come from mothers and aunts and grandmothers who say to their daughters, "You musnt go out. You mustn't dress like that. You are exciting the attention of boys." That attitude needs to change and it needs to begin with the way we bring up our young boys. And the truth is Indian mothers, grandmothers in particular, but often sisters and wives are responsible for the fact that they engender in their little young boys an attitude of difference and superiority, if not being better, and that's the root cause of the problem. TONY JONES: Let me throw that to Shashi and were you brought up as a princeling effectively? SHASHI THAROOR: No, actually I had two sisters and I was brought up to feel responsible for them. So I think it will vary from family to family. I'm not disagreeing fundamentally with Karan's point that in traditional society there has been a privileging of the male children over the female. The male child is fed first in many families before the girls and that sort of thing and very often the boy is the one who is given a good education and so on and the girls, well, it doesn't matter if they are in school. I mean

that's very often the case, particularly in rural India, small-town India, old-fashioned India. But that is changing and I think certainly Bollywood and other images of empowered women have certainly helped bring about that change. I dont want to repeat what everyone has said. I agree completely with Shoma that it's not that more rapes are happening, its were more aware of them now. We didn't know about them before. Now people are talking. Theres a free media thats publicising it. It has become an important issue and certainly the mass media, which in the past got away with a lot of frankly unattractive depictions of women being harassed, theres no other word for it, and yet succumbing in the end to their harassers. I think they are much more conscious now and theyre also depicting women differently, though the item numbers have got much worse than they used to be. Now, having said all of that, the key thing also is response. Bharti asked about how young girls in India are feeling unsafe and thats something I am genuinely concerned about as an elected representative when we had the horrific rape in Delhi. I was in my constituency in Thiruvananthapuram when all the protests erupted here and there, you know, as far away from Delhi as you can fly without falling into the water there were young people lighting candles at (indistinct) statue and I talked to them and I discovered that the girls there are equally concerned about can they be safe in our country after dark and all of that. There is now a great consciousness of this. Certainly there are more girls out there on their own after dark or with male friends, who feel therefore feel that vulnerability and therefore need that protection and I think we have been slow, not just as a society but as a state to respond to this need. We don't have enough police patrolling, we don't have enough mobile patrols in certain areas. We dont have enough rape counselling in crisis centres. There is a lot more the state could be doing to augment the sense of security that every Indian citizen, every Indian woman citizen, is entitled to. TONY JONES: Okay. Im going to move on because weve... SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Actually, I just wanted to make one point. TONY JONES: Okay, yes, a brief comment. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Because there is such a sense that rape happens outside and it's after dark and when you step out. I would just like to put a really horrifying statistic that 90% of rapes and sexual assault in this country happens within the family or by people that you know and most of it goes unreported. So this really is something that we need to fix societally. Of course the state must have better response mechanisms, but rape happens within the home and within your known environment, rather than when you step out into the dark. SWAPAN DASGUPTA: But having said, that I think it's important to point out that the status of women in India in the past 50 or 75 years has improved exponentially. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Yes. SWAPAN DASGUPTA: Far more than any other society and compared to where we were, say in 1947, to where we are now, I think that is a positive achievement and we should also, you know, celebrate that. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Of course. TONY JONES: I'm going to interrupt you because we've got quite a few questions to get through and some of them are really important ones. This one in particular is from Dr Ushvinder Popli.

