Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms

Title: Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms – Journeys into the Disappearing Religions of the Middle East

Author: Gerard Russell

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2014 (First)

ISBN: 9781471114700

Pages: 367

The Middle East is one of the earliest centres of ancient human civilizations. Stretching from Iran to Egypt, it brackets the Persian, Babylonian, Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations. Religion accompanies high culture and the number of independent pagan religions that flourished in the area run into the hundreds. Polytheism is inherently tolerant as it is always easy to accommodate one more god into the pantheon as the kith and kin of one already there. As the monotheistic Semitic religions grew in influence, Paganism began its retreat from the cities of high cultures into remote desert oases or hardy mountain fastnesses. A significant event in their downturn was the closure of Plato’s Academy in 529 CE by the Byzantine emperor Justinian, which threw out the pagan philosophers who resided there. Curiously, this date is traditionally taken as marking the beginning of the Dark Ages. With the advent of Islam in the next few centuries, most of the people converted to it – either through peaceful means or forced. However, a few of those groups clung to their faith in the face of great oppression and survived to this day. Even now, the persecution against them has not fully abated. The Islamic State in Syria and Iraq massacred the Yazidis and took their women as sex slaves in 2016. The Coptic Christians in Egypt are still at the receiving end of a brutal ethnic cleansing instituted by the proscribed Muslim Brotherhood. Pakistan – though not exactly located geographically in the Middle East, yet do so culturally – indulges in its own series of elimination of the minorities through suicide blasts, mob violence and strict imposition of blasphemy laws. This book painstakingly finds the exotic religions by assiduously locating their practitioners and celebrates their heritage and traditions. A first step in toleration is the knowledge of the beliefs, customs and rituals of those religions and this book greatly contributes to it. Gerard Russell is a British diplomat and author who spent 14 years representing Britain in the Middle East. Unlike Britishers in general, Russell is a polyglot fluent in Arabic, Farsi and Dari languages, which readily opened many doors for him while researching this book.

The tome, split into seven chapters, describes the history, traditions and present life of the Yazidis, Mandaeans, Zoroastrians, Druze, Samaritans, Copts and Kalasha, dwelling in the Middle East. Braving severe persecution from mainstream Semitic religions, these held on to remote or impenetrable places, often under the veil of a strict code of secrecy. Some of these religions are Gnostic, in the sense that they instructed their followers to punish or subordinate the body so that the mind can be made free for speculating on the true nature of god and the world. These faiths were more sophisticated than pre-Christian European religions. A part of the blame for failing to survive must be put on these religions too, as it keeps the believers away from the tenets of the religion, which is known only to the priests and teachers of law. This makes the lay followers at a loss to explain to others what they believe in and the significance of the arcane rituals. Their only response in such cases is the self-defeating admission that these practices were handed over to them from great antiquity and hence they still follow it with diffidence. All kinds of strange customs are employed. The Manichees are vegetarians and they were widespread in Central Asia at one time. The Yazidis and Mandaeans still employ a rudimentary caste system that is still seen in India.

Russell narrates the brutal way in which Islamic societies treated their minorities. The Koran recognized the ‘People of the Book’ – Jews, Christians and Sabians – and offered protection to them. But, the polytheists were outside this protective umbrella and had to choose between forced conversion and death. Even the Jews and Christians who were given the pitiable status of Dhimmis were second- or third-rate citizens of the society. They were not allowed to serve in the military and were denied the right to testify against a Muslim in front of a judge. They also had to pay the hated poll tax of Jizya. Whatever tolerance the minorities obtained came under the rule of tyrants and dictators like Saddam Hussein, Shah Reza Pahlavi or Hosni Mubarak who ruled with an iron hand whose might was directed more at the majority. Jews once constituted a third of the population of Baghdad, but is now totally eliminated or converted. So much for tolerance! Purges continued even in modern times. In 1941, 700 Jews were killed in a single day. Islamic regimes are notorious for their shameless ruses to convert people to their religion. Iranian law allows converted Zoroastrians a greater share in the inheritance of their parents at the expense of the siblings. Among the seven communities detailed in the book, the Lebanese Druze are slightly better off, as Lebanon is still not fully dominated by the Muslims. Reading this book, we get a chilling realization that had the state of Israel was not formed in 1948, Jews also would’ve featured as one of the chapters in this book!

