Gone Days of Vilayat

During my childhood foreign country had its own charm…which was mostly exotic, superior and unreachable for most of the Indians. There was skewed perception of foreign countries be it developed west or improvised east. Foreign country was fondly called ‘Vilayat’ and those came back from such places have numerous names ranging from vilayati Lal, vilayati babu or simply more abusive – vilayati !!

Most of the people knew it through the movies, and favourite among those themes were Indian going to foreign shore or returning after education from western countries. Though a hardly any movies in late 80s or 90s were not made on such subject but a lot of those telecasted on national channel during the period were made between 50s and 70s, the era when Indian looked towards west for everything.

One of most favourite themes used to return of western educated Indian to his homeland, most of it centered on all things wrong with the vilayati babus. So, a vilayati would always be drinking & smoking, bashing up the desi culture most important of all kicking the parents out of home!! Besides vilayat Indians were charmed with other thing vilayati- the gora women aka gori maem (mademoiselle), vilayati lal’s successful sojourn will involve landing up with a gora maem. So, another obvious theme used to vilayati lal returning with gora maem, who characteristically wouldn’t be much different from vilayati lal, doing everything from smoking, drinking and kicking parents. But, more publicized affair was that of vilayati wine than vilayati women.

Lure for vilayat percolated down to everything vilayati in pre90s days. Demand for vilayat made products was very high in India was used to be a matter of prestige to something valyati (yes, besides people the word was also used for objects). People liked to show-off their vilayati products to everyone who felt envious of not having it.

90s effectively killed the charm of vilayati products when liberalization of economy made foreign brands abundantly available in every corner of the country. Everyone with foreign band at home no one was bothered to show-off anymore. Now with everything made in china most of the people don’t actually love vilayati products as the used to be.

New millennium opened one more door and the charm of exotic vilayati locale was lost forever. The far far away land which was inaccessible and out of reach of common man became accessible to a whole new generation of Indian labourers known as ‘software engineer’. Suddenly more people had visas stamped on their passports and the stories about vilayat which once was prerogative of a selected few disappeared in photo albums of middle class people who photographed every nook and corner of vilayat including entry and exit points of airports. A decade later, vilayati governments fight to pitch their locales in bollywood movies as a destination even cheaper than our native hotspots for middleclass. The allure of vilayat is almost gone but not all as for everything else there is vilayati money.

Conspiracy Theory: Pakistan’s Takeover by Taliban & Alqaeda

The aftermath of Mumbai terror attack has already begun; it has succeeded in widening the rift between India and Pakistan. Indian government is already talking of increasing the number of troops (which won’t stop terror attacks anyway) to put pressure on Pakistan. The janta like us, which is already fed up of government’s inaction, wants hot-pursuit of terrorist as payback. This is more or less likely to create war like situation. The fight to finish is all what Junta wants, but is this what ISI & its bed fellows Taliban-Alqeada wants too? What’s the larger conspiracy?

Taliban & Alqaeda want to open two fronts for Pakistani army by just fighting on only one of them. Taliban & Alqaeda are already engaged in low intensity war with Pakistan over control on tribal lands in western Pakistan, they also have intention to bring whole of Pakistan under shariah rule. Their main objective is escalation of hostilities or even war between India and Pakistan. With escalation, Pakistan would match up India’s military build-up in its eastern border; Taliban as it has been hoping to gain control of large chunk of western Pakistan would intensify its fight with Pakistani forces. If Taliban & Alqaeda’s dream of indo-pak conflict comes true, then it would give them unprecedented chance of overthrowing civilian & military establishment of Pakistan.

For Indians it is sticky situation whether to set their guns blazing or think of protecting Pakistan from turning into state of anarchy. I never thought that in my life we would have to think of protecting the “state of Pakistan”. If we escalate the situation probably Pakistan would crumble in a few weeks time (Pakistan is already on IMF loan to avoid bankruptcy), which would please our Janta. But, it will also bring Jihad and alqaeda to our doorsteps atleast five years earlier than anticipated (CIA has estimated that Pakistan would be a failed state by 2015).

Taliban & Alqaeda wants to divert US attention by targeting its citizens in third countries so as to keep them engaged, though this alqaeda strategy mostly likely is not going to work, but any American imitative of bombing terrorist hideouts is less likely to benefit India, as most of them are in Pak-Occupied-Kashmir. Probably random assaults on terrorist camp would work but we will have to look at our old gyan “saap bhi mar jaaye aur lathi bhi na tute”(in this case jihadis being saap and Pakistani government being lathi). Otherwise India would have to be prepared to fight Taliban & Alqaeda, which will have “ready-to-die” foot soldiers from Afghanistan and Pakistan under it.