INDIA GROWTH AND INEQUALITY00:37:40

USHVINDER POPLI: I would like to say that India is a country with a lot of economic growth and development and to be effective this growth and development should percolate to the masses and its gain should be translated to the masses, but we are not seeing that kind of percolation to the grass root level. What would the panellists say that why we have not been able to achieve, with so much growth and development, why are we not able to reach it to the people at large. TONY JONES: That's the equity question, Shoma SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Yes, Ushvinder, I really thank you for that question. It's certainly something that upsets me and engages me hugely. I think partly it is a huge design defect and it is immaterial whether the BJP or the Congress rules at the centre or indeed a third front, because there is absolutely nothing to choose between their economic policies. So far there has been this sense that there will be a trickle-down. Certainly we are the beneficiaries of the economic wealth of the last 20 years that has been created but there has been no - you know, its been jobless growth. We've created 30 million jobs in 20 years and the amount of outrage that there is today over welfare spending - you know, you call it welfare spending. I call it investment because we keep speaking of the demographic dividend, but actual they are almost - you know, you can argue over the percentages but 70, 80% of India does not have access to health care, to education, to drinking water, to basic medical facilities and definitely not to jobs. TONY JONES: Shoma, can I... SHOMA CHAUDHURY: And the one thing I would like to say is... TONY JONES: Yeah. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: ...that not only are we not... TONY JONES: I want you to say more actually, but I want to interrupt you just to say this: in 2012 you went with a team of economists to Uttar Pradesh, where you saw terrible poverty and partly in response to that weve seen in India a couple of months ago the Food Security Bill, which is basically a Bill passed to try to give more food to people who are malnourished and, in many cases, suffering as a result of that. But the reaction from elites - economic elites and others in India was intensely negative to this move. Tell us why? SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Yeah. I think it's shocking because people feel that this is - you know, its harming the fiscal deficit. People feel that this is a profligate spending. They feel that if you bring food to these people, that they are going to become so lazy that they are going to stop working because, of course, material aspiration and the desire to move is only the preserve of the elite and that if the poor get their basic two meals a day, that they are not going to want to put shoes on their children's feet. They are not going to want to get them education. They are not going to want them better jobs and, you know, there are economists and national media who feel that just putting food onto peoples tables is going to make us a lazy people and I think that thats completely wrong bec ause what we are right now speaking of is not perpetuating this but of bringing people onto a basic platform of human dignity from which entrepreneurship can begin. We are also talking about multi-track approach to our economy. We are not saying stop industrialisation. We are not saying stop manufacturing but you are saying that if people do not have basic access, how can they become entrepreneurs? How can you speak of demographic dividend when basically what you are creating - you know, in the next ten years we are going to have 480 million people join the workforce. Forget about the fact that we are not creating jobs for them. They are going to be unemployable because when you are malnutritioned and when you dont get nutrition in your mother's womb then you are intellectually, emotionally and physically stunted and if you speak to anybody now we have actually a workforce crisis in this country

entirely because of the short-sightedness of our governments and I dont think that the two - you know, one keeps then being seen as left of centre or as socialist. I think we are in a beautiful place in India's history, when high capitalism and socialism can go together by dropping the isms. TONY JONES: Okay. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: We need a middle ground. TONY JONES: Shoma, I need to hear from other panellists and I will go to - I will go over to someone who arguably comes from the right. Id like to ask you whether you think that this idea that the markets were food poisoned of this Bill has any currency? SWAPAN DASGUPTA: I think, you know, that theres one way of trying to guilt trip the whole of India by saying that anyone who opposed the Food Security Bill actually wanted people in poverty because they felt that if they ate they would become lazy. Now, that's a wonderful type of stereotyping which is done. You know, the whole point is at present we have to look at how much can we afford? It would be ideal if we could create a mini Sweden within India, have about 80% taxes also along with it. It would be ideal if everyone could get unemployment benefit if they don't have a job but, unfortunately, money does not grow on trees. We have to work with the limited resources. What has happened in the past few years is that a considerable amount of resources has been taken away from investment infrastructure and education and has actually been moved into areas of welfare spending where less than 40% of probably reaches the intended beneficiaries. So rather than create the environment in which growth is possible, we've created a bloated state. Now, if we want a bloated state I think we are fully entitled to create one but I think.... TONY JONES: But can I just interrupt you there? Can you actually afford not to feed people who are malnourished? SWAPAN DASGUPTA: No, you - of course not. TONY JONES: Yeah. SWAPAN DASGUPTA: I think today that the objections were that these are schemes which are best done at a local level. TONY JONES: Okay. Lets - all right... SWAPAN DASGUPTA: These are schemes which are not done at a one-size-fits-all thing; that a scheme which is meant for the north-east of India is not necessarily applicable for Shashi's constituency in southern India, so there is diversity as well. MULTIPLE SPEAKERS TALK AT ONCE SWAPAN DASGUPTA: There is a lot of local planning. TONY JONES: Shoma wants to get in on this briefly. MULTIPLE SPEAKERS TALK AT ONCE KARAN THAPAR: You are right to not let the conversation be dominated by the left, not just physically but ideologically as well.