It is futile and pointless to repeat again and again the coldblooded handling meted out to the religious minorities living amidst Islamic societies, but there’s a clear need to showcase them in detail to underline the depths to which religious bigotry can degrade an individual who is otherwise a decent guy. In Baghdad, the Mandaeans are the victims of a kind of untouchability. The book states that in Suq al-Shuyukh area, there are restaurants that refuse to serve Mandaeans because they are believed to pollute the utensils they eat with (p.42). They are subjected to forced conversion, kidnapping and murder. Between 2003 and 2011, as many as 175 were murdered, 275 kidnapped and hundreds converted from this community which number only a few thousand souls (p.44). Even before the ISIS came on the scene, the Yazidis were targeted at the drop of a hat. In Qahtaniya in 2007, coordinated suicide truck bombs left 800 Yazidis dead in the most gruesome terror attack in the world after 9/11. The reason was an issue of an interreligious love marriage among them. A Yazidi woman who wanted to marry a Muslim man was killed by her relatives to protect their ‘honour’. Rumours spread that she had converted and the Jihadis decided to teach the entire community a lesson in savagery. The Samaritans of Palestine fare no better. In Nablus, the old laws required them to wear bells around the neck when venturing outside their homes and banned them from riding horses. In an emergency, they could drive mules! The Copts in Egypt have a miserable episode to tell of their lives. A German monk reported in 1672 that the Copts were so fearful from continued tyrannies that at the least noise, they trembled like leaves (p.233). Sufis, often trumpeted as the embodiment of syncretism, turned bigots when a chance presented itself. It was a Sufi mystic who smashed the Sphinx’s nose in the fourteenth century in Egypt, enraged by the local peasants making offering to it as a god. The Kalasha people of Chitral valley in Pakistan are hounded by Pakistani tourists in the expectation that because Kalasha women did not wear veils and were not Muslims, they’d be available for sex. Russell mentions a Pakistani survey conducted as recently as 2010, in which 76 per cent of the respondents thought abandoning Islam merited the death penalty. Even just a rumour that a person has left Islam can spark mob violence and lynching in Pakistan.

Indians would be astonished at the similarities the religious symbols of the Yazidis share with Hinduism. They revere Melek Taoos, the peacock angel, whose depiction has a strong affinity to that of god Murugan in India who rides on a peacock. Taoos is identified with Azazeel or Iblis, which in the tradition of Abrahamic religions stand for the devil. Consequently, they are called ‘devil worshippers’. Incidentally, the Yazidis adore the sun too and employ a hierarchical caste system.

The book contains a good number of pictures depicting some of the rituals, customs and notable points in the daily life of the adherents of these disappearing religions. The author has travelled widely in the region collecting data for this book, which doubles as a nice travelogue of some of the not-so-easily accessible places. Russell muses on the future of these religions which appear to be very bleak in the Middle East. The minorities continue to live there with the feeling that they are not wanted in those societies. However, he falls short of identifying the real reason – religious fanaticism and notions of Islamic superiority over all other religions. Instead he blames the foreign policy of Western powers such as the US and UK. They infuriate the Jihadis who in turn vent their impotent rage on their neighbours who belong to minority sects, and the author accepts this as the most natural thing in the world! However, it is heartening to note that almost 90 per cent of those people had now emigrated to the West and are leading peaceful and prosperous lives there.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

The Fall of the House of FIFA

Title: The Fall of the House of FIFA

Author: David Conn

Publisher: Yellow Jersey Press, 2017 (First)

