Last week, the Indian ambassador in Turkmenistan released a Hindi (national language of India) edition of ‘Ruhnama’ a book written by the Turkmen premier Saparmurat Niyazov, which is his ‘moral and spiritual code’ for Turkmens. The translation was financed by Ajanta Pharma an Indian company popular for it’s brands Pinkoo Gripe Water and Thirty Plus. The Indian envoy was apparently quoted saying, “I am sure the book will contribute to the overall development and growth of the young Turkmen nationâ€?. The Indian company has it’s own reasons, as it has a joint venture in Turkmenistan, so it’s managing director Purushottam Agarwal could not miss the occasion and opportunity to appease the Turkmen premier.
Now, what’s the big deal here? Well, it’s not one if you don’t mind a dictator who’s declared himself president for life in his country. A dictator who has renamed month’s of the year after himself, his mother and his father, has statues of him all over the country, including gold plated one in the city capital. CBS news describes him as “a brutal dictator who runs his country like it’s his own private Disney World,” and it’s not surprising that he is planning to build an ice palace on his parch-earthed country.
But, if you do object to someone who is a living example of the Stalins, Hitlers, Maos of the past, just when we thought people like them were history, and if you object to a dictator who suppresses art and culture, uses children to spy on their parents, brainwashes youth, blacks out foreign media, prohibits people from traveling freely within their country and requires citizens to apply for a visa to leave the country, installs cameras all over major cross sections in cities, you should well object to his Ruhnama, which seeks to legitimise his agenda. Everything seems to be right out of Orwell’s 1984. The people in his country suffer his eccentricities. And, (of course) the Russian’s praise his fanaticism as a ’serious philosophical work.’
Who else is anybody bothered? Western governments are quite forthcoming in their lip service, yapping all over the place, maybe waiting for ‘Uncle Sam’ to save the day(going by history). As the clock ticks on, we are witnessing a whole nation sliding into an abyss. The Guardian recently reported that over the last 14 years, this guy has managed to brainwash a whole generation of youth in favour of his agenda. Should we care? Well, maybe not, but soon it will be too late.
Is anyone in India bothered? We have our own media that has nothing to write about such things, apart from plugging in an occasional mention of the ‘greatness’ of the Indo-Turkmenistan relationship, or some Indian film week in Akshabad. Then again, who wouldn’t want to be good to the country with the 5th largest oil reserves in the world right? Everyone is more interested in knowing how the Turkmen pipeline via Afghanistan/Pakistan and Caspian sea region is going to be laid more than being worried about what would happen if we are to deal with a whole nation of nut cases in generation or two.
I wonder if the Indian government has any policy on such issues! And I wonder if folks at Ajanta Pharma realise that their company just sponsored the modern day equivalent of the Mein Kampf in Hindi, just because it’s opening up new business opportunities for their company!?
Marketing folks call them early adopters?
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