TONY JONES: Okay, Karan. KARAN THAPAR: It's not that I am actually intending to put in an ideological, right wing viewpoint, but the question that was asked that triggered off this discussion was why is the development policy of successive governments not actually trickling down to people to improve their lives? And the answer is partly what Shoma has talked about but largely it is to do with something else. What you need is a policy that generates entrepreneurship, which creates employment. Those are not things that government can do by (indistinct). Those are things that are done by creating an environment that encourages investors to want to put their money to create jobs. There are restrictive laws and policies that need to be revoked. For instance, we run a regime where unionisation ensures that the 7% in unions have a labour policy that disallows the 98% outside unions getting easy jobs. You need to have a relaxation of the labour law market so that entrepreneurs feel free to set up a company. At the moment, if you set up a company and you are employing over 100 and it fails, you are stuck with your employees even if your company has collapsed which is a great deterrent against (indistinct). TONY JONES: Okay. Im going to ask for brief answers from everybody. MULTIPLE SPEAKERS TALK AT ONCE TONY JONES: I will bring you back in. KARAN THAPAR: Shoma. Shoma. Shoma. You have to let other people speak because there are other panellists that want to be heard as well. ana MULTIPLE SPEAKERS TALK AT ONCE TONY JONES: Shashi wants to get in on this and then I will come to you, I promise. Okay, Shashi. SHASHI THAROOR: Now, the fact is I come down somewhere in the middle of this conversation. Because the truth is that Shoma is right that there still is awful poverty, inequity, some malnourishment, all of that, but it is also true that we have made some real progress. In the last ten years we have pulled 138 million people out of poverty. There are now more children in school than ever before. There is more progress being made and we Indians are very good at criticising ourselves but the fact is that while our population has grown, the number of poor people in the country has shrunk and that is an indication that some things are working. Some of the benefits of our economic growth and development are reaching where they should. As for the social safety net, obviously I am part of the government and the ruling party that voted for the Food Security Bill so I will disagree with Swapan to the extent that I do believe that we need to do this: we need to ensure that at least everybody in this country has the basic grains they need to eat. They dont want to go to bed hungry. We have to ensure that they don't. But having said that, in our country some states already have even more far-reaching schemes. So to that degree Swapan is right. Its not one size fits all. In my state of Kerala, the government is already giving rice at one rupiah a kilo. The central government is offering it at 3. So there are variations in any case within the country. TONY JONES: Okay, brief, brief, brief, brief answers is what I'm calling for and a very brief response from you. SHASHI THAROOR: It is not hopeless. TONY JONES: Yes, okay. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Very brief. I absolutely agree with Swapan on there should be no one size fits

all. I disagree when he says can we afford the Food Bill, because we give five trillion in tax evasions to companies in this country. If we can afford that that we can afford (indistinct)... MULTIPLE SPEAKERS TALK AT ONCE KARAN THAPAR: Its not tax evasion, it's tax avoidance. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Tax avoidance. Just a minute, Karan. KARAN THAPAR: And just a moment. No, just listen before you misrepresent something and mislead the audience, you're talking about, in fact, deliberate policies of tax reduction and avoidance to encourage entrepreneurship, to encourage employment, to encourage productivity. If that didn't happen, half the growth that you see would also be lost. So when you call it tax evasion, (a) you are wrong in terminally and (b) you are ignoring the very important by-product of growth that emerges from it. Give the full picture. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: May I finish speaking? TONY JONES: Yes. Yes, you can. Keep it brief. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Whether you call it - the fact that you are giving tax sops to encourage growth, that's wonderful and we must get that. But if, in the same breath you say that you can afford to give tax sops in five trillion and you cant afford a Food Security Bill, I dont agree. But much more importantly is what Karan was speaking about, about enabling entrepreneurship and I completely agree with that. The problem, Tony, is that both governments, whether it was BJP-led or congress-led has been focusing on and when Karan speaks or Swapan speaks we are talking about 6% of this economy. 94% of this economy is not part of the national conversation. TONY JONES: Okay. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: When you speak of labour, they are not part of this conversation... TONY JONES: I mainly... SHOMA CHAUDHURY: And - and so, Tony, may I just finish? May I just finish... SWAPAN DASGUPTA: I mean this is a... SHOMA CHAUDHURY: When we... TONY JONES: Yes, you can. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: When we... SWAPAN DASGUPTA: This is a myth to suggest that (indistinct)... SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Swapan, may I finish? SWAPAN DASGUPTA: It is a myth to suggest (indistinct) TONY JONES: Okay. All right. All right. Im sorry, Im going to call a halt to this discussion...