ISBN: 9780224100441

Pages: 328

Football is the most popular sport in the world. It is played everywhere on the planet from deserts to marshes, from icy cold Siberia to the sweltering dry grounds of Atacama. People who love football keep afresh the memory of the first World Cup they had watched on TV or at the stadium. As for me, it was the 1986 Mexico championship in which Maradona played out his magic that glued me to the sport. Since the game is known for its ubiquity, it is essential to religiously administer all aspects of the game such as its format, rules and tournaments so as to maintain uniformity. FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association) does the job of governing the sport. Football associations in each country are clubbed together into continental confederations and all of them are affiliated to FIFA. It is surprising that the organization keeps itself intact given its huge size and responds with one voice on matters related to the game. A veil of secrecy covers its administration and the wider world was blissfully unaware of how decisions are made and the flow of money inside it. With the era of globalization, financial value of TV rights skyrocketed and FIFA became flush with cash. Under the façade of professional efficiency, a corrosive torrent of corruption was eating away at the internals of the organization. Though rumours and isolated exposures had begun right from 2002, it was the large scale arrest of a third of the body’s executive committee members in 2015 that shattered its image. Joseph Blatter, the president who was in power from 1998 onwards had to make an ignominious exit soon after. David Conn examines the history of FIFA in detail from 1974 and exposes the shady deals as well as the perpetrators. Himself a football fan, his indignation at the audacious mismanagement by a clutch of venal politicians comes out loud in insightful analysis and exposition. The author is a British sports journalist and writes for ‘The Guardian’ and has three books to his credit.

A brief history of football adds interest to the first chapters as most fans are ignorant of the origins of the game they love. Football came into being in England. The ball, its proportions, layout of the pitch and rules of engagement were finalized at meetings of the FA (Football Association of England) at the Freemason’s Tavern in London’s Lincoln Inn in 1863. FIFA itself was formed in Paris in 1904 when office bearers from seven European nations assembled to create an international organization for the development and propagation of football. The FA joined it a few years later. Perhaps this explains the French name of the association. With the introduction of World Cup competitions from 1930, football began its onward march to the pinnacle among the world’s popular sports, but the financial position of FIFA was not secure. Cash began to flow literally when FIFA sold transmission rights of the championships to television networks in the 1990s.

People who headed FIFA in those days were mostly amateurs who worked dedicatedly to the good of the game. The author surmises that FIFA’s downturn in moral terms began with the ascent of Joao Havelange. He was a Brazilian businessman and sports administrator. He defeated Stanley Rous to become the President in an election in which the African associations wholeheartedly lined up behind him. Havelange ensured their support by paying their pending dues and offering money for development of football in their countries. Joseph Blatter was his secretary-general and he stepped into his shoes in 1998 when Havelange retired. Much more trouble awaited FIFA in Blatter’s election.

A major portion of the book is left aside to reveal the corrupt officials of FIFA and their underhand deals. The first scandal came out in 2002 and then it grew into a steady stream in the years ahead. Aspiring presidents had to grease the palms of the heads of national football bodies that make a collegium to elect the president. Havelange is discredited for his bribing in 1974 and Blatter in 1998. Allegations surfaced in 2015 and FIFA instituted action against Blatter and Michel Platini, the French football legend and UEFA president, over 2 million Swiss francs paid by Blatter to Platini supposedly to ensure his support for the latter in the presidential elections of 2011. Both men claimed that it was back pay for the period when Platini worked as a FIFA consultant. The strange part of the deal was that this claim was substantiated by nothing more than an oral agreement between the two made in 1998! Both failed to convince an ethics committee set up to investigate and they were thrown out of the organization for many years. In 2011, the Qatar official Mohammed bin Hammam announced that he was contesting against Blatter, but withdrew just four days prior to voting when news emerged that he had handed out cash bribes to officials of the American confederations at a Trinidad hotel. The Concacaf is the confederation steeped in corruption when it was revealed that the Dr. Joao Havelange Centre for Excellence at Trinidad for promoting training and development of promising youth, and built with $25 million of FIFA money was in fact personally owned by Jack Warner, the confederation’s president. Both Michel Platini and Franz Beckenbauer, who were legends when they played, were disgraced by their work in football’s administrative bodies.

