Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Oowah! Oowah! Allahu Akbar!
The cries — accompanied by waggled fingers — rang long and loud, as the Sudanese National Assembly gave President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam a rapturous welcome on a steaming Tuesday in Africa’s largest nation. Smiling broadly, Kalam salaamed the Assembly repeatedly.
As the applause wore on, 30-something member Medina Mustafa evolved her own welcome. ‘‘Meri man ki Ganga….’’ she sang softly and smiled from the back benches of the stadium-like, somewhat ramshackle, Assembly.
‘‘Mera naam Mohammed hain, aapka naam kya hain?’’ a man asked some reporters. Could he speak Hindi? ‘‘Garam doodh, chai… a little.’’ He had studied in India decades ago.
‘‘We love too much the India and the Indians,’’ said petite woman member Munal Abdullah. ‘‘And your president, he is Muslim!’’ Reactions of the men, in flowing white robes and turbans, the women with their heads covered, indicated Sudan’s deep connection with India. Kalam’s background as missile man — and his name — only made things better. The Khartoum Monitor localised Kalam’s name. Abubakr Zainabdeen Abu Kalam, it called him. Its competitor, Sudan Vision, was closer with Avul Pakir Jainulab-deen Abdul Kalam.
At the Assembly — cooled ineffectively by desert coolers and industrial fans — members made long but extra-warm speeches.
‘‘When Adam left heaven and came to earth, he came to India,’’ declared one to loud applause. Another compared the junction of the White and Blue Nile at Khartoum, to the meeting of three waters at Kanyakumari. ‘‘Many Sudanese means of transport are made in India,’’ said another. ‘‘Even the henna that our women have on their hands.’’
When Kalam — on day four of his week-long three-country sojourn — finally got his chance, he began with a poem he had composed last night, made the ancient civilisations reference and then followed with a script that rarely wavers: the space programme, connectivity, food processing and PURA (programme of urban amenities in rural areas).
‘‘We are so close; it was really a great honour for us to have him here,’’ Sudan’s former ambassador to India, Lt Gen of Police Abdull Balla El Hardallo told The Indian Express.
Sudan is a war-wracked land edging closer to peace after being riven by a bloody decade-long battle. Yet, people smile broadly in the streets where Bajaj autos and scooters zip around and taxi drivers delightedly intone ‘‘Amitabh Bachchan! Shashi Kapoor!’’ at Indian visitors.
Ties have always been unwaveringly close, beginning from 1956 when India’s first Chief Election Commissioner conducted Sudan’s first elections, to the Indian Army’s donation of a National Defence Academy. The link is being firmly set by ONGC Videsh, which is one of this country’s biggest foreign investors with $ 650 million sunk for a 25 per cent stake in the Greater Nile Oil Project.