SHOMA CHAUDHURY: No, Tony, may I just... TONY JONES: ...because youve got an election coming up next year. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Tony, may I just finish making this point? TONY JONES: And the next - well, yes. Your next question is from Ajoy Roy. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Tony, I will just finish making this point. TONY JONES: Okay. If you can do it in 10 seconds. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Only that I would love it if the governments enabled small entrepreneurs, because definitely what Karan is saying is true. We want more entrepreneurship in this country. We need all the 80% that are not part of this conversation to be entrepreneurs. TONY JONES: Okay. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: And I dont think we are discussing them. So I'm not left of centre. I'm saying of course, please (indistinct)... SWAPAN DASGUPTA: You are far left of centre. TONY JONES: All right, one of the interesting things for an Australian audience listening to this is the echoes of similar arguments that we are having in our own country. Our next question is from Ajoy Roy.

INDIAN ELECTIONS00:50:35
AJOY ROY: Well, India, with its emerging youth, is poised to be one of the biggest economic super powers by around 2020 and beyond. India knows it, the world is anticipating it and the non-resident Indians, many of them, are considering returning back to India. In view of this and in the context of the forthcoming elections, what does this panel know about the credentials of Mr Rahul Gandhi and Mr Narendra Modi and its implications for the people of India and Australia if one of them is elected as the next Prime Minister? Thank you. TONY JONES: Okay. Let's start with Swapan Dasgupta, because I think it's known that you are generally a sporter of Narendra Modi and perhaps you need to explain who he is to an Australian audience? SWAPAN DASGUPTA: Well, he has been the chief minister of province in western India for the past 12 years. SHASHI THAROOR: A state, Swapan, not a province. SWAPAN DASGUPTA: Well, a state, okay. I was using Australian analogies. TONY JONES: We have states, too. STUART MACGILL: Yeah, we play a state game. Sorry about that. TONY JONES: Thats all right.

SWAPAN DASGUPTA: Now... SHASHI THAROOR: I think this disregard for historical facts that Narendra Modi shows every day has rubbed off on his fans. STUART MACGILL: Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Round 2. SWAPAN DASGUPTA: I think there has been a degree of supreme condescension and conceit from the entrenched intellectual classes very much like we saw in Australia some time ago about a person who has come in who is outside the beltway, as it were. The point about Narendra Modi... TONY JONES: Who is the person in Australia you are referring to? SWAPAN DASGUPTA: I'm looking at Tony Abbott, the manner in which he was decried by the (indistinct) in Australia for the manner in which he articulated his politics. TONY JONES: Okay. So, for the Australian audience you are suggesting that Narendra Modi is a kind of Indian Tony Abbott, are you? SWAPAN DASGUPTA: I think there could be similarities. I think there could be a lot of similarities. I think emphasis on high growth, emphasis on minimal government, emphasis on building up skills of Indians and, most important, I think, emphasis on a determined and honest leadership, these are the qualities which mark Narendra Modi and which is what is resonating across the country and which is why he is a favourite to win this election. STUART MACGILL: Swapan, if I can, I'm not a part of this Indian election clearly but I can guarantee you that if Tony Abbott had been allegedly a part of something that happened on the trains in India three years ago he would not have been allowed to progress through the election campaign without saying sorry - without saying sorry. TONY JONES: I think we're talking about something that happened not three years ago, but back in 2002. STUART MACGILL: Well in 2002, I'm very sorry. But, look... TONY JONES: And it wasn't on the trains, it was in response to something that happened on the trains. MULTIPLE SPEAKERS TALK AT ONCE STUART MACGILL: But Tony, but Tony, but Tony, you can't go criticising our Prime Minister and comparing him to a man that has been involved in something that was really quite offensive to a big part of your population. KARAN THAPAR: Tony, something that I think your audience in Australia needs to appreciate and understand is that there are many, many Indian whose look at the two contenders and say to themselves can a country of 1.2 billion not put up people more deserving of Prime Minister? The truth of the matter is neither of them, frankly, deserves to be the next Prime Minister of India. Narendra Modi has obvious feelings which Im not going to go into because I think they are well -known and it would be boring to discuss them but clearly he carries...