Another area of malpractice is the allocation of TV rights for which the companies regularly pay kickbacks to officials. Even Havelange is implicated in this. Havelange himself and his son-in-law and President of the CBF Ricardo Teixeira took 41 million Swiss francs in bribes from ISL Company in return for selling TV rights for the World Cups in 2002 and 2006. FIFA settled this issue out of court by paying back the sums taken by the accused. It is shocking for the fans to learn that bribes were paid to the associations even to field star players in tournaments. Allocation of venues for World Cup is another cash cow for the corrupt. . South Africa paid $10 million for hosting the 2010 World Cup to buy votes of the Caribbean officials under the cover of a development program for African diaspora in America. Football world was amazed in 2010 when FIFA voted to hoist the 2018 World Cup in Russia and the 2022 event in Qatar which was nothing more than a city state. The US was a contestant for the 2022 Cup, and the casual way in which its bid was overlooked by the money power of the Gulf state infuriated its law enforcement agencies. In May 2015, a third of the members of FIFA executive committee were arrested just before voting began for Blatter’s fifth term in office and were charged under US law

The book is a fine piece of investigative journalism and is an attempt to cleanse FIFA of its endemic corruption. It is, however, a bit tiring in the latter half as the author develops the plot of payments to corrupt officials which is already hinted at in the earlier part. Even though not directly related to the topic of corruption, a few photographs would’ve added much visual appeal. The book is provided with a good index.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

The Accidental Prime Minister

Title: The Accidental Prime Minister – The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

Author: Sanjaya Baru

Publisher: Viking Penguin, 2014 (First)

ISBN: 9780670086740

Pages: 301

Flash back to 2004!

Vajpayee is seeking reelection even when six months are still to go. The BJP is riding on a strong economy and the country’s new status as a nuclear weapons state. The party was confident to win the race with its new slogan “India Shining”. Pandits of history most of them are, but the BJP’s strategists forgot to factor in a crucial parameter of the country’s mindset into the equation. Indians feels embarrassed to celebrate any victory of their country. It eulogizes defeats of its sons against foreign invaders – the greatest being Porus against Alexander and Prithviraj Chauhan against Muhammed Ghauri. Every Indian knows of these two great defeats, but few remember the country’s resounding victory against Pakistan in the 1971 war. So, a society attuned to celebrate failure can’t be enthusiastic overnight about their raising clout. In spite of a sound fiscal policy, emergence as a regional superpower and corruption-free governance, the people voted BJP out of power. This put Congress, the main opposition party, in a quandary when they quite unexpectedly found themselves the winners. The party was dominated by the Nehru-Gandhi family, but its incumbent matriarch found herself morally constrained to assume the post of prime minister on account of her foreign origin. The search for a pliable, obedient alternative zeroed in on Manmohan Singh. Though a renowned economist and was once the country’s topmost financial administrator, Singh always wore loyalty to his master on the sleeve. Nobody thought of him in the role of prime minister, but precisely this self-effacement endeared him to Sonia Gandhi who wanted him to keep the chair warm for Rahul Gandhi. Singh himself acknowledged his ascent to Sonia and admitted that he was an ‘accidental prime minister’. Sanjaya Baru is a financial journalist who was Singh’s media adviser during his first term in office. His experience and observations while in the prime minister’s office is neatly catalogued in this excellent account of the four years he worked there.

Manmohan Singh’s unique combination of personal integrity, administrative experience and international stature was shared by none in the Congress party. Before becoming PM, he had occupied every important position in economic policy making in India. It was also the first time the party had to cobble up an alliance of other parties to get a grip on power. The UPA thus formed included the Left, which supported the government from the outside. Baru vividly recalls the helplessness of Singh even in such matters like selecting his ministerial colleagues and heads of statutory bodies like the Planning Commission. An example of appeasement of the Muslim community is narrated. Singh wanted to appoint Anu Aga who was the chairperson of Thermax as a member of the Planning Commission. Baru had obtained her concurrence, but the nomination never came. Eventually, Syeda Hameed was nominated, who was a Muslim, writer and social activist. The nuclear deal and improvement in relations with the US were put on hold on numerous occasions in fear of how the Muslim voters would react to them. Coming from an insider in the higher echelons of power, such revelations should shock us on account of the blatant sacrifice of national interest some politicians are willing to undertake to garner a few minority votes. The book also portrays petty squabbles between the high officials who control the destiny of the country over the kind of office room they occupy, the seating order and trivia such as the colour of the ink with which they sign!

