Aparita

The Globe and Mail, [10/11/2002]

NEW DELHI — He had been considered the prince who would be king, but in his school days, Omar Abdullah was consistently known as a student who could do better.

Although Mr. Abdullah, now 32, has a sterling reputation and has received little but praise for his work as India’s deputy minister of external affairs, the scion of Kashmir’s oldest dynasty definitely underachieved in the state’s violence-plagued elections, held over the past month but finalized yesterday.

Mr. Abdullah’s National Conference party lost its majority, and he lost both his seat and his hopes of becoming Kashmir’s next chief minister, a post previously held by both his father and grandfather, who founded the movement in 1939. Neither man had ever lost an election in Kashmir, and their party dominated the state government for 50 years.

“Our party is weak, and we need to find out why,” Mr. Abdullah said yesterday. “We have to find out why so many of our ministers lost.”

Mr. Abdullah’s woes were an embarrassment for his family reputation and for Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, an ally whose party also lost seats yesterday. But analysts and foreign observers, including the U.S. government, said the results represented a positive conclusion to the Kashmir voting, which took place amid militant attacks that killed hundreds of people and independent reports of electoral irregularities.

“Abdullah’s defeat is a major development,” said Pran Chopra, a political analyst with the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research. “But it’s not as important as the fact that most of the seats have been won by political parties and groups which are against militancy, against Pakistan and not against the continued accession of the state to India.”

Since none of the major opposition parties is sympathetic to the Islamic militants who have fought since 1989 to wrest the Muslim-majority region from Hindu-majority India, no significant policy changes are expected. The rejection of the National Conference was seen rather as an expression of Kashmir’s exhaustion with militancy, death, poverty and what is seen as the party’s arrogance.

Mr. Abdullah was considered a good bet to change that and promised yesterday to help the other parties “solve the difficulties of the state.” But he also reaffirmed that his party will resign itself to an introspective period of opposition, remaining out of the expected coalition government even though it will have the most seats in the state assembly, 28 out of 87.

“The National Conference will be in election mode,” he said in an interview yesterday. “I am sure that new elections will come soon, as coalition governments haven’t fared well in the past, and we will prepare for that.”

The young leader graciously called the vote a “free and fair process” that was “a victory for the people and democracy.”

Indeed, despite the loss of his own seat, the Kashmir election process has affirmed that Mr. Abdullah enjoys popularity unlike that of any other Indian politician of his age.

“Of his generation of politicians, Omar is without question the freshest and most interesting,” said Dileep Padgaonkar, executive managing editor of the Times of India. “He has impressed his colleagues in the government, in the parliament and the Indian public at large with his moderate views. He’s very secular in his views and deeply committed to India.”

The consensus on the younger Mr. Abdullah is that he’s intelligent, articulate, a straight talker and good-looking to boot — a refreshing change from other Kashmiri politicians and the Indian political scene as a whole.

“He’s seen as a man of ideas. He has impressed people with his hard work, administrative acumen and swift grasp of issues,” Mr. Padgaonkar added.

The Globe and Mail, [10/08/2002]

Amid public outcry, India’s Tom Cruise is charged with running over homeless

Special to the Globe and Mail

NEW DELHI — Bare chested, with muscles rippling, Indian film superstar Salman Khan rarely met an opponent he couldn’t crush, as he single-handedly meted out justice to the bad guys of Bollywood.

But Mr. Khan, who has been called the Tom Cruise of India because of his looks and box-office drawing power, may have met his match in real life — in the form of public outrage that accomplished what no police officer or politician was prepared to do.

After days of front-page stories in the Indian media, and a public-interest lawsuit, the actor surrendered to police yesterday and was charged with culpable homicide for allegedly crushing a group of homeless people while driving drunk in Bombay.

According to the charges, Mr. Khan rammed a Toyota Land Cruiser onto a sidewalk in Bandra, a Bombay suburb, where a group of workers were sleeping outside a bakery. One person died and three were hospitalized with serious injuries in the Sept. 27 incident.

Mr. Khan, who was also charged with impaired driving and failure to have a valid driver’s licence, faces up to 10 years in jail.

But the very fact that he was charged has become a sensation in India, where the rich and famous often get preferential treatment from police and break the law with impunity.

The actor arrived at a Bombay police station yesterday afternoon, accompanied by his father Salim Khan, a well-known screenwriter in Bollywood — the booming film industry named for its centre in Bombay — and was remanded in custody until Thursday.

His case first made headlines last week when Bombay police charged him with the minor offence of rash and negligent driving, and released him on bail of 950 rupees, or $30. At the time, he had turned himself over to police several hours after the accident. A blood alcohol test was not conducted.

Although Mr. Khan originally denied driving the vehicle, his police bodyguard later signed a written statement stating the star was at the wheel. Then, last Friday, Mr. Khan was ordered to surrender his passport in a sign that authorities were considering more serious charges.

But it was public action that appeared to overtake the slow police investigation.
Before Mr. Khan surrendered a second time, a city court yesterday accepted a public-interest petition, filed by two social activists and a local journalist, demanding police charge him with culpable homicide, a non-bailable offence.

The court also ordered the star to pay compensation of one million rupees, or $32,000, to the family of the man killed in the accident, as well as 300,000 rupees to one person seriously injured and 150,000 rupees to two who received less serious injuries.

Public concern over drunk driving has been growing for years in India’s main cities, where a surge in wealth and car traffic has produced a string of horrible accidents.

In 1993, Bollywood actor Puru Rajkumar, son of the legendary actor Rajkumar, ran down four people, killing three of them. A Bombay court ordered him to pay 25,000 rupees as compensation for each of the three killed and 5,000 rupees for the one injured.

In July of 1999, Bollywood actor Aditya Panscholi ran down two patrolling policeman and got off with bail of 950 rupees.

This is not Mr. Khan’s first brush with the law. The 37-year-old actor, who first captured attention in the late 1980s for his boyish good looks, was assigned a bodyguard two months ago after he reportedly received extortion threats from the Bombay underworld, which has strong links with the film industry.

Mr. Khan starred in some of India’s biggest grossing films but has failed to deliver a hit in recent years. He made headlines last month when he disrupted a film set where his ex-girlfriend, Aishwarya Rai, a former Miss World, was working.

Two years ago he was charged along with three other Indian celebrities for allegedly killing two black bucks, an endangered animal covered under the Indian Wildlife Protection Act. A verdict has yet to be reached on the charge, which carries a prison term of up to seven years.