TONY JONES: Well, they're not well-known - theyre not actually well-known to the Australian audience. If he were to become Prime Minister, there is this - the question that Stuart was just talking about is about something that happened in 2002 in response to... KARAN THAPAR: No, it is the moral responsibility that he carries. TONY JONES: In response to (indistinct) killing Hindus on a train. A lot of Muslims were killed in Godhra, in his province, and the question is did he have anything to do with that? Did he turn a blind eye to those sectarian killings in Godhra? KARAN THAPAR: The truth is this: he is morally responsible, as Chief Minister, for what happens in the state in three senses. (1) It shouldn't have happened. If it has and a riot has taken place the responsibility and the buck stops with him. (2) The manner which you respond to it when it happens and (3) the steps you take thereafter to rehabilitate those who are victims. On all three counts he has been found wanting. The Supreme Court has gone on record in April 2004 in a specific judgment - it wasn't just a comment made in court - to call him and his government, modern-day Neroes who deliberately chose... SWAPAN DASGUPTA: (Indistinct) KARAN THAPAR: It was not. SWAPAN DASGUPTA: (Indistinct) KARAN THAPAR: Forgive me, April the 12th. Forgive me, it was the... SWAPAN DASGUPTA: It was not a judgment. Karan, it was not a judgment. KARAN THAPAR: It was. SWAPAN DASGUPTA: It was a stray comment of a judge sitting on. KARAN THAPAR: Forgive me, April 12th 2004, the Zaheera Sheikh judgment in the Best Bakery case. I assure you I am right. SWAPAN DASGUPTA: I assure you, Karan, you are wrong. KARAN THAPAR: After the show is over I will send you the judgment. I will send you the judgment after the show is over. The judgment referred to the Modi Government as modern-day Neroes, who deliberately chose to look the other way as helpless children and innocent women burnt to death and a lot more they said as well. But that moral weight he carries still and if tomorrow, when he is Prime Minister, there were to be a (indistinct)... SHASHI THAROOR: If, if, if. KARAN THAPAR: If. With what... SHASHI THAROOR: A big if. KARAN THAPAR: ...with what credibility could he say to a Chief Minister of another state, "You need to step in and make sure this doesn't happen," because he failed when it was his turn?

TONY JONES: Okay. We need to get... KARAN THAPAR: (Indistinct) TONY JONES: We do need to get Swapan to respond to that, then I will come to Shoma. Go ahead. SWAPAN DASGUPTA: I think it's fair to say that Mr Modi has moral - owes moral responsibility for what happened in 2002. I think thats a very fair comment to make and it also suggests there was an administrative lapse. However, to suggest that he should be disqualified from politics as a result of that and therefore to imply that there was a sort of criminal conspiracy in which he participated in, I think is stretching the point too far. KARAN THAPAR: I agree SWAPAN DASGUPTA: I would say that had such been the case, then I think we would certainly have ruled out Rajiv Gandhi as a Prime Minister of this country, because it was under his watch that certain horrific things happened in the aftermath of Mrs Gandhi's assassination. TONY JONES: Were close to running out - were close to running out of time. SWAPAN DASGUPTA: I think it's important to note that what happened in 2002 has never been repeated in Godhra and is unlikely to ever be repeated in India and I think the lessons of 2002 have been internalised by the entire political system and it's best to look forward rather than look back. TONY JONES: Okay, Shoma. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: I think... TONY JONES: A brief answer, Im sorry... SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Yes. TONY JONES: ...because were running out of time. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Yes, Swapan is right but I'm tired of the moral equivalences we keep making that because the Congress screwed in 1984 that its okay do so in 2002 and Swapan it seems to have really short-term memory because its barely a few months old that weve had the Muzaffarnagar Riots in which not only the SP and the Congress but the BJP had a huge hand to play in it. SWAPAN DASGUPTA: Really? SHOMA CHAUDHURY: And unfortunately... SWAPAN DASGUPTA: Really? SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Yes. I mean... SWAPAN DASGUPTA: Really? I mean... SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Swapan, do you not know ...(indistinct)... SWAPAN DASGUPTA: You are - you are really (indistinct)...