This book caused much controversy at the time of publication on its exposing the pressures of Nehru-Gandhi family on the Prime Minister’s Office. Rahul Gandhi publicly derided the PM moments before he was to attend a crucial meeting of the nuclear treaty with the US. Baru has uncloaked Sonia Gandhi’s vengeful nature in her relations with former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. His body was not cremated in Delhi in anticipation of having to build a memorial for him at the cremation site. The body was not even laid in state at Congress party’s headquarters and was hurriedly flown to Hyderabad where it was laid to rest. Sonia didn’t attend the cremation too. She repeated this petty trick when another former Prime Minister Chandra Sekhar died in 2007. She wanted his body to be taken to Haryana, but Sekhar’s son threatened to use a public crematorium if the government didn’t allow his father a deserving honour. Reluctantly, the party relented and allotted space for him on the banks of river Yamuna. This is all the more outrageous when we remember that all of the Nehru family – Jawaharlal, Indira, Rajiv and even the prodigal Sanjay – found a place for eternal rest in Delhi. As usual, Singh remained a mute spectator to the play being unfolded around him.

Sonia’s depredations on Singh’s administrative powers are elucidated in detail. He was not permitted to allocate portfolios to ministers. Moreover, he was forced to accommodate persons made notorious for their corrupt deals in the past, much against his will. Baru states that power was delegated, but authority was not and alleges that Sonia’s renunciation of power was more of a political tactic than a response to a higher calling (p.74). The chapter titled ‘Responsibility without Power’ narrates the sad plight of the PM in the face of machinations by the Nehru-Gandhi family. Credit for all the good work done by the government went to Sonia, while all the blame for any mistakes or failures invariably would go to Singh. The author terms this ‘governance without authority’ and goes on to add that though all coalition prime ministers found their power limited by political compulsions, none of them exercised as little power while taking on as much responsibility as Singh (p.103). In 2007, Rahul Gandhi claimed credit for extending the rural employment guarantee scheme to the entire country from just 200 of the most backward districts even though the prime minister had declared it a month earlier in a public meeting.

While many countries in the world follow a thirty-year rule by which classified documents will be made open to public scrutiny after a lapse of thirty years so that the nation can reexamine the parameters and outcomes of its decision-making mechanism. Singh openly supported introducing such a rule, but backed out in deference to the wishes of Congress’ First Family. This was because the dynasty-ruled Congress was worried about throwing light on the murky deals of the Nehru-Indira-Rajiv era. Singh was unwilling even to follow up on a suggestion of launching a fifty-year rule!

Singh’s greatest achievement is the civil nuclear energy deal made with the US. This was a continuation of the strategic dialogue initiated by Vajpayee with the US in 2004 called ‘Next Steps in Strategic Partnership’. But the Left, led by the hawkish Prakash Karat threw cold water on the entire scheme by threatening to withdraw support to the government. This was when the deal was in its final stages of drafting after many years of negotiations. Karat was driven more by his ambition to assert his authority in the party and its partisan ideology than national interests. Sonia advised Singh to go slow on the deal, clearly wanting to stay on in power, but he offered resignation than continuing in such a sorry state of affairs. Finally, the Left withdrew support, but the government was saved when Congress made a hastily concluded arrangement with Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party. This episode is a clear warning on the underhand deals of the backstabbing Left. Baru also brings to light the differences among its leadership. Sitaram Yechury wanted to support the deal, but couldn’t go against the command of Karat who was the general secretary of the party. In fact, Baru states that Yechury wanted CPM to join the ministry in 2004 and wanted to become the railway minister. All senior leaders like Jyoti Basu, Surjeet and Somnath Chatterjee supported the deal, but Karat’s opposition silenced them all.

Written in a lucid style, the book exhibits the power struggles that went on at the heart of the nation’s centre of authority. Boastful comments and self-promoting remarks are galore, but readers should condone the author for the genuine effort he has put in. A clear reason for his abrupt quitting of his post after four years in Singh’s first term is not given. Equally mysterious is his attempt to reenter after just one year when Singh had gained a thumping win in 2009. Altogether, the book is a must-read for getting a whiff of the extra-constitutional cliques that guided administrative decisions during Singh’s first term in office.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star