SHOMA CHAUDHURY: (Indistinct) SWAPAN DASGUPTA: I mean this is wonderful. The point is its an SP government. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Swapan... SWAPAN DASGUPTA: Where do you bring Mr Modi into the picture? SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Swapan, did I mention Mr Modi. I said the BJP. SWAPAN DASGUPTA: You brought the BJP into the picture. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Are you unaware of the fact... SWAPAN DASGUPTA: Im completely unaware. Yes, I am unaware. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Swapan, may I speak? TONY JONES: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm just going to give... SHOMA CHAUDHURY: Tony, no, may I finish making the point. TONY JONES: Yes, okay, if you are quick. SHOMA CHAUDHURY: I am really sorry if a public commentator like Swapan is unaware that both SP and Congress and BJP ministers and MLAs had a role to play in those riots. There was a BJP MLA that actually put out an extremely egregious and false piece of video which created a lot of tension in that place and the fact that the top leadership has not seen fit to criticise his actions is appalling and that's true of the Congress and the SP as well. TONY JONES: Okay. All right. All right. Now... SHOMA CHAUDHURY: So I just want to say - I want to reiterate what Karan said. We are a benighted nation if today we are left with Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi as the top contenders for Prime Minister. KARAN THAPAR: Absolutely. MULTIPLE SPEAKERS TALK AT ONCE TONY JONES: Actually, no, I need to - sorry. Sorry, Swapan, we actually need to hear from Shashi, because (indistinct)... SHASHI THAROOR: First of all we dont run a presidential system here. We run a parliamentary system. Parties in our country will be voted for. Who they choose as their leaders is up to them. The BJP has chosen Mr Modi. We, as far as we are concerned, we are running on a platform, a record of governance as well as a set of values which we believe are close to the values of most Indians than Mr Modis values. Second, in our country, whether we grow at 6% or 9% or less, as we now are, very frankly we have to worry about the bottom 25% of our society. The Congress Party does. Mr Modi doesn't and I think thats, again, an important difference we need to put across. Rahul Gandhi does stand for the dispossessed, for his concerns, for the poor and the underprivileged in our society. Third,

there is an idea of India, whether you like it or not, its not the elite affection, its an idea of India as a land for people of every background, every religion, every caste, creed, colour, language, dress, food habits. That India is a capacious India. Its an India that incorporates everyone, where everyone has equal rights, equal beliefs, equal authority, equal duties. Congress stands for that. Mr Modi does not. He stands for a much more narrow, sectarian vision, as his repeated statements, pronouncements, and conduct demonstrate. So I believe there is a choice and to reduce it to merely two individuals is not right. We have to look at what exactly we what our country to be all about and I believe that when we come to the ballot boxes in the end, our nation will stand for the India that they cherish and not for the kinds of claims that we have had made on this panel today on behalf of someone. TONY JONES: I'm sorry to say... MULTIPLE SPEAKERS TALK AT ONCE TONY JONES: No, sorry... SWAPAN DASGUPTA: That we also will decide whether we stand for a government that is passed on by inheritance or a government which is passed on by merit. TONY JONES: Okay. That is all we have time for tonight, Im sorry to say. We are a live program and we are out of time. In preparing for this program, I did read a book called The Argumentative Indian and I think weve just seen some evidence that that is a true description of the country. Please thank our panel: Karan Thapar, Shashi Tharoor, Pallavi Sharda, Shoma Chaudhury, and Swapan Gupta and Stuart MacGill. Now, that should have been Swapan Dasgupta. Now, a special thanks to our partners and viewers at Doordarshan TV and The Kingdom of Dreams and our audience here in Gurgaon. Please give yourselves a huge round after applause. Thank you. Now, next Monday's Q&A will be the last program for the year. We will be joined by the Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop; Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen; former US Assistant Secretary of State and Lowy Institute Fellow Kurt Campbell; and leading barrister and human rights advocate Julian Burnside. We will leave you tonight with a performance from the Kingdom of Dreams dancers of Lute Gaye Tere Mohalle from Pallavi's latest movie Besharam. Now, until next week, (speaks Indian).